Now shoved forward by the pilgrims in the rear, now carried back by those who were returning from Marveh, I hopped about in a vicious circle, groaning and perspiring, like a man bereft of his senses. Should I never reach the blessed Gate of Ali! Who said the distance was not more than seventy-five yards? Let him hop over the course and he will multiply its figures by ten at every step. The folly of it all seemed to crash down on the crown of my bare head, shattering my belief in human sanity. For, carried away by the obligation of imitating the “persevering” antics of my fellow-pilgrims, I found myself now hopping on one leg like a melancholy heron, and now, on reaching Ali’s Gate, pitching and rolling and labouring along like a spent camel under a goad. Yá-Allah! yá-Muhammad! I cut a sorry figure in my own estimation, no matter what merit I earned in the minds of my co-mates in affliction. So depressed was I that I had forgotten to say the prescribed prayer at the second minaret before reaching the Baghleh Gate: “O God, the possessor of praise and knowledge and mercy and magnanimity, pardon my trespasses, for, verily, there is no forgiver of sins but Thee alone.” Many were maimed for life, not a few were killed, accident followed accident, but still the unheeding wave of pilgrims swept along over the fiery sand, shrieking and gesticulating, till my senses seemed to swoon. My guide, inured to the Arabian heat and to the unhallowed confusion of the course, performed his part with a studied dignity and a nimbleness of resource which added a touch of humour to an exhibition otherwise saddening. But these pilgrims themselves were tormented by no such self-accusing thoughts. If their feet were cut they had the consolation of believing that the streams of Paradise would wash them whole, for the cool water of Salsabíl and Tasním, if they succumbed to their devotional exertions, would it not be lifted to their parched lips by divine peris and everlasting life be theirs?