Then out stepped the Arab moghavem, as shepherd of the cowering rabble, and cried: “Be not afraid, but keep close to me!” And on this, he rushed quickly to the fore, shouting out at the top of his voice, in the Bedouin dialect of Hejaz: “Yá-Aghadin-ul-ghoum-Nahn-Meskinna-al-Zowarin!”
This sentence, “O tribal chieftains, we are only the poor of the pilgrims,” he kept on repeating as he strode boldly forward: every now and then he turned round in order to hearten the cowering wretches that came trembling after him; but, before he had advanced a hundred paces, the galloping in the rear grew so loud that he ordered the caravan to halt and take whatever cover it could devise.
With a swiftness of decision, born of a common fear that the horsemen were Bedouins on the warpath, the terrified pilgrims made the camels kneel down at the sides of the road, and entrenched themselves behind them, scarcely daring to breathe, lest their whereabouts should be revealed. And no sooner had they flung themselves on the ground than the troop came rushing past, proving itself to be a squadron of Sherífian cavalry in pursuit of the freebooters. Much to the joy of the pilgrims, the firing ceased almost immediately after, and the skirmishers in front of us were heard to beat a rapid retreat on Arafat.
On the silence that ensued, came the tinkle of an approaching caravan, to which, on the principle that there is safety in numbers, we resolved to attach ourselves. The new-comers, forty in number, were Indian settlers of Mecca, passive-eyed and wheedling of tongue, and with us they were only too willing to make common cause, bearing themselves towards us with that spirit of brotherhood which is perhaps the most humanising characteristic of the Islamic faith. Within half an hour’s march of Alemeyn, our united party was overtaken by a band of professional men and women—musicians, singers, and dancers—who, mounted on gaily-caparisoned camels, presented a vivid contrast to our poverty-stricken pilgrims on foot. As each one went by, he or she was greeted by our greybeards with loud derisive cries of “Astaghferallah! Astaghferallah!” This demonstration on the part of our old men was meant to imply that theirs was the garb of virtue, however naked might be their wretchedness. In the same belief, I utter seventy Astaghferallahs before I venture to describe this entertaining company.
Altogether they numbered thirteen persons, the musicians being men, and the singers and dancers being the Flowers of Delight of Mecca. First came a drummer, beating intermittently, but at regular intervals, on a curiously shaped double drum, not unlike a huge orange cut in two, and so joined that each part came under each hand. It is called nagghareh by the Persians, and gave forth a shrill, discordant noise, that not even the big egg-shaped drum (Tabl), which was beaten energetically with two long drum-sticks by the man that followed, could drown or materially modify. Behind these drummers rode two women singers, whose voices were as the tinkling of the heavy bangles with which their arms and ankles were laden. Next in the line of march was a young man with a withered face, blowing incessantly on an instrument called surná, that bears a resemblance, in form and also in tone, to a Scotch bagpipe. After him, a couple of dancing girls, with streaming ringlets, and clad in silk dresses of many colours, burst into rippling laughter at every second, partly because it was their business to be merry-hearted, and partly because they found food for mirth in the members of our caravan. But when they saw the number of our dead—and our Indian contingent had added not less than seven to our funeral train—their lively amusement was stilled, and one of them said to me, on passing by: “Were I in your place, O Haji, I should bury the corpse, and offer the seat it occupies to yonder torch-bearer, who seems to stand in sore need of succour.” “The wishes of the dead must be respected, O Compassionate Heart,” I replied; “and as for the torch-bearer, nothing would persuade him to renounce his task of self-sacrifice. He has taken a vow to perform the pilgrimage on foot, and he comes from a far distant country.” The answer she returned was lost in the ear-piercing squeak of a kerná—a woeful wind instrument at least four feet in length—and in the scarcely less strident din of a third tom-tom. The rear was brought up by two men—the one thumbed a stringed rubáb, a Bedouin instrument admirably adapted to the music of the wastes; while the other, the jester of the band, had powdered his face with barley flour, and wore a tall head-gear of white lambskin, and a long cloak of vari-coloured silk. Casting a quizzical eye on our effects, and one look in particular on my mule with its dual burden of the dead and the dying, he remarked, in an audible tone, imitating the Indian accent: “Wah, wah, wah! Ahlul-Jehannum! Bah, what a hell party!”—an expression that, in face of the open self-sufficiency of the majority among us, made me roar with laughter. My companions, refraining from retaliation in kind, contented themselves with repeating the word Astaghferallah until their tormentor had passed out of hearing.
THE MUSICIAN CAMEL CAVALCADE.
The reader will understand that these musicians and dancers were not proceeding to Arafat that they might be present at the forthcoming sermon on the mount. Their aim was to collect as much money as they could wring from the pilgrims, and then be the first to lead the procession back to Mina. For there, after the Lenten hardships of the Hájj are ended, several days are spent in holding revels and in merry-making.
An uninterrupted march of half-an-hour, under a stormy sky, brought us to where two walls define the boundary of Arafat. There the moghavem halted, and cried out, in a joyful voice, “O blessed pilgrims, here we are on the exalted soil of Alemeyn! May peace be with Muhammad and with his family!”
Forthwith there arose on all sides such an outburst of religious enthusiasm as I had not witnessed even in the Harem of the Ka’bah. Cries of “Labbaik allahhomá labbaik!” passed from lip to lip. The torch-bearer fell on his face to the earth, and shed tears of delirious joy. The dying man on my mule sank to the ground, dragging the corpse with him, and sang praises to Allah with his last breath. A native dervish, beside himself with hashshish-bibbing, danced furiously round and round, beating on his bare breast, and tearing his unkempt locks, and shrieking excitedly, “Yá-Hú! Hú-yá!” Then, with one accord, we all prostrated ourselves five times in prayer, rending the air with a chorus of “Here I am, O Allah, here am I!”