“Come, yá-Moulai,” said he: “the devil is not so big after all. See, I will fling your stones as well as my own at little devils like myself.”
After this “ceremony” was over, we returned to our camp where a barber was waiting “to bring me out of Ihrám.” When he had trimmed my hair, shaving it round the nape of the neck, and had cut my nails, I made to take off the pilgrim’s garb, saying—“In the name of God the Merciful and Compassionate, I intend to doff my Ihrám of pilgrimage, according to the usage of it by the Prophet, on whom be blessings and glory! O Allah, reward me to the number of the hairs of my head with Light, Purity, and Grace. In the name of God—God is great!” Upon this the barber helped me to undress and (after I had had a bath) to put on my gala attire which was Egyptian in make and in material.
DISEMBARKING AT JIDDAH.
PILGRIMS AT JIDDAH.
By this time the servants had purchased the victims, and they now came to tell me that all preparations had been made for the sacrifice. I deputed Seyyid ’Alí to slay my harmless sheep, from a sudden invasion of squeamishness. And before the day was over the valley of Desire was turned into a reeking slaughter-house, and, it may be added, into a cemetery for the dead pilgrims. These also were victims—the victims of the misdirected religious zeal which had prompted a slaughter that served no other purpose than to spread the epidemic. The less said of it here the better. I have no wish to make the reader sick. It will be enough to add, to what has been said in a previous chapter, that the camels were sacrificed by none but grandees, who dispatched their victims with the words: “In the Name of God! God is great!” the same words being used by the other pilgrims in sacrificing the sheep!
All beasts of prey are believed by the superstitious to keep away from the valley during the Day of Sacrifice and the Days of Drying Flesh; for, had not the victims been brought down from heaven by angels, and driven by them under the guidance of Bedouin shepherds, to the place of slaughter? But the truth is that the Takruri negroes were more blood-thirsty than any of the carnivorous animals or birds of prey: they laid in wait until the sheep were killed, feasting their eyes on the creatures’ dying agonies, and then pounced on the carcases like hungry vultures.
Now, a great many pilgrims, after casting off the Ihrám and putting on their festival attire, went at once to Mecca, visited the Ka’bah, repeating the ceremonies already described, and then returned to Mina to slay their victims. One of our party who had taken this course fell sick of the cholera on the road, and the news of his grave condition reached us at mid-day. We therefore determined to take up our quarters in Mecca, for our comrade’s sake, and to return to Mina, day by day, in order to complete our stoning of the Devil. Sheykh Eissa, however, remained behind to take charge of our camp; and when we got back again next morning, it was to hear from him a flamboyant account of the fireworks and jollifications of the Great Festival that we had missed. We listened to his stories of the too-unfettered revelry by night with heavy hearts, for our friend was dead. Outside, the whole valley stank like a shambles, hundreds of pilgrims having succumbed overnight to the cholera epidemic; and so, when we had stoned the Devil for the second time, we bent our steps again to the Holy City, taking care to remember our comrade in our prayers as we passed by the mosque of Khaif. There we saw some poor pilgrims drying the flesh of a dead sheep—a revolting spectacle. Next day, the 12th of Zú-’l-hijjah, we cast the remaining twenty-one stones at the three buttresses in the Valley of Desire, and were ready on the 13th to join the little pilgrimage to Al-Omreh—a mosque near the pillars of Alemeyn—having to that end performed ablutions with the water of Zem-Zem, and put on the ihrám once more, and made our declaration of intention opposite the Black Stone. It took us about three hours to reach the sacred spot where we said a two-prostration prayer after having subjected our heads and hands and feet to a second ablution. Then we rode back to Mecca and again went through all those ceremonies within the Harem and between Mount Safá and Mount Marveh which have been described in the earlier pages of this narrative. This brought the little pilgrimage of Omreh to an end, and the ihrám was finally removed. Thenceforward the streets of Mecca were crowded with pilgrims dressed in every costume of the East.
I remained a week in the Holy City after the Day of Victims—indeed, no pilgrim could bring himself to leave the Kiblah of the Faith before the 18th of Zú-’l-hijjah—and whiled away the time by frequent visits to the Harem and the bazaars. By these means I added considerably to my knowledge of the pilgrims and their ways. The result of my observations will be found overleaf.