[p.168] looking in despair at the swarming crowd of Badawi and other pilgrims that besieged it. But the boy Mohammed was equal to the occasion. During our circuit he had displayed a fiery zeal against heresy and schism, by foully abusing every Persian in his path[FN#8]; and the inopportune introduction of hard words into his prayers made the latter a strange patchwork; as Ave Maria purissima,arrah, dont ye be letting the pig at the pot,sanctissima, and so forth. He might, for instance, be repeating And I take Refuge with Thee from Ignominy in this World, when O thou rejected one, son of the rejected! would be the interpolation addressed to some long-bearded Khorasani,And in that to comeO hog and brother of a hoggess! And so he continued till I wondered that none dared to turn and rend him. After vainly addressing the pilgrims, of whom nothing could be seen but a mosaic of occupits and shoulder-blades, the boy Mohammed collected about half a dozen stalwart Meccans, with whose assistance, by sheer strength, we wedged our way into the thin and light-legged crowd. The Badawin turned round upon us like wild-cats, but
[p.169] they had no daggers. The season being autumn, they had not swelled themselves with milk for six months; and they had become such living mummies, that I could have managed single-handed half a dozen of them. After thus reaching the stone, despite popular indignation testified by impatient shouts, we monopolised the use of it for at least ten minutes. Whilst kissing it and rubbing hands and forehead upon it I narrowly observed it, and came away persuaded that it is an aerolite. It is curious that almost all travellers agree upon one point, namely, that the stone is volcanic. Ali Bey calls it mineralogically a block of volcanic basalt, whose circumference is sprinkled with little crystals, pointed and straw-like, with rhombs of tile-red feldspath upon a dark background, like velvet or charcoal, except one of its protuberances, which is reddish. Burckhardt thought it was a lava containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellowish substance.
Having kissed the stone we fought our way through the crowd to the place called Al-Multazem. Here we pressed our stomachs, chests, and right cheeks to the Kaabah, raising our arms high above our heads and exclaiming, O Allah! O Lord of the Ancient House, free my Neck from Hell-fire, and preserve me from every ill Deed, and make me contented with that daily bread which Thou hast given to me, and bless me in all Thou hast granted! Then came the Istighfar, or begging of pardon; I beg Pardon of Allah the most high, who, there is no other God but He, the Living, the Eternal, and unto Him I repent myself! After which we blessed the Prophet, and then asked for ourselves all that our souls most desired.[FN#9]
[p.170] After embracing the Multazem, we repaired to the Shafeis place of prayer near the Makam Ibrahim, and there recited two prostrations, technically called Sunnat al-Tawaf, or the (Apostles) practice of circumambulation. The chapter repeated in the first was Say thou, O Infidels: in the second, Say thou He is the one God.[FN#10] We then went to the door of the building in which is Zemzem: there I was condemned to another nauseous draught, and was deluged with two or three skinfuls of water dashed over my head en douche. This ablution causes sins to fall from the spirit like dust.[FN#11] During the potation we prayed, O Allah, verily I beg of Thee plentiful daily Bread, and profitable Learning, and the healing of every Disease! Then we returned towards the Black Stone, stood far away opposite, because unable to touch it, ejaculated the Takbir, the Tahlil, and the Hamdilah; and thoroughly worn out with scorched feet and a burning head,both extremities, it must be remembered, were bare, and various delays had detained us till ten A.M.,I left the Mosque.[FN#12]
The boy Mohammed had miscalculated the amount of lodging in his mothers house. She, being a widow
[p.171] and a lone woman, had made over for the season all the apartments to her brother, a lean old Meccan, of true ancient type, vulture-faced, kite-clawed, with a laugh like a hyena, and a mere shell of body. He regarded me with no favouring eye when I insisted as a guest upon having some place of retirement; but he promised that, after our return from Arafat, a little store-room should be cleared out for me. With that I was obliged to be content, and to pass that day in the common male drawing-room of the house, a vestibule on the ground floor, called in Egypt a Takhta-bush.[FN#13] Entering, to the left (A) was a large Mastabah, or platform, and at the bottom (B) a second, of smaller dimensions and foully dirty. Behind this was a dark and unclean store-room (C) containing the Hajis baggage. Opposite the Mastabah was a firepan for pipes and coffee (D), superintended by a family of lean Indians; and by the side (E) a doorless passage led to a bathing-room (F) and staircase (G).
I had scarcely composed myself upon the carpeted Mastabah, when the remainder was suddenly invaded by the Turkish, or rather Slavo-Turk, pilgrims inhabiting the house, and a host of their visitors. They were large, hairy men, with gruff voices and square figures; they did not take the least notice of me, although[,] feeling the intrusion, I stretched out my legs with a provoking nonchalance.[FN#14] At last one of them addressed me in Turkish, to which I
[p.172] replied by shaking my head. His question being interpreted to me in Arabic, I drawled out, My native place is the land of Khorasan. This provoked a stern and stony stare from the Turks, and an ugh! which said plainly enough, Then you are a pestilent heretic. I surveyed them with a self-satisfied simper, stretched my legs a trifle farther, and conversed with my water-pipe. Presently, when they all departed for a time, the boy Mohammed raised, by request, my green box of medicines, and deposited it upon the Mastabah; thus defining, as it were, a line of demarcation, and asserting my privilege to it before the Turks. Most of these men were of one party, headed by a colonel of Nizam, whom they called a Bey. My acquaintance with them began roughly enough, but afterwards, with some exceptions, who were gruff as an English butcher when accosted by a lean foreigner, they proved to be kind-hearted and not unsociable men. It often happens to the traveller, as the charming Mrs. Malaprop observes, to find intercourse all the better by beginning with a little aversion.
In the evening, accompanied by the boy Mohammed, and followed by Shaykh Nur, who carried a lantern and a praying-rug, I again repaired to the Navel of the World[FN#15]; this time aesthetically, to enjoy the delights of the hour after the gaudy, babbling, and remorseful day. The moon, now approaching the full, tipped the brow of Abu Kubays, and lit up the spectacle with a more solemn light. In the midst stood the huge bier-like erection,
Black as the wings
Which some spirit of ill oer a sepulchre flings,