From Thence An Elevated Rocky Ground In The
Plain Extends Towards Arafat.
On the eastern side of the mountain, and
close to its foot, are the ruins of a small mosque,
Built on rocky
ground, called Djama el Szakhrat, where Mohammed was accustomed to pray,
and where the pilgrims make four prostrations in memory of the prophet.
Several large reservoirs lined with stone are dispersed over the plain;
two or three are close to the foot of Arafat, and there are some near
the house of the Sherifs: they are filled from the same fine aqueduct
which supplies Mekka, and the head of which is about one hour and a half
distant, in the eastern mountains. The canal is left open here for the
convenience of pilgrims, and is conducted round the three sides of the
mountains, passing by Modaa Seydna Adam. [At the close of the sixteenth
century, according to Kotobeddyn, the whole plain of Arafat was
cultivated.]
From the summit of Arafat, I counted about three thousand tents
dispersed over the plain, of which two thirds belonged to the two
[p.268] Hadj caravans, and to the suite and soldiers of Mohammed Aly;
the rest to the Arabs of the Sherif, the Bedouin hadjys, and the people
of Mekka and Djidda. These assembled multitudes were for the greater
number, like myself, without tents. The two caravans were encamped
without much order, each party of pilgrims or soldiers having pitched
its tents in large circles or dowars, in the midst of which many of
their camels were reposing. The plain contained, dispersed in different
parts, from twenty to twenty-five thousand camels, twelve thousand of
which belonged to the Syrian Hadj, and from five to six thousand to the
Egyptian; besides about three thousand, purchased by Mohammed Aly from
the Bedouins in the Syrian Deserts, and brought to Mekka with the Hadj,
to convey the pilgrims to this place, previously to being used for the
transport of army-provisions to Tayf.
The Syrian Hadj was encamped on the south and south-west side of the
mountain; the Egyptian on the south-east. Around the house of the
Sherif, Yahya himself was encamped with his Bedouin troops, and in its
neighbourhood were all the Hedjaz people. Here it was that the two Yemen
caravans used formerly to take their station. Mohammed Aly, and Soleyman
Pasha of Damascus, as well as several of their officers, had very
handsome tents; but the most magnificent of all was that of the wife of
Mohammed Aly, the mother of Tousoun Pasha, and Ibrahim Pasha, who had
lately arrived from Cairo for the Hadj, with a truly royal equipage,
five hundred camels being necessary to transport her baggage from Djidda
to Mekka. Her tent was in fact an encampment consisting of a dozen tents
of different sizes, inhabited by her women; the whole enclosed by a wall
of linen cloth, eight hundred paces in circuit, the single entrance to
which was guarded by eunuchs in splendid dresses.
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Words from 101837 to 102338
of 182297
