When The Attention Is Engrossed By Such A Multitude Of New Objects, Time
Passes Rapidly Away.
I had only descended from Mount
[P.270] Arafat, and had walked for some time about the camp, here and
there entering into conversation with pilgrims; inquiring at the Syrian
camp after some of my friends; and among the Syrian Bedouins, for news
from their deserts, when mid-day had already passed. The prayers of this
period of the day ought to be performed either within, or in the
immediate neighbourhood of, the mosque of Nimre, whither the two Pashas
had repaired for that purpose. The far greater number of hadjys,
however, dispense with this observance, and many of them with the mid-
day prayers altogether; for no one concerns himself whether his
neighbour is punctual or not in the performance of the prescribed rites.
After mid-day, the pilgrims are to wash and purify the body, by means of
the entire ablution prescribed by the law, and called Ghossel, for which
purpose chiefly, the numerous tents in the plain have been constructed;
but the weather was cloudy, and rather cold, which induced nine-tenths
of the pilgrims, shivering as they were already under the thin covering
of the ihram, to omit the rite also, and to content themselves with the
ordinary ablution. The time of Aszer (or about three o'clock, P.M.)
approached, when that ceremony of the Hadj takes place, for which the
whole assembly had come hither. The pilgrims now pressed forward towards
the mountain of Arafat, and covered its sides from top to bottom.
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