About Two Hundred Persian
Hadjis Only, Who Were With The Caravan, Were Allowed To Pass On Paying A
Large Sum Of Money.
Ibn Saoud, the Wahabi chief, had one interview with
Abdullah Pasha, accompanied by the whole of his retinue, at Djebel
Arafat, near Mekka; they exchanged presents, and parted as friends.
Of the seven different pilgrim caravans which unite at Mekka, two only
bear the Mahmal, the Egyptian and Syrian; the latter is the first in
rank.
We left Mezareib towards the evening, and were obliged to proceed
EL TORRA.
[p. 246]alone along the Hadj route, the fear of the Aeneze rendering
every one unwilling to accompany us. In a quarter of an hour we came to
a bridge over the Wady Mezareib, called Djissr Kherreyan [Arabic]; to
the left, near the road, is the ruined village Kherbet el Ghazale
[Arabic], where the Hadj sometimes encamps. It often happens that the
caravan does not encamp upon the usual spots, owing to a wish either to
accelerate or to prolong the journey. Past the Akabe, near the head of
the Red Sea, beyond which the bones of dead camels are the only guides
of the pilgrim through the waste of sand, the caravan often loses its
way, and overshoots the day's station; in such cases the water-skins are
sometimes exhausted, and many pilgrims perish through fatigue and
thirst.
At one hour from the Mezareib, following the river that issues from the
small lake, are several mills: from thence, south-west, begins the
district called Ollad Erbed [Arabic]. Half an hour to the right, at some
distance from the road, is the village Tel el Shehab [Arabic]; forty
minutes, Wady Om El Dhan [Arabic], coming from the eastward, with a
bridge over it, built by Djezzar Pasha.
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