[P.170] After Embracing The Multazem, We Repaired To The Shafe’Is’ Place Of Prayer Near The Makam Ibrahim, And There Recited Two Prostrations, Technically Called Sunnat Al-Tawaf, Or The (Apostle’S) 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 mother’s 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.

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