The youth also insisted upon my removing the Rida, or
upper cotton cloth, which had become way-soiled, and he supplied its
place by a rich cashmere, left with him, some years before, by a son of
the King of Delhi. Little thought I that this bravery of attire would
lose me every word of the Arafat sermon next day.
Arafat, anciently called Jabal Ilal ([Arabic]), “the Mount
[p.187] of Wrestling in Prayer,” and now Jabal al-Rahmah, the “Mount of
Mercy,” is a mass of coarse granite split into large blocks, with a thin
coat of withered thorns. About one mile in circumference, it rises
abruptly to the height of a hundred and eighty or two hundred feet,
from the low gravelly plain—a dwarf wall at the Southern base forming the
line of demarcation. It is separated by Batn Arnah ([Arabic]), a sandy
vale,[FN#22] from the spurs of the Taif hills. Nothing can be more
picturesque than the view it affords of the azure peaks behind, and the
vast encampment scattered over the barren yellow plain below.[FN#23] On
the North lay the regularly pitched camp of the guards that defend the
unarmed pilgrims. To the Eastward was the Sharif’s encampment, with the
bright Mahmils and
[p.188] the gilt knobs of the grandees’ pavilions; whilst on the Southern
and Western sides the tents of the vulgar crowded the ground, disposed
in Dowar, or circles.
