The Supernatural Agencies Of
Pilgrimage Are Carefully And Sparingly Distributed.
The angels who
restore the stones from Muna to Muzdalifah; the heavenly host whose
pinions cause the Ka’abah’
S veil to rise and to wave, and the mysterious
complement of the pilgrim’s total at the Arafat sermon, all belong to the
category of spiritual creatures walking earth unseen,—a poetical tenet,
not condemned by Christianity. The Meccans are, it is true, to be
reproached with their open Mammon-worship, at times and at places the
most sacred and venerable; but this has no other effect upon the
pilgrims than to excite disgust and open reprehension. Here, however,
we see no such silly frauds as heavenly fire drawn from a
phosphor-match; nor do two rival churches fight in the flesh with teeth
and nails, requiring the contemptuous interference of an infidel power
to keep around order. Here we see no fair dames staring with their
glasses, braques at the Head of the Church; or supporting exhausted
nature with the furtive sandwich; or carrying pampered curs who, too
often, will not be silent; or scrambling and squeezing to hear
theatrical music, reckless of the fate of the old lady who—on such
occasions there is always one—has been “thrown down and cruelly trampled
upon by the crowd.” If the Meccan citizens are disposed to scoff at the
wild Takruri, they do it not so publicly or shamelessly as the Roman
jeering with ribald jest at the fanaticism of strangers from the bogs
of Ireland.
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