Just when I came to Meccah
two Caravans of them, one Asiatic and one from the African side,
amounting to not less than about 40,000 persons, who all seemed to be
full of reverence towards the holy place.[FN#6]”
After commenting on the crowded state of the city, the lodging of
pilgrims in tents and huts, or on the bare ground outside the
walls,[FN#7] and the extravagant prices of provisions, Haji Mahomet
proceeds with his description.
“Over and above the general ceremonies of the purification at the well,
and of the kissing of the corner-stone,[FN#8]
[p.395]and of the walking round the Caaba a certain number of times in
a devout manner, every one has also his own separate prayers to put up,
and so to fulfil the conditions of his vow and the objects of his
particular pilgrimage.”
We have then an account of the Mosque-pigeons, for whom it is said, “some
pilgrims bring with them even from the most remote countries a small
quantity of grain, with which they may take the opportunity of feeding
these birds.” This may have occurred in times of scarcity; the grain is
now sold in the Mosque.
“The superstitions and ceremonies of the place,” we are told, “are by no
means completed within the city, for the pilgrims, after having
performed their devotions for a certain time at the Caaba, at last in a
sort of procession go to a place called Arafat, an eminence which
stands detached in the centre of a valley; and in the way thither there
is a part of the road for about the space of a mile where it is
customary to run.[FN#9] The road also passes near a spot where was
formerly a well which is superstitiously supposed to be something
unholy and cursed by the Prophet himself.
