Besides The Kabah, Eight Minor Structures Adorn The Quadrangle, The
Well Of Zamzam, The Library, The Clock-Room, The Triangular Staircase,
And Four Ornamental Resting-Places For The Orthodox Sects Of Hanafi,
Shafi, Maliki, And Hanbali.
We terminated our morning duties by walking and running seven times
along the streets of Safa and Marwa, so named from the flight of seven
steps at each of its extremities.
After a few days spent in visiting various places of interest, such as
the slave-market and forts, and the houses of the Prophet and the
Caliphs ’Ali and Abubakr, we started on our six hours’ journey to the
mountain of ’Arifat, an hour’s sojourn at which, even in a state of
insensibility, confers the rank of haji. It is a mountain spur of about
a hundred and fifty feet in height, presenting an artificial appearance
from the wall encircling it and the terrace on its slope, from which
the iman delivers a sermon before the departure of his congregation for
Meccah. His auditors were, indeed, numerous, their tents being
scattered over two or three miles of the country. A great number of
their inmates were fellow-subjects of ours from India. I surprised some
of my Meccah friends by informing them that Queen Victoria numbers
nearly twenty millions of Mohammedans among her subjects.
On the 5th of June, at sunset, commencing our return, we slept at the
village of Muzdalifah, and there gathered and washed seven pebbles of
the size of peas, to be flung at three piles of whitewashed masonry
known as the Shaitans (Satans) of Mun?. We acquitted ourselves
satisfactorily of this duty on the festival of the 6th of [p.413] June,
the 10th day of the Arabian month Zu’lhijah.
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