f generally entertained in the East, and strengthened
by many boasting hadjys on their return home, that all the pilgrims, on
this day, encamp upon Mount Arafat; and that the mountain possesses the
miraculous property of expansion, so as to admit an indefinite number of
the faithful upon its summit. The law ordains that the _wakfe_, or
position of the Hadj, should be on Djebel Arafat; but it wisely provides
against any impossibility, by declaring that the plain in the immediate
neighbourhood of the mountain may be regarded as comprised under the
term "mountain," or Djebel Arafat.

I estimated the number of persons assembled here at about seventy
thousand. The camp was from three to four miles long, and between one
and two in breadth. There is, perhaps, no spot on earth where, in so
small a place, such a diversity of languages are heard; I reckoned about
forty, and I have no doubt that there were many more. It appeared to me
as if I were here placed in a holy temple of travellers only; and never
did I at any time feel a more ardent wish to be able to penetrate once
into the inmost recesses of the countries of many of those persons
whom I now saw before me, fondly imagining that I might have no more
difficulty in reaching their homes, than what they had experienced in
their journey to this spot.

* * * * *

The time of Aszer (or about three o'clock, P.M.) approached, when that
ceremony of the Hadj takes place, for which the whole assembly had come
hither. The pilgrims now pressed forward towards the mountain of Arafat,
and covered its sides from top to bottom. At the precise time of Aszer,
the preacher took his stand upon the platform on the mountain, and began
to address the multitude. This sermon, which lasts till sun-set,
constitutes the holy ceremony of the Hadj called Khotbet el Wakfe; and
no pilgrim, although he may have visited all the holy places of Mekka,
is entitled to the name of hadjy, unless he has been present on this
occasion. As Aszer approached, therefore, all the tents were struck,
every thing was packed up, the caravans began to load, and the pilgrims
belonging to them mounted their camels, and crowded round the mountain,
to be within sight of the preacher, which is sufficient, as the greater
part of the multitude is necessarily too distant to hear him. The two
pashas, with their whole cavalry drawn up in two squadrons behind them,
took their post in the rear of the deep