306 HISTORY OF THE WAHABEES. 



remained in full force ; but his great talents for in- 

 trigue, his venerable office, and his personal influ- 

 ence over several Bedouin tribes, induced his rival 

 to keep on amicable terms with him. 



Since the conquest of Hejaz most of the regular 

 pilgrim- caravans had ceased, rather than submit to 

 the conditions which the reformers exacted. Only a 

 few succeeded in making their way, and these were 

 chiefly Moggrebins, Abyssinians, and Indians, who 

 showed more humility than the other Moslem. For 

 several years this state of matters continued; but 

 the pilgrimage, so far from being abolished, as 

 some travellers have alleged, might have continued 

 without interruption, had the terms and safe-con- 

 duct of the Wahabees been accepted. Saoud was 

 punctual in his annual visits to Mecca, and was 

 always accompanied with numbers of his followers, 

 whose enthusiasm, as described by an eyewitness 

 ( Ali Bey), must have put laxer Mussulmans to the 

 blush. Columns of half-naked men, with match- 

 locks on their shoulders and khunjers in their 

 belts, pressed towards the Temple to perform the 

 towaf and kiss the black stone. Impatient of de- 

 lay, they precipitated themselves upon the spot, 

 some of them opening their way with sticks in their 

 hands. Confusion was soon at its height ; and in 

 the tumult the devotees were prevented from hear- 

 ing the voices of their guides or the commands of 

 their chiefs. 



In making the seven circuits their movements 

 were accelerated by mutual impulse, until they re- 

 sembled a swarm of bees flitting in rapid disorder 

 round the Kaaba ; and by their tumultuous pressure 

 breaking all the lamps near it with the muskets 



IKCIS 



