71 
were useless; for the holy zeal for the house of God 
which devoured them, would not permit them to listen 
to reason, nor to the voice of their chiefs. 
The movement of the circle increased by mutual 
impulse. They resembled at last a swarm of bees, 
which flutter confusedly round their hive, circulating 
rapidly and without order round the Kaaba, and by 
their tumultuous pressure breaking all the lamps which 
surrounded it with their guns, which they carried upon 
their shoulders. 
* After the different ceremonies round the house of 
God, every party ought to have drank and sprinkled 
themselves with the water of the miraculous well; but 
they rushed to it in such crowds, and with so much 
precipitation, that in a few moments the ropes, the 
buckets, and pullies, were ruined. The chief, and those 
employed at the Zemzem, abandoned their post: the 
Wehhabites alone remained masters of the well; and, 
giving each other their hands, formed a chain to de- 
scend to the bottom, and obtained the water how they 
could. 
The well required alms, the house of God offerings, 
the guides demanded their pay, but the greater part of 
the Wehhabites had not brought any money with them. 
They acquitted themselves of this obligation of eon* 
science, by giving twenty or thirty grains of a very 
coarse powder, small pieces of lead, or some grains of 
coffee. 
These ceremonies being finished, they commenced 
shaving their heads; for they ail had hair an inch long. 
This operation took place in the street; and they paid 
the barbers in the same coin that they had paid the 
guides, the officers of the temple, &c. 
