lebrity, performed the pilgrimage no less than nine times, and with
a grandeur becoming the commander of the faithful. The caravan of the
mother of the last of the Abassides numbered one hundred and twenty
thousand camels. Nine hundred camels were employed merely in bearing
the wardrobe of one of the caliphs, and others carried snow with them
to cool their sherbet. Nor was Bagdad alone celebrated for such pomp
and luxury in fulfilling the directions of the Koran. The Sultan of
Egypt, on one occasion, was accompanied by five hundred camels, whose
luscious burdens consisted of sweetmeats and confectionery only; while
two hundred and eighty were entirely laden with pomegranates and other
fruits. The itinerant larder of this potentate contained one thousand
geese and three thousand fowls. Even so late as sixty years since, the
pilgrim-caravan from Cairo was six hours in passing one who saw the
procession.

The departure of such an array, with its thousands of camels
glittering in every variety of trappings, some with two brass
field-pieces each,--others with bells and streamers,--others, again,
with kettle-drummers,--others, covered with purple velvet, with
men walking by their sides playing on flutes and flageolets,--some
glittering with neck ornaments and silver-studded bridles, variegated
with colored beads, and with nodding plumes of ostrich feathers on
their foreheads--to say nothing of the noble, gigantic, sacred camel,
decked with cloth of gold and silk, his bridle studded with jewels and
gold, led by two sheiks in green, with the ark or chapel containing
the Koran written in letters of gold,--forms a dazzling contrast
to the spectacle it not unfrequently presents before its mission is
fulfilled. Numbers of these gaily caparisoned creatures drop and die
miserably, and when the pilgrimage leaves Mecca the air is too often
tainted with the effluvia reeking from the bodies of the camels that
have sunk under the exhausting fatigue of the march. After he had
passed the Akaba, near the head of the Red Sea, the whitened bones
of the dead camels were the land-marks which guided the pilgrim
through the sand-wastes, as he was led on by the alternate hope
and disappointment of the mirage, or "serab," as the Arabs term it.
Burckhardt describes this phenomenon as seen by him when they were
surrounded during a whole day's march by phantom lakes. The color was
of the purest assure,--so clear, that the shadows of the mountains
whic