the hill slowly till he came to the top of Merwan; from thence
he ascended Mount Arafa. It being toward the going down of the sun, he
preached here till sunset; then going to Mosdalefa, between Arafa and
the valley of Mena, he made the evening and the late prayers, with two
calls to prayer, and two risings up. Then he lay down till the dawn,
and, having made the morning prayer, went to the enclosure of the Kaaba,
where he remained standing till it grew very light. Hence he proceeded
hastily, before the sun was up, to the valley of Mena; where, throwing
up seven stones, he repeated at each throw, 'God is great,' etc. Leaving
now the valley, he went to the place of sacrifice. Having made free
sixty-three slaves, he slew sixty-three victims[63] with his own hand,
being then sixty-three years old, and then ordered Ali to sacrifice as
many more victims as would make up the number to one hundred. The next
thing the apostle did was to shave his head, beginning on the right side
of it, and finishing it on the left. His hair, as he cut it off, he cast
upon a tree, that the wind might scatter it among the people. Kaled was
fortunate enough to catch a part of the fore-lock, which he fixed upon
his turban; the virtue whereof he experienced in every battle he
afterward fought. The limbs of the victims being now boiled, the apostle
sat down with no other companion but Ali to eat some of the flesh and
drink some of the broth. The repast being over, he mounted his camel
again and rode to the Kaaba; where he made the noon-tide prayer, and
drank seven large draughts of the well Zem-zem, made seven circuits
round the Kaaba, and concluded his career between the hills Safa and
Merwan.

"The ninth day of the feast he went to perform his devotions on Mount
Arafa. This hill, situated about a mile from Mecca, is held in great
veneration by the Mussulmans as a place very proper for penitence. Its
fitness in this respect is accounted for by a tradition that Adam and
Eve, on being banished out of paradise, in order to do penance for their
transgression were parted from each other, and after a separation of
sixscore years met again upon this mountain."

At the conclusion of this farewell pilgrimage, as it was called, being
the last he ever made, Mahomet reformed the calendar in two points: In
the first place, he appointed the year to be exactly lunar, consisting
of twelve lunar months; whereas before, in order to reduce the lunar to
the solar year