Too deeply had the Oriental belief of Kismet, of death coming at the appointed hour and no sooner, penetrated his soul, to leave any place there for the perils of chance.
The swarming Haram enclosure presented one of the most extraordinary spectacles ever witnessed by human eyes.

The strangeness of the scene, witnessed under the declining sun of that desert land, was heightened by the fact that all these furious Moslems were seen from above.

Men cease to appear human, at that angle.

They seem to be only heads, from which legs and arms flail out grotesquely.
The Haram appeared to have become a vast pool of brown faces and agitated white _ihrams_ (pilgrim robes) of weaving brown hands, of gleaming weapons.

This pool, roaring to heaven, showed strange, violent currents in flow and refluent ebb of hate.
To descend into that maelstrom of frenzied murder-lust took courage of the highest order.