Crossword-Solution: HAJIS 5 letters, 16 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 15

They then made their way to the Mosque of Kuba, some two miles out of the town, and witnessed the entry into Medina of the great caravan from Damascus, numbering 7,000 souls--grandees in gorgeous litters of green and gold, huge white Syrian dromedaries, richly caparisoned horses and mules, devout Hajis, sherbet sellers, water carriers, and a multitude of camels, sheep and goats.

Piles of boxes and luggage in every shape and form filled the ship from stem to stern, and a torrent of Hajis were pouring over the sides like ants into the East-Indian sugar-basin.

The boys, indeed, still keep it up, turning out in bodies and making determined onslaughts with sticks and stones.[FN#31] It is not to be believed that in a town garrisoned by Turkish troops, full of travelled traders, and which supports itself by plundering Hajis, the primitive virtues of the Arab could exist.

The locomotion was decidedly slow, principally in consequence of the tent-ropes which the Hajis had pinned down literally all over the plain, and falls were by no means unfrequent.

Early on the morning of the next day, Shaykh Hamid returned hurriedly from the bazar, exclaiming, “You must make ready at once, Effendi!—there will be no Tayyarah—all Hajis start to-morrow—Allah will make it easy to you!—have you [p.51] your water-skins in order?—you are to travel down the Darb al-Sharki, where you will not see water for three days!” Poor Hamid looked horrorstruck as he concluded this fearful announcement, which filled me with joy.