the end was a confusion beyond description. The very inequalities of the
ground helped the confusion. A group was one moment visible on a height;
then it vanished in a hollow. Now there were thousands on a level; then,
as if sinking, they went down, down, and presently where they were there
was only dust or a single individual.

Afterwhile, so wide was the inrolling tide, the field of vision
overflowed, and the eye was driven to ranging from point to point,
object to object. Then it was discernible that the mass was mixed of
animals and men--here horses, there camels--some with riders, some
without--all, the burdened as well as unburdened, straining forward
under urgency of shriek and stick--forward for life--forward as if of
the two "comforts," Success beckoned them in front, and Despair behind
plied them with spears. [Footnote: In the philosophy of the Arabs
Success and Despair are treated as comforts.]

At length the eastern boundary of the Valley was reached. There one
would suppose the foremost of the racers, the happy victors, would rest
or, at their leisure, take of the many sites those they preferred; but
no--the penalty attaching to the triumph was the danger of being run
down by the thousands behind. In going on there was safety--and on they
went.

To this time the spectacle had been a kind of panoramic generality; now
the details came to view, and accustomed as he was to marvels of
pageantry, the Prince exclaimed: "These are not men, but devils fleeing
from the wrath of God!" and involuntarily he went nearer, down to the
brink of the height. It seemed the land was being inundated with camels;
not the patient brutes we are used to thinking of by that name, with
which domestication means ill-treatment and suffering--the slow-going