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While Hagar was diligently searching for water, more anxious to save the life of her son than her own, Ishmael, boy-like, sat poking the sand with his heel; when, behold, a spring of water bubbled up in his footprint. And this was none other than the sacred well Zemzem, whose brackish waters are still eagerly sought by every Moslem pilgrim.
A few paces west of Zemzem, and directly opposite to the door of the Kaaba, stands a ladder or staircase, which is moved up to the wall of the Kaaba, on the days when that building is opened, and by which the visitors ascend to the door: it is of wood, with some carved ornaments, moves on low wheels, and is sufficiently broad to admit of four persons ascending abreast.
In that scriptural phraseology so common in the East you are notified that "These waters are as sweet as those of the well of Zemzem, of which Abraham drank, and like unto those of the rivers of Paradise to the hot and thirsty who come here to taste them."
The offices at Mecca were seized by the Omeyya, and to the descendants of Abd al Muttalib there remained but the privilege of caring for the well Zemzem, and of giving its water for the refreshment of pilgrims. Only two of his sons, except Abu Talib, who earns renown chiefly as the guardian of Mahomet, attain anything like prominence.
The small buildings just mentioned, which surround the Kaaba, are the five Makams, with the well of Zemzem, the arch called Bab-es'-Salam, and the Mambar. Opposite the four sides of the Kaaba stand four other small buildings, where the Imaums of the orthodox Mohammedan sects, the Hanefy, Shafey, Hanbaly, and Maleky, take their station, and guide the congregation in their prayers.
At the day of judgment, it will bear witness in favour of all those who have touched it with sincere hearts, and will be endowed with sight and speech. After the well of Zemzem was miraculously created, and before Ibrahim began to build the Kaaba, the Arab tribe of Beni Djorham, a branch of the Amalekites, settled here, with the permission of Ismayl and his mother, with whom they lived.
Upon a level with the ground-floor of the colonnades, and opening into them, are small apartments formed in the walls, having the appearance of dungeons: these have remained the property of the mosque, while the houses above them belong to private individuals. They are let out to watermen, who deposit in them the Zemzem jars; or to less opulent hadjys, who wish to live in the mosque.
Hagar, in her terrible journey through the desert, reached Mecca and laid her son in the midst of the valley to go on the hopeless quest for water. The child kicked the ground in torment, and God was merciful, so that from his heel marks arose a spring of clear water the well Zemzem, hallowed ever after by Meccans.
It must be a wonderful sight to see thousands of Moslem pilgrims stand around this place and kneel and pray. Besides running around the Kaaba, kissing the black stone and drinking water from a holy well called zemzem, they have one day on which they sacrifice sheep or other animals. One curious custom on this day of sacrifice I must tell you of. It is called "stoning the great devil."
He intimated by signs his wish that we should sprinkle Zemzem water over him; and while we were doing so, he expired: half an hour afterwards he was buried. There are several persons in the service of the mosque employed to wash carefully the spot on which those who expire in the mosque have lain, and to bury all the poor and friendless strangers who die at Mekka.
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