COMPLETION OF THE MASJID. 81 the caliphate passed into the hands of the Beni Hashein they removed these relics to the Ka'abah. When the Masjid was quite completed and thrown open for public service, no expense or trouble was spared to make it as attractive as possible to the worshippers. Every morning a number of attendants were employed in pounding saffron, and in making perfumed water with which to sprinkle the mosque, as well as in preparing and burning incense. Servants were also sent into the Hammam Suleiman (" Solomon's bath ") to cleanse it out thoroughly. Having done this they used to go into the store-room in which the Khaluh * was kept, and changing their clothes for fresh ones of various costly stuffs, and putting jewelled girdles round their waists, and taking the Khaluh in their hands, they proceeded to dab it all over the Sakhrah as far as they could reach ; and when they could not reach with their hands they washed their feet and stepped upon the Sakhrah itself until they had dabbed it all over, and emptied the pots of Khaluh. Then they brought censers of gold and silver filled with W (perfumed aloea wood) and other costly kinds of incense, with which they perfumed the entire place, first letting down the curtains round all the pillars, and walking round them until the incense filled the place between them and the dome, and then fastening them up again so that the incense escaped and filled the entire building, even penetrating into the neighbouring bazaar, so that any one who passed that way could smell it. After this, proclamation was made in the public market, " The Sakhrah is now open for public worship," and people would run in such crowds to pray there, that two reha'as was as much as most men could accomplish, and it was only a very few who could succeed in performing four. So strongly was the building perfumed with the incense, * A species of aromatic plant rather larger than saffron. G