South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c15.5

c15.5

The ancients have hewn in the rock a sort of step by which one ascends the mountain. They have also planted iron spikes and suspended chains on to them which one holds while making the ascent. Those chains are ten in number; two near the gate at the foot of the mountain; after these seven others which are linked one on to the other; then the tenth, ‘the chain of the profession of faith’ (Mussalman), so called because the person who reaches it and looks down below will be seized with hallucination and fear of falling, and he will repeat the words: ‘I declare that there is no other god but God, and that Mahomet is his Prophet’. When you have got beyond this tenth chain, you come to a road kept in bad repair. The cavern of Nadir is seven miles from the tenth chain. It stands in a spacious place near a spring, also called khidhr, full of fish. Nobody catches fish there. Near by are two basins hewn in the rocks on either side of the road. In the khidhr grotto, pilgrims leave their belongings and then go another two miles up to the summit of the mountain where they find the foot.