can't make her out, but I can see her
searchlights, so I guess she is behind them. Very slowly we crawl on,
making hardly a ripple; we are going dead slow now, scarcely moving, in
fact. That light from the other ship is blinding; just where it strikes
the water there are any number of little fish wriggling and squirming in
an ecstasy of painful delight. The water is alive with them, churning
and threshing over one another like a pot full of eels. Bright lights
attract fish and it is a very old dodge, known all over the world, to
hold a flare over the water and then spear or net the fish who are
attracted by it. Fish must have something akin to moths in their nature,
as many of them simply cannot resist a light.

Now we are alongside; the other ship's light is out of our eyes and our
own falls full upon her. What a spectacle! She looks like a phantom ship
carrying a cargo of ghosts! She is transformed by our lights into blue
fire! Every plank and rope stands out brilliantly in the ghastly light.
Her decks are crowded by a mass of turbaned and fez-covered men, mostly
in light garments, and they, their faces and their clothing, are all
blue-white. They stand silently, packed side by side like sardines; it
doesn't look as if they would have room to lie, or even to sit down. As
we glide slowly past a strange odour floats over from them enveloping
us--an odour made up of spices and camels and tired unwashed humanity;
there is a hint of coffee in it and a touch of wood-smoke--it suggests
Eastern bazaars and the desert.

Then our light slips off them and we see the ship as she really is under
the faintly diffused light of the clouded moon. She is a dirty
commonplace hulk, packed with men in soiled clothes, no longer the
radiant white ship of our vision.

"Taking pilgrims back from Mecca," says one of the passengers who is
leaning over the rail near us smoking. "They pack them like cattle
usually. On some of these vessels their fare doesn't include any
accommodation or food; they have to bargain with the captain for a bit
of deck to lie down on, and the highest bidder secures the best place!"

Mecca, which lies many miles inland from the port of Jiddah, half-way
down the Red Sea, is the birthplace of Mohammed, and the sacred city of
the Mohammedans; when they kneel at their devotions it is with their
faces turned towards Mecca. Those who have managed to pilgrimage there
even once in their lives are looked upon as superior be