heard constantly
given at Jeddah, and several recent incidents seem to prove that a
little closer attention to this matter would be advisable. That ugly
story which was told in our newspapers more than a year ago of the
abandonment of a pilgrim ship in the Red Sea by her British captain is,
I am sorry to say, a true one, and I heard it confirmed with every
circumstance which could aggravate the charges made. The captain in a
fit of panic left the ship without any substantial excuse, and if it had
not been for the good conduct of a young man, his nephew, who, though
ordered to leave too, refused out of humanity, there is little doubt
that the vessel would have been lost. A very painful impression was
produced on the Jeddans while I was there by the news that this English
captain had been sentenced for all punishment by an English court to two
years' suspension of his certificate. Indian pilgrims have besides been
very roughly treated in Hejaz by the authorities during the last year
because they were British subjects, and this without obtaining any
redress. Such at least is the gossip of the town. However this may be,
it seems to me astonishing that so important a matter as the Indian Haj
should be left, as it now is, entirely in the hands of chance.

The Dutch do not so leave the management of their pilgrimage from Java,
which, it will be remarked, stands second only to India on my list in
respect of numbers. Their policy is a very definite one and seems
justified by results. There is no disillusion, they argue, for a
Mussulman greater than to have visited Mecca, and they say that a
returned hajji is seldom heard to complain in Java of his lot as the
subject of a Christian power. Besides the disappointment which all
pilgrims are wont to feel who come with exalted hopes and find their
holy lands undistinguishable from the other lands of the world, the
pilgrim to Mecca certainly has to encounter a series of dangers and
annoyances which he cannot but recognize to be the result of Mussulman
misgovernment. From the moment of his landing on the holy shore he finds
himself beset with dangers. He is fleeced by the Turkish officials,
befooled by the religious touts of the towns, and sometimes robbed
openly by actual highway robbers. The religious government of the land
has no redress to offer him, and the Turkish guardians of the peace who
affect to rule are only potent in demanding fees. At every step he is
waylaid and tricked