Experiences on a Crowded Pilgrim-ship.
I was very pleased to see that all regarded him with great favour, and though the whole story was known, the Governor and everybody else called upon him and were extremely civil. Nearly every day we rode out Meccawards; it had a great attraction for Richard. The great hospitality shown us, the unbounded kindness of our own countrymen, the courteousness of the Turkish Authorities, and the civility of the fanatical Jeddáwis will never be forgotten. We left in a Sambúk in furious southerly squalls to join our ship, anchored at least six miles away. This is the large, flat native boat, with big sail that can go close to the wind without upsetting. We found eight hundred pilgrims on board, packed like herrings.
There is a long reef near Jeddah, which we just shaved, but another ship that went out at the same time (I will not name it) had taken three hundred pilgrims, and she dashed on to it; the ship foundered, and all hands were lost, except one or two who clung to the spars and were picked up. They affirm that the English captain and officers were drunk, that the fanaticism of the pilgrims was aroused, that they combined and lashed them to the masts, and took charge of the ship themselves. We saw her, and we wondered to see her apparently managing herself, but there were no distress signals up. She ran on to this long bank of rock, upon which breakers foamed higher than a ship. I do not like to cumber my book with an account of the cause or source of the cholera, nor the Jeddah massacre (the same that my husband foretold, was officially snubbed for, which impolite letter he received in the depths of Africa in early 1859, and by the same post the account of the massacre); but I will do so either in the [Appendix] or in a future book—"Labours and Wisdom of Richard Burton."
It is a great experience to have been in a pilgrim-ship, but I am quite content with one experience—they suffered horribly, especially in very wild weather.
On the twenty-seventh day the north-east monsoon actually set in, and destroyed all our peace. The pilgrims howled with fright, and many died; they called "Allahu Akbar" day and night. The ship danced like a cricket-ball. When the storm was at its height Richard was smoking behind a shelter in the bow of the vessel, in the quarters where the sturdiest of our pilgrims had established themselves—Afghans, and all tribes from the north of India, men from Bokhara—when he saw coming amongst them one of two Russian spies we had taken on board at Suez. We had Somalis, Hindis, Arabs from Bokhara, Kokand, Kashgar, Turcomans, Persians, Tashgand (these last Russian subjects), and to those he addressed himself. Richard heard him telling them, in broken Hindustani, that if any accident happened to the ship, that they should aid him to overpower the Austrian captain and officers, and that they and he would cut away the boats and escape, then batten down the remainder of the pilgrims under the hatches, and escape.
As soon as he was gone away, Richard came out to them, and he spoke to each set of men in their own dialect, and he told them that he was an Englishman, and an officer of the Bombay army, and that that man was a Russian spy; and he told them that the Russian had only told them that, in order to get them into trouble when the ship got into Bombay, that they might be looked upon as traitors in the sight of the British Government, and on no account to follow him or his councils. "If anything happened," he said, "everybody will be safely provided for; but I shall follow that man about, and never leave him until the Authorities in Bombay know all about him." The men quieted down at once, and it made the Russian very uneasy to find that they would not listen to him any more. And on arriving at Bombay Richard was as good as his word.
I spent a great deal of my time amongst them, because their misery made me suffer horribly. We lost twenty-three in twenty-three days, not of disease, but of privation, fatigue, hunger, thirst, opium, vermin, and misery. No one would believe it unless they saw the dirt and smelt the horrible effluvia. They have two insatiable wants, and no ship ought to be permitted to carry them unless they will give them a copious supply of fresh good drinking water, and wood to cook with. Many a dying pilgrim embarks without a penny, relying on charity; if there is no charity—which sometimes occurs—the wretch dies. They only want rice, but the ship does not give it, and I have seen a man with three hundred rupees in his belt die of starvation sooner than spend it. They never move out of the small space or position assumed at the beginning of the voyage. The richer ones are all right; the poor are skin and bone, half naked, with a rag round the loins at most. They won't ask, but if they see a kind face they speak with the eyes, as an animal does.
From light till dark, unless writing the biography, we were staggering about our rolling ship with sherbet and food and medicines—we carried no doctor—treating dysentery, fever, diarrhœa; but if I had the misfortune to touch anything, they would not eat it, dying as they were, because they would lose caste. But I made more progress with them than most Europeans, because I could recite the Bismillah in giving it to them. The first funerals made one very serious. I have alluded to them in my "Arabia, Egypt, and India." What struck me was the jolliness with which they were executed—it seemed no more than heaving the lead; but I had never seen a funeral at sea, and I kept saying to myself, "That poor Indian and I might both be lying dead to-day; there would be a little more ceremony for me, and, excepting for my husband, it would cast a gloom over the dinner-table for one day only. The sharks would eat us both, and perhaps like me a little the best, because I am fat and well fed, and do not smell of cocoanut oil. Then we both stand before the throne of God to be judged, he with his poverty, hardships, privations, sufferings, pilgrimage, and harmless life, and I with all my sins, my happy life, my luxuries, and the little wee bit of good I have done, or ever thought to obtain mercy with—only equalled that our Saviour died for both." All are laughing because it is only a poor, ugly old skeleton of a "nigger;" not one of them thinking, "Supposing that were me! My turn will come, and then the rest will think it jolly fun to see me thrown over the side."
Richard at Aden inquired after all his old party in his exploration to Harar. Mohammed el Hammál died only a year ago. Long Guled and the two women, Shehrazade and Deenarzade, are still alive; the former in camp, the latter in Somali-land. Abdo (the End of Time) died a natural death; Yusuf, the monocular one, was murdered by the Isá tribe; Hasan Hammad, the boy, is now sergeant to the water-police. The Egyptians, who took possession of Berberah and Zayla, entered Harar without fighting, and the Amir died under suspicious circumstances. Rauf Pasha is invested on all sides by Gallas and Somali, and is in considerable danger. Hasan procured for us the coins of Harar, which Richard brought to England in 1878.