We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
276
The Sea Gypsy
the Wisdom. The pilgrims were brought ashore in a long line of dhows — it looked like race day at a yachting club — and were received on the docks by a committee of Arab officials representing the Sherif. The little yellow Javanese, dressed in gaudy colors, and bare of leg and breast, huddled together — men, women and children — like frightened immigrants at Ellis Island. It may have been that they looked thus, what of awe at the idea that they were at last on the sacred soil where the Prophet's feet had touched, and what of the fact that they were now only forty miles from the House of Allah; but it seemed to me that their fright was due to the Arab petty officials, who hustled them about roughly in the manner of petty officials the world over.
The group of Javanese spent one night in Jidda, being distributed around in bare rooms in some of the big tumbledown houses, for, as I have written, there are no hotels in Jidda, despite the huge influx of pilgrims each year. The next day we watched them pass out the Mecca gate in one long caravan. The wealthiest pilgrims were riding in covered platforms resting on camels' backs — desert sedans, in fact. The poorer pilgrims rode asses or walked.
There are many tales of the dangers of the forty mile desert trip from Jidda to Mecca that these Javanese had to make to complete the long journey. The route is protected by a line of block-houses, several miles apart and garrisoned by soldiers of the King. I was told that Bedouin robbers rode near the lines, and took