REDS AMONG THE PILGRIMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 August 1926, Page 3

REDS AMONG THE PILGRIMS.

(By Dorothy Buck.) DJEDDAH, June 20. Bjeddah, the little Red Sea port, Which is to all intents and purposes “dead” for three-quarters of the year, is now the centre of busy life for a few brief weeks. . . Bjeddah merchants are making then fortunes, Bjeddah hostelries are coming money wrested willy-nilly from the reluetants palms of the Faithful, 'oi this is the moment of the great yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, and Mahominedan pilgrims from all the countries of the world are landing at Djeddah to finish the weary journey through the Arabian desert to the Sacred C’lty. Djeddah, like Yambo, the licit of Medina (where lies tho tomb of the Prophet), is situated m a c"™ l • which is the' very abomination of desolation. a country of illimitable stony plains, treeless, shadowless cloudy, the earth baked to a scorching, dusty yellow, the very ductus plants dying of Water is the most precious of commodities. There are no wells, but rainwater is collected in cisterns each o> which the owner locks and the eontents of which he sells at an exorbitant price during the two or three weeks when he reaps his harvest from the P, DuHng these few weeks the pilgrims are exploited in such merciless fashion that fortunes are amassed from them. Every house lets its rooms o huge sums, and the nomads come from thousands of miles around to sell the 1 sheep of their lean flocks at outrageous prices to the pilgrims nearing: Mecc. . who will sacrifice them according to Moslem rite on the appointed day. Those who make the pilgrimage bring their most valued possessions m older to sell them when the necessity arises, and in the souks of these four Arabian towns priceless treasures may he unearthed. left behind by pilgrims *ho departed from the country hungry and penniless, reduced to the last stages of poverty bv their pitiless co-rehgmmst.,. But to suffer on the pilgrimage as all inevitably suffer, is to gam added trrnce For tliis reason, to permit th riel, pilgrim to finish the journey m the only acceptable fashion the raißvny from Damascus was carried no further than Medina, so that pilgrims from Syria and Asia Minor might finish last three hundred miles on foot. Hun„er, thirst, and weariness are the certain portion of all. and disease is rife so that many die on the way; and blest imlee.l is lie „l"> .lies in sißi.t of saorotl

Mecca. Recently Bolshevist agents ha\e thought good to establish themselves in Djeddah, hoping thus to spread thenpropaganda among the most influential of the Mahominedan world. For now that the French authorities have forbidden the pilgrimage by land, on account of the epidemics spread by returning pilgrims, all Mahommedans from Algeria .Tunisia, and Morocco land at Djeddah, being quarantined in their respective countries on their return. . The Bolsheviks, however, not oeing psychologists, made no allowances for tho fact that even the devout are aware that they are cruelly exploited in Arabia, and in consequence they look upon the inhabitants of the country with a well-justified suspicion, almost amounting to hatred. Up to the present the Red agitators have signally failed in their efforts, for the pilgrims, intent only on the accomplishment of their sacred duty, are deaf and blind to all outside it.