THE PILGRIM PATH OF CHOLERA. 643 



man can carry it more than one stage, and whether or not it starts 

 again from the place where he deposits the infection depends on 

 the sanitary conditions of the locality and the customs of the peo- 

 ple. There is but little doubt that the danger caused by the 

 Mecca pilgrimage to the health of Europe depends largely on the 

 fact that from the recklessness of the people and the absence of 

 adequate sanitary arrangements in the district, Mecca has become 

 a great central fair for the exchange and distribution of the chol- 

 era infection. 



In 1886 thirty thousand pilgrims died of cholera at Mecca. 

 Nor can we wonder. Everything seems to be done to destroy 

 their tone and their resisting power; everything seems to be 

 arranged to spread the disease when the infection is once planted 

 amid the host of pilgrims. 



From seventy to a hundred thousand seems to be the ordinary 

 average number of those who visit Mecca during the festival, and 

 who are present at Mount Arafat on the 9th of Zu'l Hij jah. They 

 come from every quarter of the compass inland by caravan 

 from Syria and Persia, Turkey and Afghanistan; by sea from 

 Red Sea ports ; from Africa, across the whole width of which 

 many of the weary pilgrims have walked ; and from every part of 

 the world where the standard of Islam has been raised. With no 

 provision for decency or comfort they camp around or crowd into 

 lodgings in the sacred city. They make excursions, clamber up 

 the mountains, spend hours in the blazing sun, are sickened with 

 rotting smells arising from the thousands of animals which are 

 sacrificed ; crush and stifle in the Ka'ba ; and, finally, as if they 

 had not already run sufficient risk of catching every possible 

 complaint, they drink the water of Zem Zem. This is the well 

 from which Hagar is said to have drawn water for her son 

 Ishmael, and the drinking of the water is a most holy rite. The 

 supply, however, is not as great as could be desired for so large a 

 crowd of pilgrims, and the manner of dealing with it at the well 

 goes far to explain the intensity of the poison and the fearful 

 mortality which attends any outbreak of cholera among the 

 Meccan pilgrims. At a given period the pilgrims stand naked in 

 turn at the place appointed; a bucket of water is poured over 

 each man ; he drinks what he can of it, and the rest falls back into 

 the holy well. The water from this well has been analyzed by 

 Dr. Frankland, F. R. S., of the Royal College of Science, London, 

 who describes it as fearfully polluted with abominable contamina- 

 tions. Imagine, then, one single member of this enormous crowd 

 to be suffering from the early stage of cholera ; to be struggling, as 

 struggle he would with his last strength, to get through the holy 

 rite, and to be allowing the choleraic discharges with which his 

 body would be soiled to be washed back into this foul well. 



