مجموعة ٦/ ١٩ "الجزيرة العربية: (المملكة العربية السعودية) التقرير السنوي لمملكة الحجاز ونجد." [ظ‎‎١‎٢‎٥] (٥٤٠/٢٥١)

Lx-'',.
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217. The estimated total number of pilgrims from overseas again showed
a satisfactory increase. The following summary of arrivals at Jedda and Yanbu
is drawn up on the same lines as that in paragraph 183 of the report for 1934 :—
British and British administered—
1934.
1935.
Indian
7,396
11,113
Malayan
173
617
West African
891
879
Sudanese
534
866
Palestinian ...
385
1,432
Dutch East Indian
2,827
3,992
Egyptian
4,302
5,361
Others, including minor British elements
8,744
9,337
25,252
33,597
218. The above figure for 1935 includes 679 Hejazis, who should be deducted
to get a true view of the sea-borne foreign pilgrimage. On the other hand, the
returns showed 285 West Africans as having reached Qunfida by dhow and sixteen
persons who arrived similarly at Lith. Account must also be increasingly taken
of foreign pilgrims who come by overland routes, including those who used the
new motor route from Nejef to Medina, about 400, and a large contingent of
Yemenis, estimated at about 10,000.
219. Pilgrimage Day fell on Thursday, the 14th March, to the disappoint
ment of many who hoped for a Friday Haj. Estimates of the total number who
“ stood on Arafat ” that day varied from 70,000 to 100,000.
220. A remarkable feature of the 1935 pilgrimage was the number of
distinguished persons who took part in it. They included the Nawab of
Bahawalpur, who came in state, the principal wife of the Nizam of Hyderabad,
ex-King Amanullah of Afghanistan, the Glaoui, greatest of the Grand Gaids
of Morocco, and other important persons of lesser note, including brothers of
the Sheikhs of Sharjah and Dibai
221. Climatic and sanitary conditions were again good, and the dispersal
of the pilgrims gave rise to no difficulty.
222. Immediately after the 1935 pilgrimage the Saudi Government gave
great publicity to a statement that all charges in respect of dues, fees and
transport would be reduced by 25 per cent, in 1936. When the tariff of authorised
charges was published in August, the arrangement and grouping of charges was
so different from that of the previous year that it was not easy to compare the
new tariff with the old. Broadly speaking the 25 per cent, cut had been applied
to transport charges, but the aggregate of other charges seemed to be slightly
higher than in 1935 and the advantages previously enjoyed by certain pilgrims
of the poorer class were abolished. So far as pilgrims able to afford car or camel
transport were concerned, the net effect seemed to be a substantial reduction in
total necessary expenditure, provided there were no appreciation of gold so
great as to counterbalance it in the case of pilgrims coming from countries whose
currencies are pegged to sterling.
223. The Saudi Government have adopted a definite policy of discouraging
destitute pilgrims from landing on the coast and making their way to Mecca as
best they can. They turned back in the late autumn some 500 Indians, who had
collected in Hasa and who were repatriated via Bahrein by arrangements with
the Government of India. They have also taken measures to restrict the influx
of pilgrims by dhow from Massawa and it is probably due at least as much
to their representations as to the pressure of His Majesty’s Government and
international health authorities that the Italian authorities have at last taken
steps to control this traffic to some extent.