The annual pilgrimage to Mecca again assumed large proportions during these years. In 1902 the restrictions, imposed originally as a precautionary plague-measure, were abolished, and the period opened with the arrival in Bombay of about 1,000 pilgrims and with the return of 3,376 Hajis, who had to be repatriated to various districts of British India. In the following year the number of outgoing pilgrims was 8,700, and in 1904, 16,593, the large increase in the latter year being ascribable to the occurrence of the _Akbari Haj_, which falls once in ten years. But the traffic continued to expand. In 1905, 19,000 pilgrims embarked at Bombay for Jeddah and nearly 14,000 returned; in 1906, 24,300 embarked and 16,000 returned; and in 1907 more than 20,000 from all parts of India, from Bokhara, Turkestan and other parts of Central Asia, from Ceylon and Java, had to be shepherded on board by the Pilgrim Department of the Commissioner’s office. The majority of these people were wholly uneducated; the existing _musafirkhanas_ (rest-houses) provided for them in the City were quite inadequate for their proper accommodation; while the vessels provided for the passage to Jeddah by two or three merchants or companies were ill-found and equipped, and were becoming unseaworthy by reason of age. At the same time the treatment of the pilgrims at various stages of their self-imposed journey, the behaviour of the pilgrim-brokers, who arranged for the purchase of tickets and were responsible generally for assisting pilgrims under the supervision of the Pilgrim Department, the arrangements for their embarkation and the disinfection of their clothing and effects, carried out by the Port Health authorities, and various other matters connected with the annual exodus, occupied the increasing attention of the Muhammadan community and occasionally formed the subject of rather acid criticism. It was asserted that the whole subject of the pilgrimage required more attention than an overworked Police Commissioner could give it, and that more facilities should be accorded to respectable Moslem residents for expressing their views on the details of the traffic and for keeping in touch with the local arrangements for booking and embarkation. Accordingly, the Bombay Government, with a view to disarming criticism and in the hope of giving some relief to the Commissioner, appointed in 1908 a Haj Committee, composed of leading Muhammadan residents of Bombay, with the Commissioner of Police as _ex-officio_ President. During the first year of its existence, this Committee did not do very much; but later it developed into a useful consultative body, and gave much assistance to Mr. Gell’s successor in matters connected with the comfort of the pilgrims and the local arrangements for housing and disembarkation. On several occasions the members of the Committee subscribed money from their own pockets to relieve cases of distress and