Here they were delayed some time, owing to the fact that the pilgrim ship to take them to Jiddah--an old Greek vessel chartered by a syndicate of Persians--would not start till its owners considered that sufficient pilgrims had arrived. Abdul Wahid now became the popular leader. At the head of a mob of passengers he seized the Persians and carried them off to the Governor. Mounted on a pile of sugar bags he delivered an impassioned address, concluding with "We had better be dealing with Christians than Moslems, who cheat their brethren in this fashion." "Murmurs of protest," says Mr. Wavell, "deprecated this revolting comparison. We all thought he was going a little too far." The Persians finally capitulated, and the ship got under way. But there came one last _contretemps_. A party of Megribi Arabs had passed the quarantine and were half-way out to the ship when one of them died. The shore authorities refused to let them land again and the Persians declined to take the corpse aboard. The Arabs could not throw it into the sea because there were certain ceremonial washings to be performed and certain prayers to be said. An Egyptian lawyer on board gave it as his opinion that the man, having taken his ticket, was entitled to his passage, dead or alive, there being no saving clause in the contract. Finally the Megribis got sick of arguing, swarmed over the bulwarks, and hoisted up their departed comrade. Their fierce faces and long knives settled the point of law. At half-past four in the afternoon the syren blew to announce that the pilgrims were within that latitude where they must exchange their ordinary clothes for the Ihram--the garb which has to be worn by all travellers who attain a certain distance from Mecca. The costume consists of two white bath towels, one worn round the loins and the other over the shoulders. The head is unprotected, but deaths from sunstroke are singularly few. The costume is not becoming, especially in the case of a fat man. "A party of elderly European Turks close to us looked peculiarly ludicrous, their appearance suggesting members of the Athenæum Club suddenly evicted from a Turkish bath."