WAITING FOR DEATH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19015, 10 November 1923, Page 13

WAITING FOR DEATH.

PILGRIMS IN WINDING SHEETS. Mr Prank Swettenfaam supplies to The Times Literary Supplement some account of the career of “Jim,” the original of Mr Conrad’s story, “Lord Jim”: Aai Arab in Singapore, named Scjyyid Muhammad Alsagoff, a rich man, was tha principal owner of a pilgrim steamer named, I believe, the Jeddah. She carried pilgrims from Singapore and the Dutch Islands to Jeddah and back. She was old, heavily insured, and the master was a part owner. She left Singapore with about 900 pilgrims, and when in the Arabian Sea, in heavy weather, the master and all the officers except one, I think the second mate, abandoned her in the darkness of night and left the pilgrims to their fate. • The one officer left behind—Lord Jim of Mr Conrad’s story—was so left because he was not quick enough to get into the boat or boats with the other deserters. They pulled away and; reached Aden, where they reported that tha steamer had gone down with all the pilgrims. A ship belonging to the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, commonly called the Blue runnel Line sighted the Jeddah wallowing! in the agh of the sea, sent some officers on board, got the crew and pilgrims to the pumps, cleared the water, lighted the fires, and navigated the Jeddah into Aden, where an inquiry was held by the harbour authorities. Subsequently a longer inquiry ' wad held in ‘Singapore, and in the course of time I read these voluminous records. lae master got away out of jurisdiction, but “Jim,” the hero of the story, was taken to Singapore, where he found work in a ship chandler’s store, grew fat, and prospered. “When pilgrims from Malava and the Archipelago used to start for the Hejaz, continues Mr Swettenham, “it was recog- - nised that the chances '/t falling by the way —at sea or crossing the desert from Jeddah to Mecca and back agair—were so great that it was the custom of every pilgrim to provide himself with a winding sheet in which, to be buried, should he meet with death. la reading the evidence given to the harbour; authorities it was stated that when the pilgrims found they had been abandoned by the master of the s.s. Jeddah and all the officers except -Jim, and when they realised their desperate situation, they all left the decks for a while and then reappeared clothed in their winding sheets. Out of tha hundreds of pages of evidence that fact seized my imagination; a water-logged ship, pitching and rolling in a heaw sea, tha passengers deserted by all those responsible for their safety— except Jim—and then silently the decks covered by 900 figures, wrapped in white graveclothes, waiting for their doom, I felt sure that if Mr Conrad had known of this incident he would not have omitted to mention it.”