I was at some pains while at Jeddah to gain accurate statistics of the Haj according to the various races and sects composing it, and with them of the populations they in some measure represent.  The pilgrimage is of course no certain guide as to the composition of the Mussulman world, for many accidents of distance and political circumstance interfere with calculations based on it.  Still to a certain extent a proportion is preserved between it and the populations which supply it; and in default of better, statistics of the Haj afford us an index not without value of the degree of religious vitality existing in the various Mussulman countries.  My figures, which for convenience I have arranged in tabular form, are taken principally from an official record, kept for some years past at Jeddah, of the pilgrims landed at that port, and checked as far as European subjects are concerned by reference to the consular agents residing there.  They may therefore be relied upon as fairly accurate; while for the land pilgrimage I trust in part my own observations, made three years ago, in part statistics obtained at Cairo and Damascus.  For the table of population in the various lands of Islam I am obliged to go more directly to European sources of information.  As may be supposed, no statistics on this point of any value were obtainable at Jeddah; but by taking the figures commonly given in our handbooks, and supplementing and correcting these by reference to such persons as I could find who knew the countries, I have, I hope, arrived at an approximation to the truth, near enough to give a tolerable idea to general readers of the numerical proportions of Islam.  Strict accuracy, however, I do not here pretend to, nor would it if obtainable materially help my present argument.

The following is my table:—­

TABLE OF THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE OF 1880.

|        |        | Total of
Nationality of Pilgrims.               |Arriving|Arriving| Mussulman
|by Sea. |by Land.| population
|        |        | represented.
-----------------------------------------+--------+--------+

------------
Ottoman subjects including pilgrims from |        |        |
Syria and Irak, but not from Egypt or  |        |        |
Arabia proper                          |  8,500 |  1,000 | 22,000,000
|        |        |
Egyptians                                |  5,000 |  1,000 |  5,000,000
|        |        |
Mogrebbins ("people of the West"), that  |        |        |
is to say Arabic-speaking Mussulmans   |        |        |
from the Barbary States, Tripoli,      |        |        |
Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco.  These are |        |        |
always classed together and are not    |        |        |
easily distinguishable from each other |  6,000 |  ...   | 18,000,000
|        |        |
Arabs from Yemen                         |  3,000 |  ...   |  2,500,000
|        |        |
"      "    Oman and Hadramaut          |  3,000 |  ...   |  3,000,000