March 2, 1874 during a trip from Alexandria to Tunis with Muslim pilgrims returning from the Haggee a rogue wave crashed over the deck of the steamer Laconia carrying away much of the deck, railings and a number of the pilgrims and their luggage. Exactly how many went overboard is not known, the figures are between 21 and almost 200, even the actual number on board was not known, figures from 300 to over 900 were reported. At that time, and this still goes on today, tens of thousands of Muslims embark on the Haggee, using what ever transport available, and ships operating in those waters had to abide to very few, if any, regulations. Then like now, the regulations that were in effect could be avoided with an offering to the right official, who would look the other way and allow as many people to go aboard as the master wanted to take on his ship. The fate of his fellow Muslims mattered little to such officials, the same could be said of today's so-called Muslim leaders.

Safety it seems has never been a priority in the Muslim world and if a few dozen die so be it. I don't have to tell you of the chaos that is the Muslim world today, suicide bombings every day, mass killings, honor killings, and even the occasional overturned ferry drowning dozens or sometimes even hundreds. Little regard for life or safety has ever been demonstrated in this part of the world. Couple this with an unscrupulous ship owner and a master that may receive a percentage of the total receipts and you have a recipe for disasters.

In this case the victims themselves played a large roll in their own demise. According to Captain Peter Blacklock, he refused to sail out of Alexandria because he felt his ship was overloaded, over 100 people were forced to leave the ship before he would put out to sea. The wave struck about half way between the two ports at 430 a.m., shortly before this the winds had picked up and the seas were rising, but there was no indication that such an event was about to take place.

The passengers had refused repeated requests to go below deck because they would not leave their luggage behind. To most of us in the developed world this sounds a little strange, willing to face a most uncomfortable passage exposed to the elements on an open deck because one will not leave their luggage. This is not unknown to westerners though, how many times have we heard that a passenger would not leave his gold or jewelry behind while the ship was sinking beneath their feet. The loss of the SS Central America comes to mind, when men, not willing to part with their gold, sank into the depths with gold filled pockets. In the western world it is usually greed that claims the life, but you might imagine that in 1874 Tunisia it was not gold these people were not willing to leave behind.

It would not be difficult to believe that most if not all of their worldly possessions might be in their luggage. These people were probably quite poor and had nothing else waiting for them at home. Perhaps they thought the luggage would be plundered by the crew (they did not really trust the British or westerners in general and still don't), or would be rifled through and plundered by other Muslim passengers. Perhaps it is just that they wanted to keep it from going overboard. What ever the case, there was, according to the court, enough room below for all those on the upper deck, without their luggage, but they refused to go below under any circumstances.

When the disaster was reported to Blacklock he did what he could, which was very little, to locate any survivors. He stated that the sea was too rough to put boats in the water, and several crewmen stated that if he had given the order, they would have refused to follow it. He (Blacklock) also stated that he saw no sign of anyone in the water, heard no voices and saw no floating luggage. After the search he made for port and reported to the British Consul the tragedy that had occurred.

The inquiry into the event absolved the master and the owners, the Papayanni Bros. of Liverpool, of any culpability, even though the ship was overloaded. (Laconia was certified to carry 20 passengers, but this regulation applied only to ships operating to and from ports in the U.K.) Finding that the victims were mostly at fault because they refused to go below and "being so numerous, there was no means of compelling them to do otherwise" and that "They were very unruly and difficult to control". The court found that "this casualty was an ordinary peril of the sea, and was not owing to any default of the Master. There was no warning of danger, and the sea which caused the accident was the only which broke on board".

This was not the first or the last incident of this kind, it seems that overcrowding ships during the Haggee was an everyday occurrence in these ports. One writer stated that many ships, already with a full cargo hold, "received on board as many pilgrims as can possibly crowd on deck" he further wrote "Here they remain during the voyage, whatever the weather may be, without shelter, and ready to be swept away by the first sea that may break over the deck of a small steamer, perhaps dangerously overlayden". The voyage was apparently not only dangerous, but the conditions for those on board was harsh indeed, these were not in any way a luxury cruise. The same writer stated "In the absence of proper sanitary arrangements the condition of a crowded "Haggee" ship after a stormy voyage can be realized by those only whose sense of sight and smell have stood the test of an Irish cattle steamer".

Nobody knows how many such ships sailed under such conditions, or how many people were lost over the centuries, in many cases only due to the greed of the owners and masters. I want to be clear that in this case I have no information that leads me to believe that this master was such a man, or that these owners operated unsafe ships deliberately only to enrich themselves. But such people did exist and still do.

Today, over 130 years later, overloaded ships sail in third world countries including during the Haggee, and while people are not often simply washed overboard, these ships capsize and sink with large numbers of casualties. Other cases involve refugees trying to escape the poverty and barbaric conditions imposed by the governments in many Muslim nations, or refugees from Cuba trying to escape the injustice of a Communist dictator named Castro. Or any number of other reasons that people flea their home for another land. Most of these cases are smugglers attempting to get their human cargo into western countries, criminals no different than the "Coyotes" in Texas who fill truck trailers with Mexicans in the heat of the summer, only to have them die of heat exhaustion. It is no great loss to the smuggler, he can get another boat and another crew to operate it, and if some or all of the passengers die, well he already has their money so their death is no great sadness to him. After all there will always be more desperate people willing to pay anything to escape.

Many ship owners of that era (and some in ours still) while not smuggling people, made little attempt to provide a safe passage for their charges. In a lot of cases during the great European immigration to the U.S.A. the Irish, Scottish, eastern Europeans and even Britons were hauled over the great ocean in appalling conditions, hoping for a taste of freedom, only to die because of unsafe vessels, incompetent masters or drunken crews employed by a ship owner who had much the same attitude as the smugglers of today. If they were lost it was no great discomfort to them, buy another ship, get another crew and there will be more people wanting to cross the Atlantic, after all they already had their money.