text:  The passengers--who had been denied help both by the officers who had deserted them and by the Arabs who crowded down to the beach--with difficulty reached the land when they were stripped plundered and ill-treated by the Bedoweens but at last escaped without any personal injury and made their way in miserable plight to Aden where they were relieved and clothed by a Sheikh the hereditary guardian of the tomb of Sheikh Idris the guardian saint of the town