ABSTRACT
Pilgrimage is an important element, not always recognized, in total population mobility, though more particularly for those movements which are motivated by non-economic factors. Overland pilgrimage takes several years to complete and few make the return journey to Mecca in under three years; for some it may be as long as twenty-five or thirty years, and the average total time taken at present is about eight years. Over many centuries various factors for and against pilgrimage have been responsible for considerable deviations in the routes followed, but always there has been motivation for the continuation and furtherance of pilgrimage. Changes were also associated with the types of pilgrims travelling along the savannas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The transient and settled West African population in the Sudan is limited in distribution to the savanna, as is their zone of origin in West Africa.
