Eight bells were "making it twelve o'clock" on the 15th of May, when the
boatswain piped all hands on deck to weigh the anchor, and within a few
minutes the Honourable Company's Brig-of-war "Euphrates," having the
Embassy on board, and commanded by one of its members [Lieutenant
Barker, Indian Navy], set her white sails, and, followed by three large
native crafts freighted with horses and baggage, stood across the
Arabian Gulf. A favourable breeze pressed her steadily through the
yielding bosom of the ocean. The salt spray flew under her gallant
bows; and as the hospitable cadjan roofs on Steamer Point, first in
order, and then the jagged pinnacles forming the spider skeleton of
Aden, sank gradually astern, each individual of the party destined to
traverse the unknown wilds of Ethiopia, took the pilgrim's vow that the
razor should pass no more over his beard, until his foot had again
rested on civilised shores--an event not unreasonably conjectured to be
far distant for all, and for some destined never to be realised.
The breeze increasing, the low sandy promontory of Ras Bir on the
African coast became visible during the forenoon of the following day;
and before evening, notwithstanding a delay of some hours, caused by an
accident to the mainyard of one of the tenders, which obliged her to be
taken in tow, the brig was passing a group of eight coral islands,
elevated about thirty feet above the level of the sea. The remainder of
the fleet having parted company during the night, were now perceived
standing directly for Mushahh, the nearest of these islets, situated at
the mouth of the Gulf of Tajura, and divided from the Danakil coast by a
fathomless channel of seven miles. An iron messenger despatched to
bring the convoy to, ricochetted over the blue water, kicking up a
column of white spray at every bound, and before the smoke of the gun
had cleared the bulwarks, a bald pate protruded between the rigging, was
followed by the swarthy person of Aboo Bekr, of the Somauli tribe Aboo
Salaam, and commonly styled Durabili, or "the Liar." Nakhuda of a small
trading craft which had been employed as a pilot boat during the recent
trigonometrical survey of the coast, he was well-known to the officers
of the "Euphrates," and was ascertained to be at this moment charged
with despatches for Aden, which, whether important or otherwise, had
been during three days lying safely at anchor off the island, to admit
of enhanced profits by the collection of a cargo of wood.
"Salaam aleikum!" exclaimed the old Palinurus as soon as his foot had
touched the deck; "Hamdu-lillah! Praise be unto God! it is you, after
all. When I saw those two crazy tubs in your van, I believed that it
could not be my old ship, although it loomed so vastly like her; but the
moment you took in your studding-sails to let Aboo Bekr come alongside,
I knew it must be the Capitan Bashi. Kayf halut, how fares it with your
health?"
The welcome visitor was forthwith accommodated with a chair on the poop;
into which having squeezed himself with difficulty, he drew up his knees
to his scanty beard, inserted a cigar into his mouth as a quid, and,
sipping tea like a finished washerwoman, instituted a train of inquiries
relative to the position of affairs in the British possessions across
the water.
"Tayyib, tayyib," he ejaculated, when thoroughly satisfied that Cape
Aden was not again in the hands of the Arabs. "Marhabba, it is well.
All, too, is as it should be at Tajura. Misunderstandings are adjusted,
and the avaricious chieftains have at last, the Lord be praised! got all
the dirt out of their bellies. Their palms have been judiciously
tickled, and it only now remains to be seen whether the old sultan, who
is fully as fond of money as his neighbours--or his ancient rival,
Mohammad Ali, is to have the honour of forwarding the English to King
Saloo. My boy has just returned from Habesh, and shall escort you.
Abroo has been twice in Bombay, as you know, Capitan. You have only to
tell me if he should misbehave, and I'll trounce the young scamp
soundly."
Meanwhile the bold mountain outline of the land of promise, forming a
worthy barrier to the unexplored treasures of the vast continent of
Africa, had been rapidly emerging from obscurity, and the brown
forbidding bluff, styled Ras Dukhan, "the smoking promontory," in height
about five or six hundred feet, was now on the starboard quarter; its
abrupt summit, as usual, surmounted by a coronet of fleecy clouds, from
which, if not from the thermal well at its base, this Cape has probably
derived its appellation. The brig was already standing up the bay of
Tajura; but darkness overtaking her, it was resolved to lay to until
daybreak; and a gun fired in intimation of approach was presently
answered by a display of rockets and blue lights from the Honourable
Company's schooner "Constance," riding at anchor in the harbour.
The Arabs lay claim to the invention of the compass; and Aboo Bekr, who
believed himself in truth a second Anson, was provided with one, which
must certainly have been the first ever constructed. Age having
impaired the dilapidated needle, it was forced off its pivot by a
quantity of pepper-corns, which are here considered highly efficacious
in the restoration of decayed magnetic powers. From the native
navigators in the Indian Ocean he had borrowed a primitive nautical
instrument for determining the latitude; nor was he a little vain of his
practical skill as an observer. Through a perforation in the centre of
a plane of wood in size and shape like a playing card, was passed a
knotted whipcord, and the distance from each knot was so regulated that
the subtended angle should equal the altitude of the polar star at some
frequented point on the coast. The knot having been placed between the
teeth, and the lower margin of the plane brought in optical contact with
the horizon, the position of Polaris must be observed with reference to
the upper edge; when, if it be above, the desired haven is known to be
to the southward--if below, to the northward, and the course is shaped
accordingly.
"I'll take you in this very night, Capitan Bashi, if you so please,"
resumed the pilot, whose packet had by this time escaped his
recollection altogether. "Only give me the order, and, praise be unto
Allah! there is nothing that Aboo Bekr cannot do. My head, as you see,
is bald, and I may perhaps be a little old-looking now, but wait until
we get on shore, and my new wig is bent; Inshallah! I shall look like a
child of five years among the youngest of them."
"Now if we had but Long Ali of Zeyla on board," continued the old man,
whose merry tongue knew no rest; "if we had only Two-fathom Ali here,
you would not make all these difficulties. When they want to lay out an
anchor, they have nothing else to do but to hand it over to Ali, and he
walks away with it into six or eight feet without any ado. I went once
upon a time in the dark to grope for a berth on board of his buggalow,
and stumbling over some one's toes, inquired to whose legs they
belonged; `All's,' was the reply. `And whose knees are these?' said I,
after walking half across the deck; `Ali's.' `And this head in the
scuppers, pray whose is it?' `Ali's to be sure,' growled a sleepy
voice; `what do you want with it?' `Subhan Allah, Ali again!' I
exclaimed; `then I must even look for stowage elsewhere.'"
Dawn of the 17th revealed the town of Tajura, not a mile distant, on the
verge of a broad expanse of blue water, over which a gossamer-like fleet
of fishing catamarans already plied their busy craft. The tales of the
dreary Tehama, of the suffocating Shimal, and of the desolate plains of
the bloodthirsty Adaiel, were in that moment forgotten. Pleasure
sparkled in every eye, and each heart bounded with exultation at the
near prospect of fulfilling the benevolent schemes in design, and of
adding one mite to the amelioration of Afric's swart sons.
Those who are conversant with Burchell's admirable illustration of an
encampment of Cape farmers, with their gigantic waggons scattered about
in picturesque confusion, will best understand the appearance of the
group of primitive habitations that now presented itself on the
sea-beach. Exceeding two hundred in number, and rudely constructed of
frames of unhewn timber, arranged in a parabolic arch, and covered in
with date matting, they resembled the white tilts of the Dutch boors,
and collectively sheltered some twelve hundred inhabitants. The bold
grey mountains, like a drop scene, limited the landscape, and, rising
tier above tier, through coral limestone and basaltic trap, to the
majestic Jebel Goodah, towering five thousand feet above the ocean, were
enveloped in dirty red clouds, which imparted the aspect of a morning in
the depth of winter. Verdant clumps of date and palm trees embosomed
the only well of fresh water, around which numerous Bedouin females were
drawing their daily supply of the precious fluid. These relieved the
humble terraced mosque of whitewashed madrepore, whence the voice of the
muezzin summoned the true believer to matin prayer; and a belt of green
_makanni_, a dwarf species of mimosa with uniform umbrella tops,
fringing the sandy shore, completed a pleasant contrast to the frowning
blocks of barren black lava which fortify the Gibraltar whereupon the
eye had last rested.
As the ship sailed into the harbour, the appearance of a large shark in
her wake caused the tongue of the pilot again to "break adrift." "A
certain friend of mine," said he, "Nakhuda of a craft almost as fast a
sailer as my own, which is acknowledged to be the best in these seas,
was once upon a time bound from this port to Mocha, with camels on
board. When off Jebel Jan, the high table-land betwixt the Bay of
Tajura and the Red Sea, one of the beasts dying, was hove overboard. Up
came a shark, ten times the size of that fellow, and swallowed the
carcass, leaving one of the hinder legs protruding from his jaws; and
before he had time to think where he was to find stowage for it, up came
a second tremendous monster, and bolted his messmate, camel, leg, and
all."
In return for this anecdote, the old man was treated to the history of
the two Kilkenny cats in the sawpit, which fought until nothing remained
of either but the tail and a bit of the flue. "How could that be?" he
retorted seriously, after turning the business over in his mind. "Now,
Capitan Bashi, you are spinning yarns, but, by Allah, the story I have
told you is as true as the holy Koran, and if you don't choose to
believe _me_, there are a dozen persons of unblemished veracity now in
Tajura, who are ready to vouch for its correctness."
Volume One, Chapter VI.