_Plate I_
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Coast of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Sandstone hills shaded, _small_ islands black. Coastline double,
the outer line being the edge of the fringing reef. The thin lines
enclosing roughly oval or elongated areas at sea are the barrier
reefs. Figures on sea represent depths in fathoms.]
DESERT AND WATER GARDENS
OF THE RED SEA
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
[Illustration]
Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
London: WILLIAM WESLEY & SON, 28, ESSEX STREET, STRAND
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
_All rights reserved_
_Plate III_
[Illustration: Fig. 3. A sandstorm seen from among the Barrier Reefs]
=DESERT AND WATER GARDENS
OF THE
RED SEA=
BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE NATIVES AND THE
SHORE FORMATIONS OF THE COAST
BY
CYRIL CROSSLAND
M.A. Cantab., B.Sc. Lond., F.L.S., F.Z.S.
Marine Biologist to the Sudan Government
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1913
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
TO MY WIFE
TO WHOSE BRAVE ENDURANCE OF A LARGE
SHARE OF MY EXILE IS OWING MUCH
OF WHATEVER I HAVE ACHIEVED, OR
OF WHAT SUCCESS MAY YET BE MINE
PREFACE
It is my fortune to know intimately a portion of the Red Sea coast,
that between 18° N. and 22° N. on the western side. This must
be one of the least known coastlines of the world. Until 1905,
the Admiralty Chart shewed an area of 25 square miles of reef,
which the surveys run for the approaches to the new town of Port
Sudan have proved to be non-existent. Though a considerable distance
north of this point has now been accurately surveyed, practically no
details of the great barrier system of reefs leading up to the Rawaya
Peninsula, or of the land inside the coastline, have yet been mapped.
As I shall shew later, certain features of the maritime plain are of
the greatest interest, but they have only been hurriedly examined
by Mr Dunn, one of the Sudan Government geologists; and no survey
of the country has yet been made.
The explanation is not to be found in any laxity in either the
Admiralty or the Sudan Government surveyors. Considering that the
country is an absolutely unproductive desert, traversed only by a
sparse population of nomads, that no steamer passes within miles
of the outermost reefs, that the native vessels sail by perhaps
at the rate of one a month, the existing chart is a monument to
the greatness of the Admiralty’s conception of taking the whole
world for its province, even the most useless desert coasts.
Perhaps the fact that this country, though so near to Europe, is
only artificially made habitable at all, may add interest to my
account; but besides the description of things and peoples more or
less unique and peculiar to this country, I have aimed at giving
information of general interest. For instance, in treating of the
coral reefs I describe features of the barrier system which may be
unique in the world, but I have combined with the description of
this special point a general account of coral animals and the reefs
which they build. This may recall and complete the interesting
conversations I have had on such subjects with friends both at
home and in those places where the very streets and houses were
once parts of coral reefs.
Biologists have one way of justifying their existence which has to
some extent been neglected. Their reply to the eternal question
“What good is it? where does the money come in?” should be,
in some cases, that of the artist. Just as there are those to whom
the love of beauty in pictures, sculpture and architecture is one
of the things in life they would least wish to lose, to whom the
existence of professional artists is more than justified, so there
are many outside the ranks of professional biologists, to whom the
romance of the beginnings of life, and of strange lowly forms of
being, might become an absorbing interest, an enrichment of life
in which money does not necessarily “come in” at all.
This is an interest especially accessible to the exiles of the
coral seas, where ordinary amusements are so restricted that their
repetition produces a sense of loneliness and monotony scarcely
conceivable by the man of normal surroundings. For these among my
friends I have written, beginning from the beginning and omitting as
not pertinent to the questions they ask me, many points vital to the
science of animal anatomy, but not essential to their understanding
perfectly such questions as, “What is the coral organism? How
does it build up these rocks?”
These questions are my own special province, I deal with them as
an expert though writing so briefly, but in the rest of the book
I have made no attempt at writing a treatise on anthropology or a
guide book to the Sudan coast, but only to present what is to me
beautiful, interesting or amusing in the places and people as I see
them. What I describe I write of with all the accuracy of which my
words are capable; so far as it goes, all is strictly true. But
alas, no one has yet written of the beauty of this desert coast
as it should be written. Could I describe one half the beauty of
the memory pictures I owe to this country, I should be a poet,
whereas I am only a man of facts.
I wonder much at the neglect of this route through the Red Sea
by those who make extended journeys on the Nile. From Atbara a
perfectly comfortable train journey carries one swiftly through
desert and mountains to either Port Sudan or Suakin. I trust that I
have written clearly enough to prove that a few days on this coast
is time well spent.
Finally, this route to Khartum and Uganda is a quicker and cheaper
one than that by the Nile.
Prof. J. Stanley Gardiner’s reading and criticism of what follows
is but one of many kindnesses, and is especially valuable in the
case of the chapters on corals and reefs, of which our knowledge
has been so greatly added to by Prof. Gardiner’s researches.
CYRIL CROSSLAND.
WINDERMERE,
_September_ 1912.
POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE
On reading my book for the press I find that it has a moral,
a thing never intended! It is that real romance and beauty are
to be found in things as they are, so that the man of science,
popularly supposed to be hardened by “materialistic” pursuits,
has opportunities for a truer worship than has the sentimentalist
who bows before idols of his own imagination.
I tender my thanks to the Council of the Linnean Society who have
permitted the reproduction of most of the illustrations of Chapter IX
and some of those of Chapter VIII from my papers in their _Journal_,
vol. xxxi, in which the account of Red Sea Structure was originally
published for Scientific readers, and to Messrs Murray and the
Challenger Society for the use of two diagrams from their _Science
of the Sea_. The beautiful photograph of a Suakin mosque is by my
friend W. H. Lake, Esq.
CYRIL CROSSLAND.
DONGONAB, RED SEA.
_Sept._ 1913.
CONTENTS
PART I
THE DESERT AND ITS PEOPLE
PAGE
PREFACE vii
CHAPTER I
THE SUDAN COAST
Approach by sea through coral reefs — The maritime plain and the
mountains beyond — Desert flowers — Summer calm on the pearling
grounds — Sandstorm — Winter rain — Golden desert and turquoise
sea — Coral gardens — Port Sudan — Suakin 1