CHAPTER VI

WOMEN’S LIFE

Social position and influence — Divorce — Ibrahim’s wife,

forgiveness and death — Women’s work — Home 73

PART II

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS

CHAPTER VII

CORALS AND CORAL ANIMALS

Importance of corals — Coral polyp and sea anemone — Propagation

by cuttings — Colonial polyps — Forms of corals — Fungia —

Coral gardens — Colours — Place in marine life, and in Evolution 83

CHAPTER VIII

THE BUILDING OF REEFS

Fate of dead corals — Stony seaweeds — Rate of growth of a reef

— Destruction of coral by sponge, mollusca, &c. — Form of a

coral reef — Origin by growth of coral — Abrasion of the shore

forming reef flat — Origin of the boat channel — Distinctive

features of coral reefs formed by abrasion alone in Zanzibar,

Cape Verde Islands, and near Alexandria — Recrystallisation

of limestone — Three kinds of reef — The problem of Atolls —

Darwin’s Theory — The Funafuti boring — Atolls formed by direct

growth 98

CHAPTER IX

THE MAKING OF THE RED SEA

Climate, alternations of desert and sea conditions — Hot

sand-bearing winds — Rainfall — Peculiarities of the tide —

Canal-like shape of Red Sea — The great Rift Valley — Origin

of the “Brothers” and “Daedalus Reef” — “Emerald Island” —

The coast and reefs — Maritime plain — Its coral border —

Recent nature of internal structure of coral rock — Elevation

of coastline — Foundations of the reefs — Previous theories

inadmissible — Rawaya peninsula — Three steps on sides of Rift

Valley — Successive elevations — Harbours — Problem of their

origin — A natural promenade — Coast-wise travel — The Shubuk

labyrinth — Summary of history of the Red Sea 118

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, ETC.

PAGE

Pl. I, Fig. 1. Coast of the _inside cover

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan at beginning_

„ II, „ 2. Map of Red Sea „ „ „ _end_

„ III, „ 3. A sandstorm _frontispiece_

Fig. 4. Plan of Suakin harbour etc. 11

„ 5. Suakin, the Customs House

and Government buildings „

Pl. IV, Fig. 6. Suakin, a mosque (_Photo.

by W. H. Lake, Esq._) _to face_ 13

„ V, „ 7. „ the causeway and

town gate „ 14

„ V, „ 8. „ one of Kitchener’s

forts „ „

„ V, „ 9. Sunset on the Red Sea „ „

„ VI, „ 10. Portrait of a young Hamite „ 15

„ VII, „ 11. An Arabian Sea captain „ 16

„ VII, „ 12. A Bishari „ „

„ VII, „ 13. Negro ex-slave „ „

„ VIII, „ 14. Old Mabrûk, from Zanzibar „ 20

„ VIII, „ 15. Hamitic woman „ „

„ IX, „ 16. Elderly Bishari „ 23

„ X, „ 17. A veteran seaman „ 25

„ X, „ 18. Mutton fat hair dressing „ „

„ X, „ 19. Daggers and amulet „ „

„ X, „ 20. A woman’s hand „ „

„ XI, „ 21. Our camel postman

with native arms „ 28

„ XII, „ 22. Prayer at a Shêkh’s grave „ 36

„ XII, „ 23. Boys with amulets

and lucky stone „ „

„ XIII, „ 24. A prophet’s tomb „ 38

„ XIII, „ 25. A mediaeval tomb „ „

„ XIV, Figs. 26 and 27. Water carriers „ 50

„ XV, Fig. 28. Tent houses „ 54

„ XVI, „ 29. Goats feeding on thorn bushes „ 56

„ XVI, Figs. 30 and 31. Native utensils „ „

„ XVII, „ 32 and 33. Arabian sword dance „ 57

„ XVII, Fig. 34. Hamitic wedding dance „ „

Pl. XVIII, „ 35. Pearling canoes under sail „ 60

„ XVIII, „ 36. A pilgrim _sambûk_ „ „

Fig. 37. Outline of rigging of a _sambûk_ „

„ 38. Diagram of halyard 61

„ 39. Laden _sambûk_ under sail 62

Pl. XIX, Fig. 40. Hamitic fisherman _to face_ 65

„ XIX, „ 41. Small pearling _gatîra_ „ „

„ XIX, „ 42. Large pearling _sambûk_

with ten canoes „ „

„ XX, Figs. 43 to 46. The operations

of a pearl fisher „ 66

„ XXI, Fig. 47. Pearl-divers „ 71

„ XXII, „ 48. Spinning goats’ hair „ 74

„ XXIII, „ 49. Weaving hair cloth „ 80

„ XXIII, „ 50. A marriageable girl „ „

„ XXIV, „ 51. Baby girl with lamb „ 82

„ XXV, Figs. 52 to 57. Sea-anemones and corals „ 84

„ XXVI, Fig. 58. Some stony corals „ 88

„ XXVII, „ 59. A simple colonial coral „ 89

„ XXVIII, „ 60. Common reef building corals „ 91

„ XXIX, Figs. 61 to 63. The mushroom corals „ 92

„ XXX, „ 64 and 65. Stony seaweeds „ 100

„ XXXI, „ 66 to 70. Corals bored by

molluscs and sponges „ 102

Diagram 1. Features of a fringing reef 104

Pl. XXXII, Fig. 71. Reef flat and undercut

cliffs, Rawaya _to face_ 104

Diagram 2. The building of a reef 105

„ 3. Further growth of the reef 106

„ 4. The abrasion of the coast „

„ 5. Formation of fringing reef 107

Pl. XXXIII, Fig. 72. Portion of a reef flat _to face_ 108

„ XXXIII, „ 73. The under surface of

the same stone „ „

„ XXXIV, „ 74. A fringing reef in sandstone,

Cape Verde Islands „ 110

„ XXXIV, „ 75. Embryo reef near Alexandria „ „

„ XXXV, Figs. 76 and 77. Cliffs of “coral rag”

in Zanzibar „ 112

Diagram 6. Formation of atoll by direct growth. (From

Fowler’s _Science of the Sea_: J. Murray) 115

„ 7. Formation of a rift valley 122

„ 8. Atoll growing on summit of a volcanic mound.

(From Fowler’s _Science of the Sea_: J. Murray) 124

Fig. 78. Coast of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 126

Pl. XXXVI, Fig. 79. Yemêna oasis on

the maritime plain _to face_ 128

Pl. XXXVII, Figs. 80 and 81. Corals on summit

of Jebel Têtâwib „ 129

„ XXXVIII, „ 82 „ 83. Two views in

Yemêna ravine „ 131

Fig. 84. Map of reefs off Port Sudan 137

Diagram 9. Section through Rawaya and Makawar 138

Fig. 85. Map of Rawaya, etc 139

Diagram 10. Levelling action of the sea 140

Pl. XXXIX, Figs. 86 and 87. Two views on Rawaya _to face_ 140

Diagram 11. Reefs off Ras Salak 142

Pl. XL, Fig. 88. In a fault ravine

of Abu Shagarato _to face_ 143

Fig. 89. Sketch of Jebel Têtâwib,

coral and gypsum beds 144

Diagram 12. Three steps on side of Red Sea Rift Valley 145

Figs. 90 and 91. Types of harbours 147-8

ERRATA

p. 88. _For_ Hydniopora _read_ Hydnopora.

p. 120. Halaib is a name unknown to natives, who call

the place Olê. From this the official name is

derived through Arab orthography probably. The

Arabic alphabet is the best possible for its

own language, and the worst for any other.

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE SUDAN COAST

In thinking of an unknown place it is inevitable that some image

should rise in the mind and recur until it is finally shattered

by the revelation of its almost total falsity which a visit to

that country brings about. My own imaginings, based on what I had

seen in passing through the Red Sea on my way to Zanzibar, were

fantastically unreal. I saw blue mountain tops like jagged teeth

appearing over the horizon at sunset, and combining these with

what I had seen of the reefs and islands of the Gulf of Suez and

Bab-el-Mandeb, it came as a shock, some years later, to find that

the essential of life on the coast is the great maritime plain,

the mountains remaining in the distance, still inaccessible for me.

My first actual sight of the country was typical of the cloudy

weather which sometimes occurs in winter. Our little steamer was

entering the great gap in the barrier reefs five miles out to sea,

directly opposite to what is now the harbour of Port Sudan. Then it

was only “Mersa Shêkh Barûd[1],” a saint’s tomb forming the

only work of man for many miles. Grey sea and sky, blue mountains,

faintly visible beyond the great dull plain, greeted me; later,

the little tomb, built on a knoll of yellow coral rock at the

entrance of the inlet, a mark for sailors, gleamed white out of

all this greyness. Coming nearer still, one saw that the shore is

composed of a low level line of yellowish cliffs, about six feet

high, undermined below by the constant wash of the waves and sloping

inwards at their summits. The shore is separated from the blue-black

water by a broad band of green shallows, its outer edge defined by a

thin white line of breakers. This is the edge of the fringing reef,

which is practically uniform and continuous through the length of

both shores of the Red Sea. We were sailing in a channel of fairly

deep water partially protected from the waves of the open sea by

the barrier reefs. These are a series of shoals and surface reefs,

extending parallel to the shore, at a distance of one to five miles

out to sea.

This, my first view of the country, may be taken as typical of the

whole coast, variations in its uniformity being few. The weather

that day was rather exceptional, for often in winter there is all

the incomparable sparkle of sunshine and crisp breeze of Egypt,

and the mountains, in this wonderful air, come nearer. There are

days when I have seen distinctly all the light and shade of their

precipices 80 miles away. I leave to your imagination the clearness,

almost brilliance, of the great mountains seen at only 15 miles on

such days as these. Even so they do not lose their dignity of form

and distance, while revealing their vast precipices and terrible

ravines, all bare rock, no vegetation, or even soil, to soften their

outlines. Truly they are a “great and terrible wilderness.” So

too is the plain, vast and uniform, all open to the sky—neither

the few acacia bushes[2], nor the sparse tufts of apparently dead and

almost woody grass serving to render it soft and pleasant to the eye,

nor to cover its grey sand and gravel from scorching in the rays

of the sun. Great and terrible, a naked savage land, every feature

typifying thirst and starvation, so it became to me during my first

visit. I was glad indeed to leave, half hoping I should never return.

In absence savagery and poverty faded, and I found myself picturing

the mountains at sunrise, ruddy clear, the peacock blue of the deep

sea with white waves, the light blues, greens, yellows, and browns

of the coral reefs and the submarine gardens they shelter, and so

back again to the mountains at evening, veiled now in the tender

blues and purples of our hills at home, but behind them sunsets of

indescribable magnificence. To memory came back that great plain,

its openness, its sense of freedom wild as the sea itself, which

indeed once gave it birth. I thought of how after a little winter

rain there comes the spring; the sand is dotted with little flowers,

weeds elsewhere perhaps, here brave conquerors of the desert; the

shallow watercourses are full of grass. The acacia bushes become a

tender green with a moss-like growth of tiny curling leaves giving

out the sweetest of scents, recalling our larches at home. Later

they are covered with flowers, like little balls of scented down

on slender stalks.

Two of those transiently appearing plants, amongst the commonest

of all, have special claims. One, the little “forget-me-not”

of the desert, is loved individually for its pure white flowers,

the other, for its effects when growing in mass. This latter has

a peculiar form, a network of branches springing from a central

stem, spread out horizontally over the sand, bearing cylindrical

bright green leaves and tiny yellow flowers. The whole plant is

of great delicacy, and would be unnoticed by the non-botanical

observer but that it is sometimes so abundant as to carpet the

ground like a bright green moss, which later is golden from the

abundance of its tiny flowers. At the approach of summer, the

heat of which has an effect like a touch of frost in England,

its leaves take on splendid autumn tints. Once I landed on an

islet circled with the low grey-green bushes always present on

sand islands, within which I found a display of colour the beauty

of which will enrich my store of memory pictures for the rest of

my life. The principal scheme was a golden carpet of these tiny,

almost microscopic flowers merging into a bright and tender green,

and on to all kinds of orange browns and reds. Here and there another

of the plants of this peculiar salt-loving flora gave patches of

wonderful deep crimson. These vivid colours were thrown up by the

dull grey green of the encircling bushy plants, which remain the

same all the year round, and by clumps of a “grass[3]” which is

of a deep glossy green colour like that of rushes, the whole being

in a shallow depression in the dull yellow coral rock. All the

transient beauty of changing bracken, moss, and heather was here,

but with a wonderful quality of translucence under that blazing

sun. As a background to all this imagine the bluest of blue seas

and mountains seen over the water, and the picture is complete.

The only really conspicuous flower of the coast lands is a

_Pancratium_, a bulb-plant with pure white delicately scented

flowers about the size and something of the shape of the British

wild daffodil. Unfortunately, this is rather rare, but after all

size is but one quality out of many, and certainly not one essential

to beauty or interest. An _Abutilon_ is found in dry stream beds.

The existence of perennial, herbaceous vegetation, remaining green

after the winter vegetation has shrivelled, in a country where there

may be no rain at all for four years[4], a land of scorching sun and

hot winds alternating with steamy damp days, where the wells are

so salt that ordinary plants die at once when watered from them,

where sand-laden gales may cut one’s face and grind the surface

of glass, is a wonderful display of the power of adaptation to the

most adverse conditions, a magnificent success in the struggle for

existence. We have the development of a special flora, a selection of

plants from many distinct families, which has acquired the ability to

live in the salt sands and in crannies of bare rocks by the sea. The

commonest of these are two plants which have special beauties. One,

_Statice plumbaginoides_, grows generally on bare coral rock, and

has large flower-heads of a beautiful pink colour, like sprays of

heather contrasting with its dark green leaves. The other, _Suaeda

volkensii_, which grows only in sand, has nothing that looks like

leaf or flower, but seems to consist of branched rows of translucent

green beads. The special beauty of this plant, apart from its shewing

green life on such inhospitable sand, is the wonderful tints it

takes on at certain times. Every autumn longer spikes appear, which

become of brilliant translucent orange or crimson, like the changes

of leaves in northern woods. It is a case where the colour is due

to the flower bracts, the flowers themselves being inconspicuous.

A few pictures, of summer calm and storm, and my foundations for

a visual impression of the country are laid. Just south of Suakin

is an area of (approximately) 100 square miles consisting of a

labyrinth of coral reefs with winding passages of deep water, and

here and there open pools. Slowly my vessel picks its way through

the wholly uncharted and unbeaconed maze. There is, indeed, no

immediate necessity for aids to navigation, for the breeze, fresh

but not strong, ripples the water so that the reefs shew among the

blue-green of the deeper channels as clearly as the white squares

of a chess board. They are all beautiful shades of green as the

water over them is more or less shallow, merging into yellow where

a sand-bank approaches the surface, and richest brown where beds of

living corals grow. Ahead is the outer reef, an unbroken line of

foam separating these calm waters and lighter tints from the deep

blue, the colour of a peacock’s neck, of the open wave-tossed

sea. Landwards are the mountains, faint and hazy in the heat. The

coastal plain is invisible under the horizon; despite our shallow

waveless water and the presence of reefs, we are far out at sea.

Two or three native boats, painted dark red, add a finishing touch

to the colour scheme. They are anchored in these landless harbours,

while their crews are scattered in canoes, mere black specks,

searching for the pearl shell oysters which occur here at rare

intervals.

My storm picture (see frontispiece) has a similar reef harbour for

its foreground, but we are only five miles out at sea on the barrier

system, north of Port Sudan. To-day the reefs are barely visible,

for with us it is almost a dead calm. All those colours of shoaling

sand and coral beds are only visible when the water is rippled. A

few stones, mere specks here and there above the glassy surface

alone shew the presence of a reef on which no swell is breaking.

Calm is thus more dangerous to a steamer than storm, for should she

approach the reef areas before picking up the beacons and lighthouse

that mark the entrances to Port Sudan and Suakin, she runs great risk

of striking an invisible reef. Sailing vessels are safe, as whenever

they are under way the water is rippled and the reefs easily seen.

But landwards peace gives way to storm. The mountains are purple,

inky clouds with lurid white edges blot out the blue. The sea is

black with wind, white puffs of spindrift rise, drive over the water

and disappear again. Some native vessels, which last night may have

anchored in land-locked harbours some miles astern of us, are racing

before the north wind, only daring to shew a corner of their great

lateen main-sails, while we have not wind enough to find our way

out of the reef-labyrinth in which we anchored for the night. Later

arises a dun-coloured cloud in the north—a dust-storm. Rapidly this

bears down upon us, increasing in size as it comes, till it reaches

towards the zenith, blotting out the storm clouds, mountains, and

plain with a pall as dense as a curtain. For those in the cloud the

wind is burning hot[5]; the fine dust covers the face, cakes the

eyelashes and even the teeth. One’s face is made sore with the

impact of the coarser particles; sight is as impossible as in the

densest London fog. One must lower one’s sails and trust there are

no reefs within the distance the vessel may drift before the storm

blows itself out. After the dust may come a furious squall of rain.

Here, where rain is so visibly the coming of life to the earth, it

is fitly heralded by the full majesty of vast cloud mountains with

snowy summits, from whose dark bases issue continuous lightnings

and thunder. In such weather heavy squalls may be expected from any

quarter, causing much anxiety to sailors used to the regular winds

of the Red Sea. One cloud mass may grow until the sky is covered,

mountains hidden in a black veil of rain, a furious wind hiding

the shore by a great brown cloud of dust. Before the squall reaches

the vessel sail is reduced to a mere corner of the great triangle

usually spread, amid much excited shouting. Lightning and thunder

become almost continuous and the sea is lashed white with rain and

spray. It is as cold and dark as night, and impossible to see more

than a few yards ahead, all idea of entering harbour is given up and

a look-out is kept _downwards_ in case the vessel may pass over a

shoal (which would be visible five fathoms down, in the clear water)

on which she could anchor till the storm passed off. Suddenly a tiny

rift appears in the cloud mass ahead; a mountain top becomes visible

through the rain, then the masts of a vessel in harbour. In five

minutes we may have passed from darkness, storm, and anxious peering

through rain, to the bright sunshine and calm of a summer sea.

Could the love of beauty, the artist’s sense of colour, find any

object in this bare land, dead yellow rock and sands bordering

a waste of sea? What is there to replace the infinite variety

of colour, of ferny rock, heathery moors and sedgy pools of the

desert places of our own land? At times the lover of beauty, even of

colour, can be fully satisfied, for the sun alone can throw over this

emptiness a glory like that of the golden streets and jewelled gates

of the prophet’s vision. The sea becomes one splendid turquoise,

the coral rock more beautiful than gold, the mountains, mere heaps

of dead rock though they are, savage and repellent, change to great

tender masses of lovely colour, ruddy violets and pinks, luminous as

though they had some source of light within themselves and shared

in the joy they give to the solitary beholder; changing as the

sun sinks to deeper colder shades, announcing the benediction of

a perfect night. Vessels entering harbour, their crews returning

home after a week at sea, become fairy craft, each sail like the

rare pink pearls found within the rosy edge of certain shells.

To visit sunset land is but a dream of children, happiness is nearer

than the sunset clouds. That gold has been thrown about our feet,

over the common stones and bitter waters, and we have gathered

spiritual wealth. The kingdom of heaven is within us and the vision

of Patmos realised.

One thing necessary to the happiness of a nature-lover the desert

can never supply. One needs some sight of luxuriant, riotous life,

some equivalent for the rapid growth of grass and trees, that

overflowing of life that in other lands causes every vacant inch

of soil to bear some weed or flower.

The satisfaction of this desire is easily found _in_ the Red Sea,

not above it. At present the love of the sea gardens is an esoteric

pleasure, some day we hope it may become as universal as the love of

wild nature inland. Corals to take the place of plants, fishes and

lower animals of all kinds, beautiful, bizarre, useful and poisonous,

making gardens of teeming life under water, where the very worms

are often beautiful as flowers. In the harbours where the water is

stagnant, but clearer than any British sea, besides corals are weeds

of all kinds and shapes, among which swim numbers of little fish of

comical form, quaintly tame and gorgeously coloured. The biologist

knows, however, that these strangely coloured weeds, brown, grey,

green, violet, red and yellow, are mostly animals like the corals,

some are sponges, some, like clusters of brown or grey daisies,

a kind of cousin of the coral polyps. That large feathery flower,

white, yellow, or reddish brown, will vanish like a flash if

touched. It is nothing more nor less than the head of a worm, not

much like the slow-moving senseless earthworm, but one which builds

a house for its protection among crannies of the stones, into which

it can withdraw its plumed head, sensitive to even a passing shadow.

The multitude of forms assumed by the corals, their frequently

gorgeous colours, equal anything to be seen in a land garden. These

grow in greatest luxuriance outside the harbour where the water

is of astonishing clarity. It is owing to the vigour of their

growth that the edge of the reef is nearly a vertical wall, so that

looking down strange beautiful shapes are seen one below another,

weird fish entering and leaving their lairs under the coral tangle,

till in the pure blue depths the forms of coral and fish become

indistinct and pass into the haze of water 60 feet or more deep.

The portion of the coast I have described is typical of the

whole. The mountains may be lower or higher, the plain is narrower

in the south, broader in the north, and the sea is varied with a few

islands about Rawaya and islets of coral rock or sand form the Suakin

Archipelago. These sand cays, if always above highest water-level,

are peculiar in bearing quite a dense border of low-growing woody

plants, at a level immediately above high tide. The rocky islets

are almost entirely bare, yellow in colour, surrounded by cliffs

like those described at Shêkh Barûd (Port Sudan), and generally

level-topped.

In the thousand miles of this side of the Red Sea coast below Suez

there are but two towns, Kossêr, in Egypt, now decayed to a mere

village, and Suakin. The new town, Port Sudan, the building of

which only began in 1905, is, as the name implies, merely the

end of the railway communicating with the real Sudan, “the

country of the blacks” far over the mountains, by the Nile. It

has no significance as a part of this country; the Briton came,

took over the bare desert round the wonderful natural harbour of

Shêkh Barûd and built there a perfectly modern town, quay walls

that the largest ships may lie alongside, electric cranes for

their cargoes, and electric light for the town, a grand opening

railway bridge over the harbour and every modern need of a great

port and terminus. No longer is the tomb the only mark for sailors;

one of the finest lighthouses in the world stands on Sanganeb Reef,

and the harbour itself is complete with all necessary lights and

beacons, the entrance being naturally as safe and easy as if it

had been planned by Providence as a harbour for big steamers[6].

The Romance of Modern Power did attempt to live with that of the

Eastern beauty of a desert metropolis in old Suakin, but the site

was too cramped and Suakin is now left much as it was before the

railway linked it with the Nile and made it, for a brief season,

a station on a great thoroughfare.

Owing to the existence of the barrier reefs the approach to

Suakin is down a 30-mile passage parallel to the coast, and

from two to five miles wide. The shore becomes very low, and the

fringing-reef wider than near Port Sudan, so that the distinction

between sea and shore would be almost untraceable but for the

presence of those salt-loving plants which grow everywhere along

high water-mark. Suakin is situated two miles inland, at the head

of the inlet which forms its harbour, yet so low is the land that

its houses appear over the horizon as though standing in the sea. A

cluster of tall houses becomes distinct later over the starboard

bow and finally, when the town is nearly abeam, a channel in the

shore reef, hitherto invisible, opens out and, instead of a harbour

we enter a narrow winding natural canal of deep water, passing

[Illustration: Fig. 4. Plan of Suakin]

for a mile through the shallow water on the reefs, its course marked

by the contrast between its deep blue and the varying pearly tints

of the reef shallows. The regularity of the canal

[Illustration: Fig. 5. SUAKIN. The Customs House and Government

buildings

(C on plan)]

is astonishing when one remembers that it is purely natural, and

not a river but an inlet of the sea. Then the reefs are replaced by

low-lying land of yellow coral rock. We pass the tombs of shêkhs,

cubical or domed, each with its set of tattered flags which are

presented at intervals by the pious. Before us the harbour expands

slightly and the canal forks; an island thus formed bears a solid

mass of tall and graceful white houses, beneath which, to the right,

cluster the short sloping masts of native vessels; beyond all,

over the sunlit plain, the mountains. I know no other town which can

compare with Suakin in the fair white dignity which it shews to one

approaching. It is the realisation of one’s romantic image of an

Arabian desert town. No higher praise could be given than by saying

that this fair view of Suakin may replace and enlarge the image

of our romantic dreams, and yet I give this praise deliberately,

careless of contradiction.

Suakin is indeed a long way from being a city of palaces, as

its residents know full well. There are no cathedral mosques, no

citadel like that of Cairo. The buildings which made our view of

fairyland include quite prosaic offices of the Bank, Quarantine,

Eastern Telegraph, the Government House and the Customs. The rest are

private houses occupied by very ordinary persons, Arab merchants and

so on. All are either Arab buildings slightly adapted to their modern

uses, or built by Arab architects in their own style. I suppose

Suakin owes its fascination largely to its site. The houses appear

so high and graceful, rising as they do directly from the water’s

edge or from land only a foot or two above that level. Then the two

branches of the harbour enclose it and render its boundary definite

and compact, no straggling into dingy suburbs, on this side at least,

and yet no hiding of the true town behind walls. Frankly, complete

and self-contained, calmly the town faces the never-ruffled waters

of its harbour, and looks over the great plain towards mountains

and sea. Jedda, by comparison, is a finer and larger town, with more

of architectural beauty, and also purely Arabian, but it is on the

open shore, so lacking the ordered approach, the definiteness of

site of Suakin, lying in its arms of the sea.

_Plate IV_

[Illustration: Fig. 6. A Suakin Mosque

(_Photo by W. H. Lake, Esq._)]

We do not expect much noise of traffic in the city of our fairyland,

nor much display in the public buildings of our desert city. True

this ancient and religious city is full of white-washed mosques,

and of domes over the tombs of shêkhs, but their minarets are

often no higher than the surrounding houses, and marble pillars

give place to painted wood, but the minarets, short and free from

carving and other ornament though they be, are quaintly graceful;

they are neither Turkish nor Egyptian, but purely Arabian in design

(Plate IV)[7]. One would not wish to alter the stern yet peacegiving

simplicity of the places where generations of men of the desert

and sea have prayed, for the more ornate buildings of richer lands.

Well do I remember waking at sunrise after a night spent under the

stars on a flat house-roof, to a scene of beauty that does much

to reconcile me to the monotony and loneliness of exile in Suakin,

and help me to bear the terrible heat of summer days. Sunrise over

the sea, a great blaze of gold following the pearly pinks which

made the sky like the inside of a lovely shell. Houses and mosques

purest white, no stain shewing in that fresh light. Over the grey

plain I cannot tell whether what I see is mere gravel or a layer

of grey morning mist, from which rise the deep red foot-hills,

and beyond are the high mountains in perfect clearness, first

purple then ruddy, all detail visible, yet with no loss of aerial

perspective. From the harbour below come the voices of sailors,

“Al-lah, Al-lah” is the word distinct among the babel as they

call upon God and His Prophet for help in the task in hand. But

one who has come in from a sojourn of weeks in the desert rests

his eye with infinite pleasure on a spot in the near distance,

the oasis of Shâta, where, just beyond the embankment between two

of the forts which were built to keep Suakin from the dervishes,

the tops of green trees nestle. One promises oneself a walk out

there to the trees and gardens in the afternoon, when it is not

cool indeed, but still a little cooler. Meanwhile though the sun

has risen not half an hour it is scorching already, and one must

seek shelter from it and prepare for the day’s work.

A history of Suakin would be worth reading, but it remains mostly

unwritten; though since the times of Gordon it might be extracted

from reports and newspapers. Gordon was once Governor-General of

the Red Sea, and the “Mudiria,” or Government House of Suakin,

was his official headquarters. Traces of the railway begun for

his relief in Khartûm, but never finished, the outlying forts

once attacked by dervish fanatics, are within easy reach, and

the nearer ones for the defence of the Shâta Wells and the town

itself are close at hand. Even the rifle trenches, the barbed wire

entanglements and such temporary defences, though nothing has been

done for their preservation, are still present to shew how near,

in Suakin, we are to those famous fights.

_Plate V_

[Illustration: Fig. 7. Suakin. The causeway and town gate (A

on plan)]

[Illustration: Fig. 8. Suakin. One of Kitchener’s forts (B

on plan)]

[Illustration: Fig. 9. Sunset on the Red Sea]

_Plate VI_

[Illustration: Fig. 10. A young man of the Amarar

(_Note absence of sewn clothing_)]

CHAPTER II

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS

NOTE. My account of the natives is based on my dealings with the

people at a point about a hundred miles north of Port Sudan, on the

boundary between the tribes of Bisharia and Amarar, but it would

apply to those of the south in most essentials.

_Nationalities_

Three perfectly distinct nationalities have representatives on

this coast[8]. Besides the natives proper there are true Arabs from

the other side of the Red Sea, and negroes, who are slaves or the

descendants of slaves brought over the mountains from the upper

Nile valley.

The true natives are called, and call themselves, Arabs, and many

of them speak Arabic. For all that they are no more Arabs than they

are Europeans, being of Hamitic not of Semitic race, allied to the

ancient Egyptians and far less mingled with Arab blood than are

the so-called “Arabs” of Modern Egypt[9].

This western shore being altogether too poor a country for the

evolution of real sea-going vessels, and the Arabs of the eastern

side being one of the first of the sailor and exploring nations of

the world, it is no wonder that all the traffic of the Red Sea is

carried out by Arabs, and that Arabs are to be found in every village

of the coast. Besides the sailors they supply the shop-keepers,

merchants and skilled artisans, and nowadays many come over to

work as labourers in Port Sudan. The two types, Hamitic natives and

Semitic Arabs, can therefore be seen together and contrasted very

easily. (Compare Figs. 11, 12 and 13 on Plate VII and Fig. 10.) Apart

from dress the following important physical differences are obvious

at first sight. The West Coast man is generally the taller,

much darker in colour, and with smaller features, especially a

smaller and straighter nose. He is as often “good looking” as

is the Arab, and that perhaps, is the most generally appreciable

difference between him and the negro. In contrast with the Arab his

hair is a “fuzzy” mop not _jet_ black[10] nor merely curly. His

beard[11] is scantier, though to both it is the most precious of

personal beauties. Mentally, though many are very intelligent, he

is the inferior of the Arab who has occupied all the skilled trades

in the country, but he is the superior again of the negro. It is

however debateable whether this effect may not be partly due to the

civilisation of a more populous and richer country having brought

out the capabilities of those Arabs who possess any.

_Plate VII_

[Illustration: Fig. 11. An Arabian Sea captain]

[Illustration: Fig. 12. An old man of the Bisharin]

[Illustration: Fig. 13. A negro ex-slave]

I have had closer personal acquaintance, than is generally possible

to an Englishman, with more than fifty natives, and know the

character and capabilities of each individual among them. Some

are intelligent, some stupid, varying extremely, just as much as a

corresponding number of English labourers. On the whole I should

think too that they vary between much the same limits. Our chief

sailor, an Arab, is not far ahead of the best of the natives,

and Arabs I have met are often as stupid as the less intelligent

of the latter.

The negroes are quite distinct. To begin with they are black,

not merely chocolate brown, with a blackness that hardly admits of

shades, and differ from the other races in all the well-known negro

characteristics, such as shape of nose and lips, poor development

of calf, and the curious way the hair grows in little patches.

We thus have every possible shade of colour between yellow and

densest black. The Arab merchant or teacher, who rarely exposes

himself to the sun, is hardly dark enough to be called brown, but

his poorer brethren become darker, those who labour much in the

sun being as dark as the lighter Hamites. These vary down to the

darkest chocolate, and then we have the negroes. I well remember my

introduction to three new sailors who had been engaged for me in

Port Sudan. There appeared a huge negro, coal black, a giant with

a gentle voice, and on either side of him a little yellow Arab,

like two canary birds hand in hand with a crow.

Socially, the negroes come lowest in the scale; even if slaves

no longer, they are treated as complete outsiders in all affairs,

and in general with a kindly contempt. I notice for instance that

when the villagers go fishing two by two in their canoes negroes

pair off together, never Hamite and negro in one canoe. At the

same time the headman of a larger sailing vessel always wishes to

include a few negroes in his crew, their honesty and tractability,

combined with great strength, being qualities which counterbalance

dislike to close contact with them in a cramped space.

Intermarriage between Hamite and negro must be rare, as I have met

no case[12]. If the village contains no negro women, the male negro

must remain unmarried, and no regular marriage between a Hamite

man and a black woman has come under my observation, though this

union is the more likely to occur. Exceptional men from among

them have always risen at intervals, and the British rule, in

giving a greater equality of opportunity to all races, will cause

more negroes to come to the front. There is some intermingling

between the two first races, as Arab sailors are not different from

others in liking to have a wife in every port, but it is not at all

extensive. The Arabs form no permanent settlement on the coast, the

sailor classes at least rarely or never bringing over their women,

and the merchants save money to end their days at home. Labourers

and sailors will only contract for limited periods; they are soon

homesick and go off with their savings for so long as the latter

will last. Of the Arabs in my employ only one has settled down and

taken a wife on this side. While the native sailor is always in debt

and scarcely able to live on his wages (whether £2 a month or £3,

it is all the same in many cases) I was astonished at one Arab who

kept coming to me and handing over money for safe keeping until I

had £5 or so besides what other savings he had. Having accumulated

this fortune he gave me a month’s notice and went off to his own

country, returning and saving when that was spent. One of my men

who was getting the magnificent wages of £4 a month brought his old

father-in-law over, but the suggestion that he should also bring his

wife and settle down in the house I promised to build for him was

met simply by the regretful statement, “It is not our custom to

bring our women over the sea.” He has so lost the best job he is

likely to find in the Red Sea, for soon after he declared he could

no longer stand being away from his own people and returned home.

In my village at least there is a strong prejudice against such

marriages, and the above is the reason. Among less than a hundred

families I know of two cases where a daughter has married an Arab

and been left with a young family to support, with her father’s

and brothers’ assistance. Naturally that makes the Arab distinctly

unpopular as a son-in-law.

The negroes, being a minority and, though permanent residents, not

natives of the country, I have less to say of them and so dispose

of them first.

I have already referred to their comparatively industrious and frugal

habits, and to their subordination. These qualities are less romantic

than are the desert restlessness and blood feuds of the Hamites, but

they endear them to the administrator, whether of justice or of work.

In manner some are undignified, just “jolly niggers,” but others

have as good a bearing as any Arab.

They have all been slaves, some to within a year or two, their

histories demonstrating the efficacy of the government’s repression

of slave dealing, even within the country, and in the second and

third of the cases I give, the proof is striking.

Several have very similar stories. They remember little of their

capture, in remote provinces of the Sudan, as all were then boys of

ten or twelve at most. One remembers that his father was killed. Four

practically began life in Jedda, where they were first set to tend

camels, then sent with the pearling fleet up and down the coast,

even as far as Aden and Jibûti, in French Somaliland. At this time

several formed friendships which induced them to foregather in my

village when they were free.

After years in the pearling fleet, three were sold in Suakin to

“Arabs” of the Atbara district, many miles inland, over the

mountains and desert, towards Berber. A fourth reached the same tribe

by a more adventurous way. Peacefully tending camels for his master

near Handûb, in the Red Sea hills, in ignorance of the vicinity

of war, he suddenly found himself in the midst of battle[13], and,

after receiving a stray bullet through the leg, was carried off by

Osman Digna’s dervishes in their flight to Tokar.

After the capture of Tokar in 1891, this being the conclusion of

the war on the Red Sea coast, he was sold to pearlers from Masawa,

finally, at Suakin, to the tribe from the Atbara.

Two others, who had been born in the service of one master in the

above-mentioned district, are here. One explained his presence,

across hundreds of miles of desert and the Red Sea mountains,

by stating that he had heard that his “brother” was doing

well in Suakin. There was no romantic desert flight, he took the

train near Berber, with his master’s concurrence, possibly with

his assistance also. His owner had said simply, “I have all the

slaves I can manage, go or stay as you like.” Such a permission,

given freely to two slaves of the most valuable kind, about thirty

years old, of powerful physique, intelligent, docile and industrious,

is emphatic evidence of the impossibility of sale nowadays. If a

secret sale could have been effected, the sacrifice would have been

too great, even for an old man anxious to lay up treasure in Heaven.

It is strange enough to find in this tiny village on the edge of

the world, men from Darfur and the sources of the Nile, but we have

even a Swahili from Zanzibar. Old Mabrûk’s life has been far from

that of the “Blessed One” his name signifies. He was kidnapped

when a boy of ten or twelve, in the days of old Sultan Bargash, away

from the island of plenty, to spend the rest of his days on desert

coasts. The old ruse, of offering him some coppers to carry a parcel

aboard a _sambûk_, started him on the journey from which he never

returned. He found himself with “two hundred” others beating

up desert coasts for “seven months[14],” through the Gate of

Tears into the Red Sea, to Hodêda, and thence to Jedda. There they

were thrust into a tiny house by the sea (here Mabrûk indicated

my bookshelf as approximately the size of the house!) and sold a

few at a time at night.

_Plate VIII_

[Illustration: Fig. 14. Old Mabrûk, from Zanzibar]

[Illustration: Fig. 15. Hamitic woman

Two cotton shawls form her complete dress]

After a year in Jedda he was sent in a _sambûk_ loaded with camels

to Suakin, where he obtained his liberty, he scarcely knows how. He

was employed aboard a _sambûk_ used by Government to convey money

and stores to its _employés_ at the three coast villages, and in

the course of time his son was with him as his fellow-sailor. One

night, while in fancied security in a desert harbour, they were set

upon by “forty” Arabians, who took them, the Government money,

stores, and all, to Jedda. Here he was a slave again, working at

collecting fodder in a state of semi-starvation. Two others of

the crew had escaped in the night; the rest, including his son,

were taken inland and he never saw them again. His skipper, being a

freeman, a Hamite not a negro, was not enslaved, but was an exile,

until an acquaintance from this side found him and took him home

to Suakin. The portrait of this veteran is shewn on Plate X.

After three months came his great adventure, his crossing the whole

Red Sea in a stolen canoe, a mere dug-out about fifteen feet long by

a little over two broad. This feat is part of one of the stories of

Saint Flea (page 37) and seemed legendary until Mabrûk appeared,

a man who had done it in actual life, and whose canoe is in sight

from my window.

Like the saint he had no store of food and but little water; it was

dead calm, and only those who have been exposed to the Red Sea sun

can appreciate the wonder of his endurance, in paddling for eight

days, and of his good fortune in landing at the only village in three

hundred miles of coast. The present Governor of the Red Sea Province,

being on a tour of inspection, revived the half dead man with wine,

food, and water, and sent him on to Suakin, where the “Pasha”

gave him three months’ pay and offered him work on another

_sambûk_. He was tired of the sea, and preferred to wander up the

coast in his stolen canoe, gaining a precarious living by fishing.

The old man’s misfortunes have left him some humour yet, he

chuckles delightedly at the idea of his secure and honourable

possession of the stolen canoe, forgetting the suffering with

which he paid for it, and how near he was to death by thirst,

or more mercifully, by the waves of the sea.

Another, who was skipper of a coasting vessel until he went blind

lately, and whose portrait is on Plate VII, was stolen in Kordofan

when a boy, and taken to Cairo, where shopping with the cook is

all the hard labour he remembers. Then his master, in pious mood,

gave him his paper of freedom, “for the sake of our Lord.” This

happened at Suez, which led the freedman to the life on merchant

and pearling _sambûks_ which he has followed since, and which has

thrice taken him as far as Basra on the Euphrates.

It was at Aden he heard that money was to be had in vast quantities

by labourers, in the making of the new town of Port Sudan, and there

he was engaged for me as ordinary sailor by the Arabian skipper of

my little schooner, who once had been his cabin boy or midshipman,

or whatever the equivalent may be aboard a _sambûk_!

From what I gather, this is the first time he has spent more than

a year in one place, or had a hut he could call his own, though

his beard is going grey.

After a few years’ service in my vessels he went blind, and is

reduced to living on charity, for once well deserved. Even this was

not his only trouble, for the Hamites wished to take away his baby

son, to be brought up as a slave, denying his paternity. This may,

we hope, be prevented.

Having placed our man among the other nationalities in the country,

we want to know what he is like to meet and to deal with, how he

spends his time and gets his living, what he thinks about, and how

this reacts upon his actions, in short, what kind of a man he is.

_Plate IX_

[Illustration: Fig. 16. An elderly Bishari]

I may say at once, that my experience has quite shaken my belief

(if I ever held it) in the usual notion that:

“East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”

The great mysteries of the East are the mysteries of all humanity,

and as you may scratch the Russian and find a Tartar, so you may

scratch an “Eastern” and find,—just a man, much like the rest

of us.

When we meet our friend we generally see a tall, well-made man,

light in build but strong and active, often good-looking, with a

pleasant and self-respecting expression. He may rise as we pass, to

shew respect, but offers no salutation unless his superior should

salute first. If we speak to him he will address us respectfully,

yet as an equal, first shaking hands as he would to one of his own

nation. If he is not a very poor man, or engaged in manual labour,

he is probably much more gracefully dressed than we are, in the folds

of yards of calico looped about his person, leaving arms and neck

free. True his hair, a great fuzzy mop, plastered with mutton fat,

looks a trifle ridiculous and even unclean, but Burton e.g. has,

after experience, much to say in favour of a free use of grease

in a tropical climate. Or he may wear a turban, which appears more

dignified to European eyes, being more familiar.

He displays his freedom, his membership of a desert community, not

only by his self-reliant look, but by his always carrying arms. As we

meet him, his camel has been tethered[15] before the shop where he

is obtaining provisions, and his sword, shield, or spear given into

the merchant’s keeping, our mountaineer retaining only a dagger,

stuck into a loose heavy leather belt, or having its sheath bound

round his arm, just above the elbow. The former dagger is generally a

curved blade nine inches or so long, the latter a small broad dagger

with a plain round handle. The sheaths are very ornamental, bearing

embossed patterns and strips of green leather among the brown.

Neither is he anything but proud of the evidences of his religion

and superstitions. There may be a circular patch of dust in the

middle of his forehead, where he touched the ground, bowing in

prayer, and his amulets, paper charms wrapped up in little square

leather cases worn as a necklace, or, more often, tied round the

arm immediately above the elbow, and his string of prayer beads,

are his principal ornaments. He may wear a ring or two, on his

fingers, and a narrow band round his arm, both of silver, while a

thin curved skewer, of hard wood or ibex horn, thrust through his

hair, completes his adornment.

In conversation we find him generally intelligent, rarely surly or

ill-behaved. Having self-respect himself he appreciates and returns

politeness, and is not so foolish as to interpret it as weakness. In

travelling through the desert any dusty old man will expect you

to give a friendly greeting, and the news, and smile upon you as

a friend. Unfortunately the language is rather a stumbling-block,

as many natives are not fluent in Arabic, and few British know

the Hamitic speech. However, for a friendly salutation Arabic

(or perhaps any language!) will suffice anywhere.

An introduction to a woman is not so easily arranged. Though the

women are only partially secluded, and are not veiled, even if one

knows the husband, sons, and brothers of a family quite well, the

women shew a distinct reserve. One knows their character largely

through complaints brought by their husbands, for not only does

the British lord of a desert village become their father in name,

but he is dragged at intervals into the consideration of intimate

family concerns. Also in no country can “Cherchez la femme” be

a better motto for investigating any dispute. They appear in the

background of every lawsuit and complaint, even if it at first seems

to concern men alone, and when men would let a doubtful claim go by,

it is the women who insist on their rights, as keenly on fancied

as on real, and send their men before the magistrate.

_Plate X_

[Illustration: Fig. 17. A veteran seaman]

[Illustration: Fig. 18. Hair dressed with mutton fat weeks ago]

[Illustration: Fig. 19. Three daggers and an amulet]

[Illustration: Fig. 20. Woman’s hand with stalked rings, etc.]

In person they are rather slight, and well made like the men. In

accordance with their more sheltered life they are lighter in colour,

and their dress and ornaments are altogether different, for instance

the hair is plaited into a number of tight little tails, and the

fat which is rubbed in is mixed with soot. It is nearly long enough

to reach their shoulders, and is decorated with strings of beads

and thin plates of gold. Sometimes these are in quite good taste,

in other cases the effect is merely barbaric. Though the men dress

in white only (a white which speedily becomes the general tint

of the desert), the women practically always wear coloured cotton

stuff. Dark blue with a red and yellow border is common, but the

fashion now in my village is for a red stuff with yellow threads

interwoven. Two pieces make the complete outfit, one being tied

round the waist reaches the feet, the other is laid shawl fashion

about the shoulders, and, in the case of married women, over the

head as well. The women are not veiled, but on meeting a white man

they generally draw part of their garment over their mouths.

Their ornaments consist of strings of beads round neck and waist,

silver rings for fingers and ankles, and, if possible, gold (or gilt)

ornaments for nose and ears.

I give illustrations of some of the ornaments on Plate X; note

the curious ring, stalked to display its stone, which may be mere

coloured glass or such a stone as cornelian. The nose ring must be a

trying discomfort. It is often my fate to administer medicine, and,

before drinking, the nose ring must be pushed aside, and held so, I

suppose, whenever anything is put to the mouth. The ankles bear large

scars made by the friction of the rings when they were first worn.

They are just as good-looking and intelligent as their husbands,

and young women and girls are often very pretty, the former in spite

of their nose rings. But the circumstances of their lives often give

the older women a hard expression, though I know of old women living

in the most abject poverty who remain models of genial good-nature.

The fact that the northern[16] and southern tribes, otherwise of

similar customs and beliefs, differ altogether in such a fundamental

matter as female morality, is instructive. In the south a girl who

became pregnant illegitimately would run a great risk of death at the

hands of her relatives, in the north it would be easily condoned. Not

only so, but a woman is the more valued by her husband if she

gives proof of her attractiveness to other men, even by adultery;

he has no resentment against his wife, his honour being satisfied

by an attack with his dagger on the first meeting with his rival.

The explanation that suggests itself is that the lesser rainfall

of the north, making the country able to support but a sparse

population, necessitates a greater restriction of the natural

increase than in the more habitable south. In the northern deserts

war is unknown, pestilence cannot flame from end to end of so

scattered a people, and local famines can be more or less avoided

by nomads, the men of whom are so inured to hard fare as to be able

to travel for days on dry uncooked “dûra” corn alone. Hence

the postponement of marriage which, combined with oriental licence,

brings about the result with equal certainty, and greater misery,

than do that awful trinity, War, Pestilence, and Famine.

The women may easily excuse themselves to the western critic by

asking why they should be faithful to a contract in the making

of which they had no voice, and sexual immorality cannot here be

condemned as a sin against the race as it is in the West.

In spite of the use of weapons, in private or in tribal quarrels,

examples of which I describe later, I consider no really lawless

or unintelligent race could have built up, and maintained, the

administration they have, under the circumstances of desert

life. They are elaborately subdivided into tribes and family

groups under Shêkhs[17], of superior and subordinate ranks, whose

decisions they respect as a rule. The Government has found the system

workable, and on the whole confines its attention to perfecting and

supplementing it where necessary. Cases brought before a magistrate

are often, after hearing, referred back to a Shêkh, whose decision

is, if necessary, backed up by the Civil Power. No Englishman need

carry any arms in living in or passing through their country, and,

at least in the north, he need have no fear of theft. They are

perfectly contented with the Government and respect all its agents,

pay their taxes and obey the decisions of either magistrates or

their own Shêkhs. They have a lively recollection of the Mahdist

General, Osman Digna, and their gratitude for, and jubilation

over his downfall is still expressed in ordinary conversation. I

had polite enquiries for him the other day, with remarks on the

impoverishment of the country which he caused. I fear my sailor was

disappointed to hear that he was not yet dead. Osman Digna’s men,

“fuzzies” though they were, were either foreigners brought

into the country and living upon its already poor inhabitants,

or conscripts taken more or less by force. In any case there was

very little fighting so far north as my station.

Arms, though but rarely used, are regarded as indispensable, and

no native goes a mile or two away from the towns unarmed. A leather

belt, generally a very broad heavy affair, ornamented with patterns

cut into it, carries the typical curved knife or “khangar[18]”;

or a straight dagger may be carried in a sheath which is tied

round the arm immediately above the elbow. One of these together

with a very hard heavy stick, slightly curved, and not used as a

walking-stick, is the ordinary man’s equipment, but if he goes on

a journey he takes as well a round leather shield and long sword

or a spear. If afoot he carries the former on his back, the sword

under his arm like an umbrella. Perhaps the fact that he does not

carry them after the style of the hero of romance only emphasises

the fact that they are carried as a matter of sober business. The

wounds that I have dealt with have been mere flesh wounds and

apparently had been inflicted with the curved khangar, which seems

beautifully adapted to give showy wounds without going so deep as

to endanger life. In two cases, the jugular or carotid had been

aimed at, but missed, though the great angular gash resulting was

a sufficiently disgusting sight. Almost all the natives one meets

have great scars and the reasons they give for them are generally

“only a little talk,” but of course women are concerned with

most. Trivial private quarrels have a way of becoming inter-tribal

in our neighbourhood, as we are on the boundary between the Bisharia

and Amarar. For instance two of the more serious cases which have

come about during my residence here arose as follows:

A man drawing water for his camels fell into the well and another

laughed at him. Unfortunately the two men were of different tribes

and a fight resulted, one man was knocked senseless by a blow given

end-on by one of their thick and heavy sticks, and two more were

badly cut about with knives. The former was expected to die at any

moment, and his death would confer on his relatives the right and

duty of killing the murderer, or, failing him, his next of kin. They

declared their intention, as soon as the man should die, of coming

for two of my _employés_, who were related to the murderer but who

had been at work with me during the fight, so I was appealed to. I

proposed to send the threatened men away by boat, but to pass the

reefs by night was a difficulty. All the head boat men declared it

impossible and declined the risk except one, the younger and more

adventurous, who took them through and has gloried in the feat since.

_Plate XI_

[Illustration: Fig. 21. Our postman, starting for his hundred mile

ride, armed with sword and shield]

There was some danger of a general fight between the two tribes,

but a third and impartial set came down from the hills to keep the

peace. Next day came requests that we should dress the wounds. So,

my wife accompanying me, we rode out to a tent among the trees, in

the dark depths of which we found two savage half-witted looking men

stolidly sitting sniffing onion and spices with which their noses

were plugged to prevent them inhaling any possible odour of their

wounds. Each had three or four cuts about six or eight inches long

and one to two deep. I tried more or less to close up the edges of

the cuts in one man’s back, which would have caused great pain

to a white man; if I hurt this one at all he only shewed it by

laughing. We were far from laughter in that dark and smelling tent

and glad to get under way again. We were then led to the house of

the dying man and found a tent among the acacia bushes surrounded

by a semicircle of men sitting silently to await what might befall,

every man fully armed with swords, daggers and spears, apparently

ready to wreak vengeance the moment the victim should die. We found

the man sitting in the middle of the tent, a roughly circular hole

in his forehead exposing the pulsating brain. We could do nothing

for him; it would have been no use suggesting sending him to Port

Sudan hospital, though that might have saved his life. Of course the

man was completely unconscious, his sitting up was explained by the

fact that he remained in any position in which he might be placed. It

was more than a week before he died and meanwhile the murderer had

gone into the country of another tribe. For the present he is safe,

but should he return without the blood money his life is forfeit. It

is usual for a murderer to collect say £10 from the charitable,

the payment of which to the next of kin to the murdered man may

be the condition of peace between them. One imagines him on his

tramp repeating, “I am a poor man and having committed a murder,

a most worthy object of your charity. Give me a little towards

the blood money.” It seems an easy way of settling for a murder,

but five to ten years’ exile as a beggar in another tribe must

be a very serious thing for these family-loving people. It is at

any rate less barbarous than that horror of civilisation, penal

servitude for life. It is one of those cases where the ends of

justice are well served by the Government’s policy of leaving,

under supervision, whatever of administration can justly be left to

the natural rulers of these wanderers among inaccessible mountains.

In this particular case I hear the avengers are implacable, no

mediation will induce them to accept blood money, they must have

the murderer’s life.

Another quarrel arose from a debt of one shilling only, the debtor

refusing to pay. The creditor came to complain to me when I was

busy in my office and I put him off awhile. He came again and said

something about somebody striking him. I said I would see about it

directly. Five minutes later on going out I found four men sitting

on the sand each in a little pool of blood, and a crowd waving sticks

coming up from the village. The first thing was to meet the crowd and

make my men take possession of all the sticks and knives and throw

them into my store, but such was the excitement that some would part

with their stick to no one but myself. This done I spent two hours

bandaging the wounds of those four men. I suppose there would be

sixteen cuts altogether. None made the smallest sign of pain. One,

a boy of about eighteen, who had lost a good deal of blood through

the severing of a vein, looked rather sleepy. We hope soon to be too

civilised for these scenes and nowadays the carrying of knives in

the village, except in the case of men actually coming in from or

starting out upon a journey, is being punished by the confiscation

of the knife, and fighting otherwise discouraged.

Just as their system of Government is patriarchal, so also the junior

members of their community treat each other with a consideration and

good nature one would be glad to see more of, among blood-brothers

in other lands. They work together with invariable good humour, an

extra man never shirking his share of work, but often insisting that

his turn at the oar, e.g., is due before his fellow is willing to

give it up. Heavy labour is accompanied by song and invocations of

God and the Prophet, and work in a big, noisy crowd, is one of the

pleasures of life. I remember once when timber was being unloaded

from a _sambûk_, work continued after hours, but a suitable song

being started, and extra men being put on, turned the whole thing

into a game; as each man threw down his load he dashed back along the

pier at a dancing run, to receive another plank with the eagerness

a child shews over sweets. There is nothing very inspiriting in

the songs as a rule, mere vain repetitions such as:

_Recit._ “Moses stood at the door.”

_Chorus._ “At the door.”

Who Moses was I have not discovered, except that it is _not_ the

prophet but another of that name.

_In Unison._ “The night comes,

The night comes,”

was sung at about six o’clock in the morning!

This makes them extremely pleasant to work with, and though among

a number of _employés_ disputes necessarily occur, and slackness

has to be rebuked, I do not feel that I should get more work from

members of a “superior” race, and I doubt whether I should be

able to be on the same friendly footing with them. In intelligence

they vary widely, just as do members of any other nationality

or any class, and while some are only at the level of European

labourers and factory hands, others could be trained to become good

rough carpenters and blacksmiths, while a man capable of managing a

boat well, through all the chances and intricacies of a ten days’

voyage, and able to preserve discipline among his crew, shews skill

and intelligence of no mean order.

From what has been said so far, one would imagine social conditions

to be almost Utopian, but just as the Mohammedan religion is

admirable from one aspect, and a degradation from another, so the

patriarchal system, which breeds self-reliance with subordination,

tribal patriotism and consideration for fellows, also produces

a strength of public opinion, which, coupled with the absence of

privacy inseparable from life in small communities of overcrowded

and unfenced tents, becomes a grinding ever present tyranny. The

action of any more clear-sighted man who should arise among them

would thus be instantly and automatically extinguished, superstition

is stereotyped, a man’s life is hedged in with restrictions,

which are absurd because the meanings they have had are now utterly

forgotten[19]. There is nothing more unfortunate than the great idea

many British express, of the wonderful knowledge the “Arabs”

possess, which is held to transcend all that mere western methods

can ever discover. Put to the test, by a careful examination of

the working of their own particular interests, say camel breeding

and pearl fishing, this wonderful science all falls down to rule

of thumb, coupled with that sublime assurance in making unfounded

assertions which is the prerogative of the very ignorant. A year

or two’s acquaintance with either industry will put a careful

observer into possession of more knowledge than has been accumulated

from hoary ages of rule of thumb and the lazy theorising which is

the parent of all superstition.

Again, the fearful loss caused by the absence of love, with its

concomitant immorality and suffering, is largely due to the levelling

_down_ which results from the tyranny of public opinion. The

partnership of man and woman which, in our ideal, is closer than

any other, is impossible under their conditions of life, which make

privacy and individuality so difficult, and men are not the more

eager to marry, where that involves coming even further under the

fetters of custom, and the giving of all the wife’s relatives,

as well as those of blood, a voice in their private affairs.

One symptom of this state of things is the fact that a married woman

is often more loyal to her brothers than to her husband, and it

is a common complaint that she is supporting able-bodied brothers

in idleness, on her husband’s earnings, without his leave and,

so far as possible, without his knowledge.

I believe that in this all powerful patriarchal rule we touch upon

a cause of much of the difference, for good or evil, between East

and West, the stagnation of the East generally as well as the all

powerful solidarity of Japan.

Of the Mohammedan religion the same may be said. It is attractive to

most of those who approach it with any sympathy, to whom a religion

for _men_, the ideal of proud yet ready submission to Almighty God,

set forth by a ritual hardly surpassed in dignity by any, must

appeal strongly. Yet here again is the tyranny of dead customs,

the awful, blinding influence of Bibliolatry. Everything that was

knowable was spoken to the Prophet by the messenger of God Himself,

and to add to, or subtract from that knowledge, is sin. The customs

and ideas of a provincial town, in the middle of desert Arabia,

thus become unalterable laws for all the world, and those who will

not acknowledge this are infidels, damned to the wrath of God.

In this atmosphere all advance in knowledge, all testing of theories

by experiment, is mere foolishness, and though the infidel, whom

the mysterious will of God has placed over them, may be their

Friend and Father when all is well, let but some trifling incident

pit his knowledge against theirs, and he will find that he is no

longer the light shining in a dark place that he fondly imagined,

but a mere ignorant meddler in matters that are too high for him;

his poor “savage” children are the elect, the possessors of

light and infallible guidance, he is in the darkness, groping

among the beggarly elements, and occupying himself with ridiculous

trifles. Very annoying indeed, and very trying to the temper of His

Excellency, the British Magistrate, is it to have this fact rubbed

in by personal experience, but it has a fine educative value. Even

when he comes home, and studies the social problems of Britain,

he will soon meet and be thwarted by members of his own nation

who have all the essential characteristics of the typical Eastern,

though clothed in different ideas, and will find that East and West

not only meet, but inextricably intermingle.

In theory the often ridiculous miracle stories of Mohammedanism are

non-essentials, in practice they impress the average believer far

more than do the high religious moral ideals which are set forth

with, and by, them. We must guard against thinking that our dark

friends’ morality and actions are much influenced by his formal

religion, it is only the general tendency, falling in as it does

with his social ideas, which has any influence.

CHAPTER III

RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES AND SUPERSTITIONS

The forms of religion are inextricably interwoven with every event

of the people’s lives. As the sailors pull at a heavy rope there

are cries upon God and the Prophet for help, and as the rope begins

to give to the strain, the long-drawn “Pray,” “Pray,” “Oh,

God, Oh Prophet” gives place to a quicker chant, “God gives it,

God gives it.” To the enquiry “Are you well?” the reply is

“Praise be to God”; and if two travellers meet and one asks the

other “Where are you going?” he receives the reply “To the Gate

of Bountiful God,” after which the real errand may be discussed.

Just as “Inshaallah,” literally meaning “If God wills,” is

really to be translated by a plain “Perhaps,” so this habitual

use of the phraseology and ordinances of religion, instead of

indicating a living ever present influence, is here, as everywhere,

the mark of easy formalism[20].

Only in the higher peoples, and quite recently in history, is moral

perfection regarded as essential to religious preeminence, and so we

find that, in general, a popular saint is venerated for his miracle

working, and his moral worth, if any, is totally forgotten. But

I wish to insist that this disregard of the holy man’s morality

is _not_ a distinction of “savage” or “semi-heathen” men,

but, shocking though it be, is common to all the lower moralities,

of Europe or elsewhere, in the Middle Ages or the present time. I

should explain also that until about seven years ago, when the

first Arab shop-keeper settled in our village, the inhabitants did

not know their prayers, the calls of the Muezzin or the performance

of the worship known as “Mûled” described below. They called

themselves Mohammedan, but knew nothing, and my friend the doctor

says that the reply to his consolation to patients, “Well, you

won’t have this pain in Paradise,” is often, “Who knows if

there is a Paradise?”

On a sandy islet in the bay near my station, a spot of almost

dreadful loneliness, is a shêkh’s tomb of the simpler kind. The

grave itself is surrounded by stones set on edge and the large

white shells of _Tridacna_, and by a sort of hedge of sticks, the

longer at the head, which the pious decorate with rags[21]. A second

enclosure of stones includes this and the remains of other graves,

and the whole area is kept perfectly clean and sprinkled with pure

white sand from the beach. The short broken sticks and decayed rags

are not thrown away, but carefully taken down and laid aside.

One is naturally interested to enquire who the Shêkh was in life,

and what qualities are considered as meriting so much posthumous

honour, and conferring the power of intercession with God. Strange

to say, no one knows anything excepting that his name was Sad,

the prevailing idea seeming to be that, since his usefulness and

power began after his burial, there is no reason to be interested

in who he was, and what he did, in life. Even after death but one

miracle is vaguely recorded, viz. that a certain man attempted

to steal some pearl shells which had been deposited at the grave,

and so placed under the Shêkh’s charge. The thief was punished

by the loss of his hand, but whether by paralysis, or through the

agency of a shark when he was diving, my informants neither knew

nor cared. “It was something of that sort” was all they would

say. And yet I believe that the dead Shêkhs are more thought of

as practical help in time of trouble than either God or the Prophet.

_Plate XII_

[Illustration: Fig. 22. Prayer at the grave of Holy Island]

[Illustration: Fig. 23. Note the shaven band over top of head

distinctive of little boys; aristocrat on left wears a shirt and

strings of amulets, the middle one only a loin cloth and one lucky

white stone]

The once lonely tomb of Shêkh Barûd, whose name was in those

days given to the harbour which is now Port Sudan, was mentioned in

Chapter I. The name literally interpreted is “Old Man Flea,” but

it has no contemptuous significance to the pious. It was indeed a

title of honour, for the old man so felt the sanctity of all life

that he would not kill the most degraded of insects. His story is

that of a poor pilgrim using all possible shifts to reach Mecca,

and in the end succeeding. There are two accounts of his return. In

the one he was compelled to trust himself to the sea journey of 180

miles alone in a tiny canoe. The sea spared him and he reached land

where his tomb now stands, dying or dead of thirst. At any rate he

was dead when found, and, being recognised as one who had perished

on the pilgrimage, was buried as a shêkh. It is said that in memory

of the manner of his death, sailors passing the spot pour a little

fresh water into the sea. But, as a matter of fact, the custom is

a general one, and all shêkhs’ tombs are thus honoured. It is a

fine example indeed of a persistent, widespread, and very ancient

observance, probably less bound up with Moslem and old Christian

theology than Omar Khayyam’s well-known lines:

“And not a drop that from our cups we throw

For Earth to drink of but may steal below

To quench the fire of anguish in some eye

There hidden—far beneath and long ago.”

(See note by Aldis Wright in “Golden Treasury Edition.”)

Personally I think my sailors are actuated by some quite vague

sacrificial idea.

The second, and more correct, story places his death at Jedda, while

on the pilgrimage. As those who die in the performance of this sacred

duty earn very special merit, he was honoured by burial in a wooden

coffin. During the ceremonies so violent a storm arose that the

mourners left the coffin on the sea-shore. Next morning it was found

that a sudden rise of the sea had borne away the saint, and later

the coffin was found floated ashore at the entrance to a harbour on

the other side of the sea[22]. When found it was recognised as the

remains of a holy man, and buried in a stone tomb on high ground at

the harbour entrance; which harbour was renamed after him, Mersa

Shêkh Barûd. The harbour was then completely desert, and this

tomb, the size of a very small room, was the only stone building,

except two small police stations, between Suakin and Egypt! Once a

conspicuous mark for sailors (the Government for this reason keeping

it brightly whitewashed), it is now quite inconspicuous under the

towering electric cranes and coal transporters of the modern seaport,

of which it is the only object more than five years old.

The sites of the tombs of these Holy Men of a sailor people are

always well and appropriately chosen, generally on high ground at

a harbour entrance. One I know, where the land is too low to give

an impressive site, is built on the outermost point of the shore

reef, hardly dry ground at lowest water level. That of our Holy

Island has been mentioned; that of Shêkh Dabadib is by a well,

and is also a conspicuous mark on a coast otherwise featureless,

even for the Red Sea.

Mohammedanism here meets Ancestor Worship and involves the

sanctity of the head of a reigning house. This tomb is none

the less sacred for being new, antiquity and miraculous power

are not always necessary to reverence; The Shêkh buried here is

known to men still living, and his relatives are prominent people

hereabouts. The photograph shews the building, which contains the

tomb, with a prayer-space marked off outside, the Mecca-ward niche

of which is decorated with flags. Here is also an almost perfectly

spherical piece of granite, a natural boulder, black with libations

of butter. One of my sailors is seen addressing this, hoping thereby

to complete the prayers already made at the grave within.

_Plate XIII_

[Illustration: Fig. 24. A prophet that had honour in his own country]

[Illustration: Fig. 25. A mediaeval tomb, now neglected]

The building of even so simple a tomb must have been a great expense

so far from civilisation. Masons were brought from Suakin to trim

the coral blocks, taken living from the sea, of which the walls

are built.

The other photograph on this plate shews one of a series of

little towers which are found here and there near the foot of the

mountains, the finding of which, in the midst of a desert devoid

of all buildings, is almost startlingly unexpected. They also are

Moslem graves, but are not now regarded with reverence. Built long

ago in the Middle Ages they are relics of the old trade route from

the ancient kingdom of Axum, to the now vanished seaport of Aydeb

which may some day be discovered in the ruins of “Old Suakin”

or Berenice.

Another way of honouring the saints is by the killing of sheep

at their graves, especially on feast days. The flesh is eaten of

course—after being distributed to all who care to take it.

I suppose as a safeguard against idolatry the posture of prayer at

a tomb is entirely different from those prescribed for prayer to

God. There are no bowings, or kneelings with the forehead touching

the ground. The petitioner stands throughout, holding the palms

of his hands as though they were an open book from which he read,

and at the end of his prayer passing them over his face. The idea

symbolised is that during the prayer his heart is open to receive

the blessing, and at the close his action sets forth his faith that

a blessing has been received, and applied to his person.

Whenever in the desert men encamp for any length of time, a place

is set apart for prayer, and marked off by stones set on edge. It

is a semicircle or half oval, the apex of which is in the direction

of Mecca, to which all the Moslems of the world turn to pray. The

space within is kept clean as holy ground, and no one may step

within the stones without first removing his sandals and washing,

with water if by a well or the sea, otherwise with sand, as though

entering a mosque.

The third type of religious exercise is the “zikr”

or “remembrance,” here called the “mûled[23]” or

“Birthday,” this name being given because the main part of the

ceremonial is the reading of a long poem, composed by a shêkh of

this country, describing the birth and life of Mohammed.

As in Egypt, religious recitation takes the place of a dinner party

or evening entertainment. The material apparatus required are, first

and foremost, lamps and candles, the more that can be borrowed the

better; secondly, some carpets and sheets of matting to lay in a

circle on the ground for the guests to sit upon. Minor matters are

tea (coffee is more rarely used in our village) and incense.

Imagine the Eastern starlight relieving the soft purple darkness, a

gentle moving air, cool after the heated storm winds of the day. The

only light visible in the whole village is that placed before the

reader, a brilliant little circle shewing up the principal guests

in their white robes and turbans, the holy book and the smoking

censer. One by one the guests appear out of the darkness, the

droning chant of the reader taking no heed of their comings. Some,

in new white robes and turbaned heads, or those to whom age gives

dignity independently of wealth, seat themselves in the light near

the reader; others, shaggy haired and wild faced herdsmen from the

hills, in dust coloured calico, remain half seen on the farther side

of the circle. No woman or girl is visible, but they may gather at

a little distance and raise their curious whistling trill, their

joy cry, at intervals. The little boys of the village, of the age

at which church going and sitting still generally were especially

abhorrent to ourselves, are much in evidence, and certainly do not

come for the tea, of which they may not be invited to partake.

The service contains real religious feeling, and besides the

birth and life of Mohammed there is recited a long prayer, the

droning of which is broken by the mournful chanting of responses,

of which of course “La Allah ill’ Allah” is one. Nothing could

be more expressive of submission to the hardness of desert life,

or so impress upon the listener remembrance of his exile from his

fellows in the cheerful striving with life of the younger nations,

than these people’s singing, whether it be done for pleasure

or as a religious service. The whole thing is full of Eastern

poetic licence, e.g. blessings are called down upon each detail

of the Prophet’s body separately. At the point where his actual

birth is announced all stand awhile. Only one sentence is really

objectionable to a Christian, where all the older prophets extol

Mohammed, Jesus is made to repeat the words of John, “I am not

worthy to unloose his shoe latchet.”

After about an hour’s reading all rise and join hands in a circle,

chanting “La Allah ill’ Allah,” “There is no god but God,”

emphasising the words with deep bowings, or by stamping the feet in

unison; after some repetitions the time quickens, and the sentence is

shortened to “La Allah”; even these words are finally abbreviated

to a grunt as the bowings and stampings degenerate into mere furious

exertion. Another sentence repeated in the same way is “Hû hay

kayâm,” “He is the Life, the Almighty,” with an emphasis on

the pronoun, Hû, that excludes all sharers in His attributes. In

the same way this sentence is shortened down to “Hu” alone,

delivered with a deep gasp, so that at a little distance the sound

of worship may be mistaken for the barking of dogs. At intervals one

of the more excitable men enters and dances round inside the ring,

urging the congregation to still greater rapidity and energy of sound

and movement. When the men are tired they resume their seats, tea is

handed round again, and more incense thrown on the charcoal, which

is kept burning for the purpose. The reader resumes his recitation

awhile until the spirit moves the congregation to rise, bow and

repeat the formula “HE is the Life, the Almighty,” as before.

The borderline between religion and superstition is of course

very indefinite, and the belief in evil spirits and witchcraft is

as strong as that in the intercession of dead saints. It is of no

use to point out that such ideas are inconsistent with that of the

Unity and Omnipotence of God, and only force can give weight to the

consideration that loud drumming close to the head of a sick person,

while certain to do harm, is unlikely to drive away the evil spirit

which is the cause of the disease, or that a man suffering from

heart disease is more likely to kill himself than drive out the

evil spirit, by the violent exertions of a Mûled dance.

The wearing of amulets is, perhaps, the superstition most akin to

religion, and one at least that has had its origin in intelligent

respect for written wisdom. Every man wears them in numbers, and

children have a few, mingled with other lucky objects, however

insufficient their clothing. In the commonest form the paper is

enclosed in a neat little leather case, a little over an inch square

by half an inch deep, which may be slung round the neck with the

prayer beads, by a string of twisted leather, or attached to a cord,

of the same material, which passes round the arm just above the

elbow. In some cases a man may wear up to twenty of these packets,

partly as ornaments, partly as defence against each and all of the

ills of life.

The contents are various, since, trusting to the ignorance of the

purchaser, the charm-writer may put down the first thing that comes

into his head, perhaps even lewd poetry, or the name of God written

in various fantastic ways. Some charm-writers are quite illiterate,

and their works are mere childish scribblings. A friend enquired

of one of the better Shêkhs whether he had any faith himself in

what he wrote, the reply being merely, “The Arabs like them so

I write them.” I suppose the corollary, “and I like the money

they pay for them,” may be taken for granted.

I was talking of amulets to one of my sailors. “The paper in

this,” he said, indicating a dingy silver case hung by a bit of

string round his neck, “was worth four pounds.” (This is two

months’ pay.) “When I was in Suakin I went to a shêkh there

as I was ill. He was a great Fakir, a great Shêkh, and his tomb

is now in the middle of the bazaar. He told me he had a very good

paper by him, and if I wore it for twelve days, I should, if it

pleased God, become well. The price of this paper was four pounds,

but I said, ‘I have only ten shillings.’ ‘Never mind,’ said

he, ‘give me the rest if my words come true.’ And after twelve

days I got better. He was no liar.” I was anxious to know whether

the balance of the four pounds had been actually paid over or not,

but my diplomatic questions were met by an impenetrable reserve,

and the conversation was deflected into theology. “The Fakir

does not say ‘you must get better’ after so many days, but only

‘if it is God’s will’.”

The common way of dissolving the ink of the writing in water and

drinking it as medicine, is practised here. Sometimes the fakir may

instruct the patient to burn a piece of it each day on a censer,

enclosing the smoke in his clothes and so fumigating himself with

it. My clerk called on a sailor who was ill, or thought he was. The

cause of illness was presumed to be the issue against him of a bad

writing by some malicious person unknown, so the obvious cure was

to get a counterblast written by someone friendly to the bewitched

sufferer. Do not imagine the romance of oriental wizardry, or of

mediaeval alchemists with patriarchal beards! Superstition is, in

reality, most dingily matter-of-fact. The good fairy who wrote the

counterblast is a fat, waddling, little man, with tiny screwed-up

eyes in a face expressing only good-natured commonplaceness, as

completely as his figure expresses laziness and love of food. He

is in fact as much like a grocer as an eastern magician, but he

is a good little man too, and has undertaken the work of village

schoolmaster, and teaches the boys the correct bowings and postures

of prayer, without any remuneration.

Customs, possibly peculiar to this people, and not held by the

Arabs of the other side of the sea, for instance, are connected

with milking. A woman may not milk a sheep or goat, only men may

perform this duty. Further, a man having milked an animal may

not drink until some other man, no matter whom, has first taken

three sips. So strong is this idea that the phrase “He milks

and drinks” is a term of abuse. One would think the origin of

the custom to be the unwritten laws of hospitality, but if so, the

present generation have no knowledge of any such derivation. “It

is just the custom” is all they can say.

I remember meeting a little boy and his sister, who for this purpose

had carried milk two miles or more, to the only house besides

their father’s then on the peninsula of Rawaya. What the thirsty

father would have done if they had returned after finding no male

at home I do not know. By chance one was ashore, the others having

gone fishing.

Belief in the evil eye is universal here, as in the world at large,

and the common sign which is supposed to afford protection against

it, the figure of a hand with fingers outspread, is trusted in here

also. This belief in the evil eye has prevented my obtaining more

than one portrait of a woman, even the photograph of a woman’s

hand and rings, etc. (opp. page 24) being obtained with much

difficulty. The lady stood within a little window, placed low

down in the side of her house, so as to be quite satisfied that

her head could not be “seen” by the camera’s wicked glass

eye. The reason given was that photography was an offence against

their modesty, but I am sure the evil eye superstition had more to

do with their reluctance.

The common idea that a pearl is due to the hardening of dew, to

obtain which the oyster comes to the surface of the sea at night,

was suggested to me by an Arab dealer, but a purely native idea is

that abundance of rain in the winter will result in the appearance

of many young oysters next summer. Because to themselves every

drop of the scanty rainfall is precious beyond everything, they

sympathetically imagine it must be of value to the oysters. However,

this point, like the former on the formation of pearls, needs no

great study of oyster habits to refute. As practically all oysters

live under at least six feet of sea water, and are anchored firmly

to the bottom, neither dew nor showers of rain can reach them,

much less have any effect whatever upon them. Also the breeding

season is summer, not winter.

The porpoise[24] is known as “Abu Salâma” or “Father of

Safety,” its useful habit, in days of long ago, being supposed

to be the conveyance to shore of shipwrecked sailors. But one day,

according to tradition, a porpoise rescued a negro, who, as soon

as he reached shore, most ungratefully put a knife into poor Abu

Salâma. Since that day shipwrecked mariners have had to shift

for themselves. (Note how the blame is put on to the subject

race. Prof. D’Arcy Thomson[25] gives a similar superstition

regarding another kind of dolphin at Rio de Janeiro, where it is

said to bring home the bodies of drowned sailors, and to defend

swimmers against another genus which is dangerous to man.)

No one will destroy a cat or drown young kittens. This is not merely

misplaced compassion or respect for life in general, as they bury[26]

superfluous puppies without any qualm. Perhaps it is a relic of

the ancient Egyptians’ reverence for these animals. I tried to

point out the inhumanity of allowing cats to multiply unchecked, and

found that the avoidance of causing suffering to the cat had little,

if anything, to do with the matter. “If they die of starvation it

does not matter, but we must not kill them.” The consequence is

that every town and village swarms with miserable half-starved cats.

I was once staying in a house where the balcony, on which we dined,

overhung the sea at a height of perhaps 30 feet. A miserable cat,

which had adopted the house as her residence, came and made herself

a nuisance by the usual feline methods. One of the guests rose,

caught, and threw her over the balcony into the sea. It seemed rather

callous, but obviously such an animal’s destruction lessens the

amount of misery in the world. I could hardly believe my eyes two

days later, when that same cat walked on to the verandah. It appears

that the process, which I had thought necessarily fatal, was repeated

on this cat at recurring intervals, the dose being only sufficiently

powerful to take effect for two or three days, after which she was

as actively disagreeable as ever, and it had to be repeated.

Talking of cats there are not less than seven names for this one

beast in Arabic! I wish I had taken down the complete list as my

informant gave it, but one of the two I know is a good instance of

onomatopœia, or instinctive naming from sounds associated with

the object. The Arabic _gutt_ is obviously the same as cat, and

may be the same word by actual derivation, but the Red Sea word is

“Biss,” which, the Arab not being able to pronounce the letter P,

is the same as “Puss.” It is hard to believe that this should

actually pass through Egypt to finally be used in England as a

merely “pet” name. It must have arisen independently in the

two countries.

Once travelling on the desert east coast of Zanzibar island and

sleeping in the open, I awakened in the night to find an eclipse

of the moon in progress (1901 was the year). I expected my boat

boys to be alarmed at the phenomenon, especially as they were some

of the original inhabitants of the island, not mingled with Arab

blood. But they took it very calmly, saying something to the effect

that “The English know all about that!” In my Red Sea village

in 1909, it was quite different. On going out in the morning my

clerk asked me whether I had been disturbed by the natives’

efforts to save the moon’s life, or, as he put it, Had I _heard_

the eclipse? It appears that directly the shadow touched the moon

everyone was aroused and a beating of tin cans commenced, with loud

prayers that God would not allow the moon to be destroyed.

One of the origins of superstition is false reasoning from observed

fact. When a native has a wound or open sore he is careful to keep

his nose plugged with rag, or to sniff continually at aromatic

substances, as he believes the smell of a wound will cause fever

and mortification. The observation that if a wound smells, the

patient is likely to be in a bad way, is sound enough, but the

inference that the smell, or any smell, e.g. women’s scents,

causes the fever is superstition. I am informed that this idea is

very widespread. I fear my applications of iodoform, than which

nothing can have a more persistent smell, will convince the natives

that we share their belief in the efficacy of “drowning,” rather

than preventing, the odour of decay.

Somewhat similar was the native treatment of a man who fell from

the roof of a house we were building. He was lying senseless when

I arrived, his nostrils carefully plugged with onion! Probably the

smell of onion, like that of ammonia, may be useful in fainting,

but far more important is free access of air, and _that_ they

treated as a matter of no account at all.

The great remedy for everything is the application of a red-hot

nail. Hence many of the scars which otherwise might be taken for

the results of fighting.

One of my men, being in great pain from stricture, I gave the

maximum dose of opium for his relief. On returning to see the

effect he answered, “Yes, I have had no pain since they burned

me.” My little tabloids were despised as too trifling a remedy

for such serious ill; burning had been considered a more sensible

treatment, and the relief afforded by a full dose of opium attributed

to it. “Perhaps it was the English medicine that relieved your

pain?” I suggested. “The English medicine is good, but I have had

no pain since they burned me,” he repeated. Great is Faith! How

many cures may have resulted from the faith excited by a red-hot

nail, without the aid of opium! At the same time English medicines

are highly valued, especially those which have a prompt and visible

effect, and there is no fear of their being too nasty. I gave a baby

girl, about a year old, a dose of castor oil. She smiled and licked

her lips; perhaps it was no more unpleasant than native butter.

One of our camels fell lame. My clerk thought it had stepped on a

thorn, but the native opinion was that it had smelled the dung of

a hyaena.

A bundle of the knuckle bones of a sheep are hung up in the tent with

the object of assisting the healthy growth of the baby, and dog’s

teeth are tied round its neck to insure the regular succession of

its own.

The cure for a headache is a string bound tightly round the head,

and amulets are generally included.

My junior clerk having been stung by a scorpion, was induced by

the severe pain, in the absence of other help, to trust to native

ministrations. His head (which has abundant curly hair) they did

with butter anoint, even with the malodorous “samin,” and gave

him copiously of the same to drink. The root of a certain tree was

bound round his wrist and an amulet round his elbow. I do not know

which of these four remedies effected the cure; a good drink of

“samin” would certainly have an effect in the right direction.

The Exhibit at Shepherd’s Bush of “charms” and magical

objects, recently in use in England, indicates a mental level no

whit higher than that of my brown people. And yet with what contempt

would these English wearers of amulets and dried mole’s feet have

regarded the “heathen niggers.” And can we say much more for the

large numbers of half-educated people who do not like to spill the

salt, and generally bow to the new moon, because “there might be

something in it,” who refuse to believe what is strange to them,

no matter what the evidence, though believing many things on no

true evidence at all?

Religion and superstition having occupied so much of our attention,

I seem to lack a sense of proportion in devoting but a short

space to the more real matter of morality. Brevity is, however,

excused by the fact that all description of men’s ways of life

is necessarily an exposition of their moral state.

These northern tribes, isolated in the deserts, possess the

primitive, yet most advanced, virtue of strict honesty. During

the winter, when rain has fallen upon certain favoured spots and

most of the population has migrated to them, one frequently comes

across small trees bearing bundles of matting, boards, and sticks,

the materials of a tent-house. The owner has left the country for

the time the grazing will last, and, not wishing to take all his

house with him, merely puts the materials out of the reach of the

goats, secure in finding them untouched, not even borrowed, on his

return two or three months later; this too in a country where even

a bit of old sacking is a thing of value.

CHAPTER IV

THE DAILY LIFE OF THE PEOPLE

At first sight, the country seems to be one from which no human being

could extract the barest subsistence. The usual explanation, that

the natives live by stealing, did not help me to an understanding, as

that is no more an economic possibility than the story of the two old

women who lived by taking in each other’s washing. The fact is, the

Sudan sheep, goats and camels, have a marvellous tenacity of life,

and on their sufferings the native exists. I once had acquaintance

with a British donkey to whom corn was given on a piece of stiff

brown paper, to prevent waste. When the corn was done, the donkey

proceeded to eat the brown paper before going to his desert of

thistles. What luxury a diet of brown paper and thistles would be

to a Sudan goat! After nibbling dry sticks all day in the desert,

they come and eat resinous shavings from my workshops, or pick up

single grains of corn from the sand where our camels have been fed,

shewing that a day’s feeding leaves them ravenous beyond all the

British donkey’s idea of hunger.

My particular village is richer than most places on the coast in

possessing a few square miles of scattered acacias which bear a

few little leaves when all else fails. There are some salt woody

plants too (Arabic, _hamid_ = sour) and some low trees (“Asal”

or “adlîb”) which are a vivid green all the year round, the

latter of which, however, all animals, except camels, refuse.

The goats spend much of their day on their hind-legs, supporting

themselves with their fore-legs on the lower branches of the acacias

while reaching as high as their necks will stretch to nibble the

little leaves from among the inch-long and needle-sharp thorns. I

have even seen goats standing with all four feet on boughs several

feet above the ground. This is a fairly uncomfortable way of living,

indeed I should think the most diligent browsing, and the most

callous disregard of the contact of lips and tongue with thorns,

would scarcely keep a healthy goat’s stomach full. But it is

better than the alternative, the hurried pacing with short stops

just long enough to eat the single blades of dry grass, which is

the only food should the locusts come down and clear every leaf

off the acacias. I speak glibly of single blades of dry grass, but

I am far too optimistic in my terms. A scrap of woody salt herb,

or a bit of grass-stick, something like slender bamboo, is all that

is visible to the human eye. For some months they graze on hope,

air and dust, and are given a very minute ration of “dûra”

corn on their return home in the afternoon. (This dûra, _Sorghum

vulgare_, is called darri seed at home, and is used only for fowls

I believe.) Why is the camel the only type of endurance? Surely the

goat is his equal? As for drinking, goats are not watered oftener

than camels, and in both cases water too salt and filthy for human

beings is good enough for them.

_Plate XIV_

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Figs. 26 and 27. Water carriers. Three

to five full skins are slung over a wooden saddle, the odd one

balanced on the top]

In the winter and spring, if it rain, things are better; a little

thin grass appears, single blades which last only a week or two,

and the grey-brown tufts of sticks, which are the remains of last

year’s grass hummocks, put forth scanty leaves and long wiry stems,

a little less dry than those they spring from. The sour “hamid”

becomes brilliant and luxuriant, and the acacias more leafy than

usual. The beds of the torrents, which contain water only for a

short time immediately after rain, become in some places almost

full of grass, though at the best there is always much more sand and

gravel than vegetation to be seen, except in the most favoured spots.

A large number of annuals of the clover tribe appear in some places,

for instance in the valleys of the raised coral ground of Rawaya

peninsula; in consequence, after it has rained, there is a small

exodus from our village, and boats are employed to convey families,

tents and animals across the bay, to stay there so long as the

water supply will last.

It is astonishing that the acacias and “hamid” can struggle

through the climatic conditions and the incessant persecution of

the animals. Think of their young trees wholly at the mercy of the

famishing goats, who every year eat even the hamid nearly to bare

sticks. The women again beat the trees to obtain the leaves which

are out of reach of the animals, and collect particularly the flowers

and green seed pods in this way. Somehow the acacia still struggles

on, producing leaves and flowers even after a rainless winter. The

hamid seems to be able to live on dew, for it puts forth new shoots

and becomes green in the spring independently of rain.

Very few natives are so tied down to any village as to be dependent

on a local rainfall. If rain is seen to fall for an hour or so

in any direction for several days in succession, they have only

to make a bundle of their tent and cooking-pot and be off to the

favoured spot. Even beyond the limits of their tribal districts

the whole desert is home; there are no fixtures in it other

than the wells. Inland there are no permanent villages; indeed,

in the north country, it is rare to see more than two or three

tents together. Even in the fixed villages of the coast and the

considerable suburbs of Suakin about Shâta, the majority of the

habitations are tents, and most of their owners are there only for

part of the year to buy corn until the rain comes again[27].

Every year my men have leave to go, one or two at a time, to visit

their relatives. A hundred miles’ journey to search for persons

whose whereabouts he knows extremely vaguely, and who are continually

moving, is nothing to the native, even though he may do all, or

nearly all, afoot. Only once has a man come back to report that he

had tramped all his three weeks’ leave away without coming across

those he sought. Not family affection only prompts these visits,

though I believe that feeling is strong in most cases. They desire

to drink milk, as they put it, rightly believing that a diet of

rice and dûra needs the addition of milk for a month or two in

the year if health is to be preserved. This is especially the case

with the men in my employ who are often either those who possess

few animals or who have made over their flocks to relatives.

This desert is a great camel-breeding area. For travel or military

purposes the camel bred in Egypt and fed on juicy clover is obviously

useless, so, every spring, representatives of the Coast Guards and

Slavery Repression Department come down from Egypt to buy. As a

good camel is worth £12 to £18 the man who has a couple to sell

is sure of enough money for himself and his family to live on for

a year. The milk of the females is a source of food.

An article made in considerable quantities in the country is butter,

so called, or samin to give it its native name. It is a whitish

liquid with a powerful cheesy smell, repulsive to the European. The

native regards it as one of the necessities of life; I have known

sailors leaving for a week’s voyage to turn up next day with

“we forgot our samin” as their excuse for returning. This is,

to their minds, as good a reason as if they had forgotten the rice,

the water, and the matches as well[28].