| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Desert and water gardens of the Red Sea : Being an account of the natives and the shore formations of the coast
Author: Crossland, Cyril
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Desert and water gardens of the Red Sea : Being an account of the natives and the shore formations of the coast" ***
THE RED SEA ***
_Plate I_
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Coast of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Sandstone hills shaded, _small_ islands black. Coastline double,
the outer line being the edge of the fringing reef. The thin lines
enclosing roughly oval or elongated areas at sea are the barrier
reefs. Figures on sea represent depths in fathoms.]
DESERT AND WATER GARDENS
OF THE RED SEA
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
[Illustration]
Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
London: WILLIAM WESLEY & SON, 28, ESSEX STREET, STRAND
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
_All rights reserved_
_Plate III_
[Illustration: Fig. 3. A sandstorm seen from among the Barrier Reefs]
=DESERT AND WATER GARDENS
OF THE
RED SEA=
BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE NATIVES AND THE
SHORE FORMATIONS OF THE COAST
BY
CYRIL CROSSLAND
M.A. Cantab., B.Sc. Lond., F.L.S., F.Z.S.
Marine Biologist to the Sudan Government
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1913
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
TO MY WIFE
TO WHOSE BRAVE ENDURANCE OF A LARGE
SHARE OF MY EXILE IS OWING MUCH
OF WHATEVER I HAVE ACHIEVED, OR
OF WHAT SUCCESS MAY YET BE MINE
PREFACE
It is my fortune to know intimately a portion of the Red Sea coast,
that between 18° N. and 22° N. on the western side. This must
be one of the least known coastlines of the world. Until 1905,
the Admiralty Chart shewed an area of 25 square miles of reef,
which the surveys run for the approaches to the new town of Port
Sudan have proved to be non-existent. Though a considerable distance
north of this point has now been accurately surveyed, practically no
details of the great barrier system of reefs leading up to the Rawaya
Peninsula, or of the land inside the coastline, have yet been mapped.
As I shall shew later, certain features of the maritime plain are of
the greatest interest, but they have only been hurriedly examined
by Mr Dunn, one of the Sudan Government geologists; and no survey
of the country has yet been made.
The explanation is not to be found in any laxity in either the
Admiralty or the Sudan Government surveyors. Considering that the
country is an absolutely unproductive desert, traversed only by a
sparse population of nomads, that no steamer passes within miles
of the outermost reefs, that the native vessels sail by perhaps
at the rate of one a month, the existing chart is a monument to
the greatness of the Admiralty’s conception of taking the whole
world for its province, even the most useless desert coasts.
Perhaps the fact that this country, though so near to Europe, is
only artificially made habitable at all, may add interest to my
account; but besides the description of things and peoples more or
less unique and peculiar to this country, I have aimed at giving
information of general interest. For instance, in treating of the
coral reefs I describe features of the barrier system which may be
unique in the world, but I have combined with the description of
this special point a general account of coral animals and the reefs
which they build. This may recall and complete the interesting
conversations I have had on such subjects with friends both at
home and in those places where the very streets and houses were
once parts of coral reefs.
Biologists have one way of justifying their existence which has to
some extent been neglected. Their reply to the eternal question
“What good is it? where does the money come in?” should be,
in some cases, that of the artist. Just as there are those to whom
the love of beauty in pictures, sculpture and architecture is one
of the things in life they would least wish to lose, to whom the
existence of professional artists is more than justified, so there
are many outside the ranks of professional biologists, to whom the
romance of the beginnings of life, and of strange lowly forms of
being, might become an absorbing interest, an enrichment of life
in which money does not necessarily “come in” at all.
This is an interest especially accessible to the exiles of the
coral seas, where ordinary amusements are so restricted that their
repetition produces a sense of loneliness and monotony scarcely
conceivable by the man of normal surroundings. For these among my
friends I have written, beginning from the beginning and omitting as
not pertinent to the questions they ask me, many points vital to the
science of animal anatomy, but not essential to their understanding
perfectly such questions as, “What is the coral organism? How
does it build up these rocks?”
These questions are my own special province, I deal with them as
an expert though writing so briefly, but in the rest of the book
I have made no attempt at writing a treatise on anthropology or a
guide book to the Sudan coast, but only to present what is to me
beautiful, interesting or amusing in the places and people as I see
them. What I describe I write of with all the accuracy of which my
words are capable; so far as it goes, all is strictly true. But
alas, no one has yet written of the beauty of this desert coast
as it should be written. Could I describe one half the beauty of
the memory pictures I owe to this country, I should be a poet,
whereas I am only a man of facts.
I wonder much at the neglect of this route through the Red Sea
by those who make extended journeys on the Nile. From Atbara a
perfectly comfortable train journey carries one swiftly through
desert and mountains to either Port Sudan or Suakin. I trust that I
have written clearly enough to prove that a few days on this coast
is time well spent.
Finally, this route to Khartum and Uganda is a quicker and cheaper
one than that by the Nile.
Prof. J. Stanley Gardiner’s reading and criticism of what follows
is but one of many kindnesses, and is especially valuable in the
case of the chapters on corals and reefs, of which our knowledge
has been so greatly added to by Prof. Gardiner’s researches.
CYRIL CROSSLAND.
WINDERMERE,
_September_ 1912.
POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE
On reading my book for the press I find that it has a moral,
a thing never intended! It is that real romance and beauty are
to be found in things as they are, so that the man of science,
popularly supposed to be hardened by “materialistic” pursuits,
has opportunities for a truer worship than has the sentimentalist
who bows before idols of his own imagination.
I tender my thanks to the Council of the Linnean Society who have
permitted the reproduction of most of the illustrations of Chapter IX
and some of those of Chapter VIII from my papers in their _Journal_,
vol. xxxi, in which the account of Red Sea Structure was originally
published for Scientific readers, and to Messrs Murray and the
Challenger Society for the use of two diagrams from their _Science
of the Sea_. The beautiful photograph of a Suakin mosque is by my
friend W. H. Lake, Esq.
CYRIL CROSSLAND.
DONGONAB, RED SEA.
_Sept._ 1913.
CONTENTS
PART I
THE DESERT AND ITS PEOPLE
PAGE
PREFACE vii
CHAPTER I
THE SUDAN COAST
Approach by sea through coral reefs — The maritime plain and the
mountains beyond — Desert flowers — Summer calm on the pearling
grounds — Sandstorm — Winter rain — Golden desert and turquoise
sea — Coral gardens — Port Sudan — Suakin 1
CHAPTER II
THE PEOPLE, SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS
The three nationalities — The negroes — Escapes from slavery,
Mabrûk’s adventure — Introduction to a Hamitic native — Dress
and arms — Women — Sexual morality, duels — Government under
Shêkhs — Tribal fights — Fraternity and Equality, little
Liberty — The power of tradition — Mohammedanism 15
CHAPTER III
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES AND SUPERSTITIONS
Religious phraseology — Veneration of Shêkhs — “Old Man Flea”
and his legends — The mûled celebration and “dervish dance” —
Amulets — Witchcraft — Milking — Evil Eye — Pearls — Cats —
Eclipse of the Moon — Medical — British parallels — Honesty 35
CHAPTER IV
THE DAILY LIFE OF THE PEOPLE
Desert farming — Nomad life — Tents and utensils — Amusements 50
CHAPTER V
SAILORS, FISHERMEN AND PEARL DIVERS
The _sambûk_ — Arab travel — Pearl fishing — Diving — Fishing nets
and spears — Sting rays and sawfish 59
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].
The nomads’ tents are illustrated opposite the next
page. Externally they are made of palm-leaf matting[29], in colour as
well as in shape suggesting haycocks. The sheets of this material are
stretched over long, bent sticks and fastened together with wooden
skewers. The doorway of the tent is on the less steeply-sloping
side and though only two or three feet high is partly curtained
with a piece of sacking or other cloth. They are invariably built
with their backs to the north, that is, against the prevailing
wind. This is the case even in the summer, when to be out of the
wind is torture to the European. If the wind changes to the south,
the door is closed up and the wall propped up a little on the north
side. In all, except the poorest, the house is divided into two
parts, even though the whole space is generally only about 10 feet
square. The larger division is formed by the erection of a kind of
second tent of goat’s hair cloth within that of matting. This is
entirely closed in by a curtain from the low space by the doorway
where the cooking is done, and where visitors sit on their heels.
The inner compartment is really a sort of four-poster family
bed, the bed and bedding consisting of some boards arranged as a
flooring a few inches above the ground, on which is spread a mat
made of the split midribs of palm-leaves placed parallel to each
other and tied together with thin strips of leather. This is known
as the “serîr,” a word which in Egypt denotes a bedstead. For
bedding there is perhaps a hard leather pillow, or a piece of rough
log will serve this purpose. I have seen odd ends of squared poles
thrown away from some carpenter’s shop used thus, for sharp angles
in the pillow are not regarded by men whose idea of comfort is a
plank bed minus blankets.
If a regular bedstead be part of the furniture of a town house,
it is an “angarîb” made of cords stretched over a frame. This,
if large and well made, is very comfortable, judged even by European
standards.
Of the other objects to be seen in the house the most conspicuous
is the master’s shield, with dagger belt and sword, and the
most essential is a large water jar. To one of the upright sticks
supporting the tent are hung various utensils containing the family
larder, e.g., the bowls and skins of milk (which is generally sour
and evil smelling). The milk bowls are curious, being either closely
woven, water-tight baskets of palm-leaf, gourds[30], or bottles
hollowed out of solid blocks of hard wood. Some of these latter are
great works of art, being perfectly round and nearly as thin as
porcelain vessels, though cut out of a dark red wood entirely by
the unaided hand. The practical advantages of enamelled iron ware
appeal to the natives; the brass cooking pots of antique design,
such as shewn in Fig. 50 on Plate XXIII, and the fellows of which may
be seen at Pompeii, are being replaced by this prosaic material. For
cups, empty meat tins, cleaned and the edges straightened, are most
commonly used if an European lives near. A stock of samin butter
may be kept in a four-gallon paraffin tin.
_Plate XV_
[Illustration: Fig. 28. Tents on the edge of Yemêna Oasis]
Of all the kindly fruits of the earth the onion is the greatest
boon to us desert dwellers. Its portability and keeping qualities
enable it to arrive fresh and wholesome even at this end-of-the-world
village, and after weeks of rice and dûra diet the value of a dish
flavoured with onions is immense. It is the only vegetable ever used,
water-melons being the only fruit, and those but rarely seen even
in the winter.
Smoking is rather rare, chewing universal. Pipes or
“hubble-bubbles” I have not seen except in the hands of Egyptians
or Arabians, the tobacco being burnt by natives in the end of a
piece of sheep’s marrow-bone, or as cigarettes. All love to chew
a kind of brown snuff which seems to be a great solace during work
and in the intervals of pearl diving.
Tea is taken after every meal and oftener. A half-pint teapot
suffices for half a dozen men as it is sipped, saturated with sugar,
from tiny glass tumblers. Its flavour, poor to begin with, is utterly
spoiled by the brackish water and of course by the excess of sugar.
Coffee is not so much used in our village, though in the South I
was told by a resident Egyptian official, “These people do not
complain if they have no food. They are used to that, but if they
have no coffee they become as though mad.” Coffee is made in the
following manner:—Glowing charcoal is placed in a thick wooden bowl
(_a_) of Fig. 31, the “beans[31]” laid upon it, and the whole
shaken occasionally to keep the charcoal alight and yet prevent
burning. When roasted, the berries are pounded in a wooden mortar
(_b_) with a stone pestle (_c_). The wooden case and its cover
(_d_), like the rest, is cut out of solid wood and contains the
fragile earthenware coffee pot. The coffee is boiled in this until
it froths up, when the pot is removed until it subsides, when it
is replaced on the fire and removed until it has frothed up three
times. After it has been allowed to settle for a minute or two it
is ready to sip[32].
Incense is used, not only during religious performances, but also for
scenting the clothes and body. The man or woman desiring this luxury
squats over a smouldering censer, which he covers with the clothes
he is wearing, so that all the smoke is collected within them.
Some form of citron oil is used very extensively as a scent,
indeed so much so that the odour of it seems characteristic of
natives. Possibly some of its favour is due to its usefulness in
keeping off mosquitoes.
Except for the liberal anointing of the hair with mutton fat,
the natives are very cleanly in their persons, and quite free from
vermin. The sailor population is so much in the sea as well as on it
that they could hardly be dirty; but I believe all natives will wash
when they can. Inland, I am informed, things are very different, but
there the preciousness of water is an all sufficient excuse. It is
one recognised by their religion, which permits dry sand to be used
for water in the ablutions necessary before prayer in the desert.
_Plate XVI_
[Illustration: Fig. 29. Goats feeding on thorn bushes]
[Illustration: Fig. 30. Milk bowls, plaited and wooden, gourd
and baskets]
[Illustration:
_d_ _b_ _a_
_c_
Fig. 31. A coffee set, and some women’s rings]
_Plate XVII_
[Illustration: Fig. 32. Arabian sword dance]
[Illustration: Fig. 33. Arabian sword dance]
[Illustration: Fig. 34. Hamitic wedding dance]
Set forms of amusement seem to be few. As already mentioned,
the performance of the Mûled is both a religious exercise and an
entertainment, and a peculiar “dance” is indulged in with much
relish on all occasions, though the performance seems pointless and
monotonous in the extreme. The photograph was taken at a wedding,
the bundle of dried palm leaves on the extreme left set up on
the ridge pole of the tent being here, where no palm trees grow,
the symbol of wedded prosperity. The women guests form a rough
semicircle and provide music by chanting and clapping the hands
together. The men stand in a group opposite at a little distance,
and at intervals one or two of them run forward towards the women,
jump into the air as high and as often as they can, and then return
to their fellows. The photograph shews two men at the top of their
jump together.
The sword dance illustrated was a really fine display, made
by the captain and crew of a merchant _sambûk_ which was in
harbour. Hearing a considerable noise in the village one night,
I strolled out to see what it might be, and found complete silence
and darkness! Enquiring at the house of one of my sailors, I found
the whole party in his tiny hut; I told them there was not the least
objection to their dance provided it went on no longer than midnight,
and that I should much enjoy seeing it. I was rewarded by a really
interesting display, instead of the tame performance I expected;
sticks being used in place of swords. So I arranged for another
performance, which is depicted on Plate XVII, by daylight, and gave
leave for real swords to be brought from the _sambûk_. The principal
dancers each had a sword and its scabbard in their hands, the crew,
negro and Arab, forming the lines between which the dancers marched,
turned and whirled to the sound of song, clapping and drum. It
was desperately hot work by daylight, but the enjoyment of all is
visible even in the photograph.
Sham fights are sometimes performed, with apparent fury, by natives
armed with sword and shield; but this is a much lower thing than the
symbolic expression of emotion given by the Arabians’ dance. The
ordinary negro dancing is absolutely stupid in appearance, and I
could not find that the performers attached any meaning to it. Two
of these men, however, can give a good sham fight with sticks, but
it is that and nothing more, the emotions dramatised being of the
crudest. Throwing their heavy curved walking sticks at another which
is stuck vertically into the sand, is one of the minor amusements
for boys and men. Sides are chosen, the losers’ penalty is to
carry the winners on their backs over the range, or this may be
compounded for by the losers standing cups of tea. This is really
practising a useful art, as hares &c. are killed in this way. There
is also a game in which two men move white and black pebbles over a
draughtboard in which holes are cut to contain the pebbles, or the
board may be merely a series of little holes in the sand. There is
a good deal of gambling over cards, the ordinary European cards,
and those of good quality too, being very cheap. I was at pains
to discover the game, but found it so elementary and uninteresting
that I straightway forgot it again. Perhaps this is why it is played
for money; without serious gambling interest the game would not be
worth playing, even to a native.
CHAPTER V
SAILORS OF THE RED SEA
The sailors of the Red Sea are practically all Arabians and their
negro slaves. They generally give Jedda or a neighbouring port
as their headquarters, though some are from Sinai in the north to
Hodêda in the south. The Sudan coast is merely a portion of their
beat, few vessels really belong to the country. The pearlers, too,
come and go as they visit the reefs of the whole sea in turn.
The maritime Hamites are so very few and so rarely depend entirely
on the sea for a living, but upon their animals also, that it is
surprising to find that they are distinguished in any way from the
country population. The difference may be expressed in the actual
words of one of them. “You see that man riding a camel? He would
think me a fool because I know little about camels, while I think
him a fool because he might die of hunger by the sea-side, not
knowing how to get even clams (_Tridacna_) to eat.”
“When these people from the hills come down here and we offer
them rice they look at it and say ‘That is worms (? maggots),
we don’t eat worms.’”
They are skilful sailors of their little dug-outs and readily
learn the management of larger vessels, but very rarely go with the
Arabians away from their own coast. No boat building is done even
in Suakin, the country being devoid of timber, though repairs can
be effected there.
The coasting vessels of the Red Sea are “dhows” or as here
named “sambûks” (see Figure on pages 60 and 62, and Fig. 36,
Plate XVIII). Several kinds are distinguished by separate names,
e.g. a rather small type is known as a “gatira,” but all
are essentially the same. They are both beamy and deep, with long
overhanging bow and a square stern. There is little keel apart from
the depth of the boat itself and they are not good at beating to
windward. They are quite open, such decking as there is at bow and
stern being merely for convenience in managing sail and rudder,
not built with the idea of protection from a sea breaking aboard.
[Illustration: _a._ Halyard tackle. _bbb._ Stays. _c._ Fêsha.
Fig. 37. Rigging of a _sambûk_]
The rig is a single lateen sail of cotton canvas, which in a boat
over 50 feet long is of great size. A mizzen mast is stepped, but
the mizzen sail is only used under the very best of conditions. I
have often asked the headman of one of these boats why, on starting
out with a light breeze at 6 o’clock in the morning he did not set
his mizzen, and have been told that, as he knew the breeze would
freshen about 10 a.m., it was not worth while. They are excellent
sea boats and will stand a great deal of bad weather. Despite the
extreme clumsiness of the rig and the apparently haphazard way the
numerous half-naked sailors tumble over one another and yell like
Babel when anything has to be done, they are cleverly handled. When
travelling in them I have sometimes seen situations calling for an
extreme nicety of manipulation to avoid an accident, manoeuvres which
were carried through with skill and coolness by men who, placed in
an English boat, would seem both clumsy and mentally unbalanced.
_Plate XVIII_
[Illustration: Fig. 35. Pearling canoes coming in from diving]
[Illustration: Fig. 36. A pilgrim _sambûk_]
Besides the clumsiness of the lateen rig with its huge single yard,
the primitive blocks and tackle used necessitate a large crew. One
of my boats, 50 feet long by 10 feet beam, requires a crew of nine,
and the headman considers this too few. Generally all passengers
join heartily in the hauling
[Illustration: Fig. 38. Diagram of halyard]
and yelling, which (especially the latter) is necessary to raise
the great yard. Two thick ropes, named the Fêsha, attached to the
yard pass through rough sheaves at the mast head, the other ends
being both attached to a hanging pulley block of four sheaves or
more. Through the sheaves of this hanging block pass the halyards,
which, running through a block at deck level form a tackle by
which the hanging block and the “fêsha” ropes are hauled down
and the yard of course rises. In practice there are two halyards,
both passing through the same hanging block, as there is not room
for the whole crew to haul at a single rope. The cordage is all
made of coconut fibre and there is no standing rigging, all stays
and the “vang,” or stay to the yard, being moveable and set up
with simple tackles. They may be made very useful in hauling heavy
goods aboard when loading.
There are two principal disadvantages of this lateen rig which call
for special skill. The first is that at the end of each tack in a
head wind you cannot “go about” in the ordinary way but must fall
away from the wind and wear round. In an ordinary fore and aft rigged
vessel this operation would involve gibing, the sail going over with
a violent bang which would be extremely dangerous in a high wind,
especially where the tack of the sail is fixed down forward of
[Illustration: Fig. 39. Laden _sambûk_ under sail
(_From a photograph_)]
the mast. As this sail has no boom gibing is avoided by letting go
the sheet and carrying it and the sail forward while the tack is
unfastened and brought aft, both meeting at the mast, so that the
sail is practically furled. The long yard, being balanced by its
suspension at the mast head, is brought to a vertical position,
the sheet carried forward of both it and the mast and so round to
its new position on the other side and carried aft. As there is no
tackle[33] on either sheet or tack the boat is so steered as to help
these movements and the sail does not draw until the sheet is made
fast. It is to facilitate the movement of the heavy yard from one
side of the mast head to the other that the mast slopes forward so
markedly. The operation is ingenious and calls for good seamanship,
especially in a strong wind and heavy sea, when any fault might
result in great force being unexpectedly applied to the rigging
with awkward results. Just as this is the reverse to our gibing so,
instead of carrying weather helm, the vessel falls off from the
wind instead of luffing if left to herself, and where the steersman
of a fore and aft rigged vessel would luff to a big wave or strong
squall the Arabian falls away. As there is but one sail, a large
part of which is forward of the mast while the deepest part of the
keel is aft, it is impossible to have any of the sail set when at
anchor, and so the anchor must be raised, sail set and way got on
the vessel almost simultaneously, indeed the sail must draw as soon
as it begins to rise and the yard is not at the mast head till some
distance has been travelled. Similarly on coming into harbour the
sail is lowered completely, long before the anchorage is reached.
Like most sailors of the warmer seas the Arabs are amphibious. For
instance, the order is given to carry out an anchor away from the
vessel, which is to be moved by hauling on the anchor rope. If the
distance is not great and the depth inconsiderable the sailors will
consider it less trouble, instead of lowering a canoe in which to
carry out the anchor and rope, to throw them overboard and then
go after them with a run, a yell and splash, to the sea bottom,
where two or three men seize and run with the anchor a few yards
under the water, come up for a breath of air while others go down,
descend again and carry the anchor another stage, until the anchor
rope is fully extended. Generally when the anchor goes overboard at
the end of the day’s journey one or two of the crew go down after
it and work it nicely into the mud. Similarly in getting an anchor
up if it is caught in the coral, instead of manœuvring the boat
to loosen it in the usual way a man goes down to see what is the
matter, and either loosens it or directs the operations of those
in the boat. How would an English yachtsman regard diving after
his anchor? Not as an everyday occurrence, but as an adventure of
a lifetime.
To the Arab sailors such a voyage as from Bombay to Aden, and
on through the whole length of the Red Sea, must be an adventure
like that of a voyage of Ulysses. As to the old Hero so to them
all accidents are due to the personal intervention of God, or
of good and evil spirits, and there is no dividing line between
fact and legend. Distances, which for us have so dwindled, remain
for them enormous. I have myself spent as long over a voyage of
a hundred miles, anchoring each night in yet another desolate
creek or “khor,” as over the whole voyage by steamship from
Marseilles to Port Sudan. At that rate 1000 miles in a _sambûk_
would be almost equivalent to a circumnavigation of the globe in
a modern vessel. But what a difference! In the latter case, to
the passenger deck chairs and novels, to the officers methodical
routine and the keeping the running correct as per time-table,
in the former ceaseless personal effort, at frequent intervals the
direct pitting of oneself against the chances of the sea, the winds
and waves, reefs and hidden coral pinnacles, the everyday hardship
often aggravated by the rarity of the points at which water and
food may be procured. Rarely are two days alike, and the date of
the voyage’s close is, as they would express it, known to God. And
adventures everywhere, the calling at strange little desert towns,
the outer fringe of even Arabian and Turkish civilisations, islands
and harbours unknown to the outer world, wild peoples, communities
living apart, connected with the world only by some rudiments of
their common faith, savages even to the Arab sailors. There is too,
even yet, the chance of meeting pirates, or of a windfall or ruin
resulting from some smuggling adventure. I would that they could be
conscious of the poetry of it all. To them the glory of the battle is
but the hardship of everyday life, strange scenes and places only the
possible failure to procure provisions or the chances of being robbed
by petty tyrants. At least it is a life that makes real men, men who
must have learned some communion with the God of Nature and the Sea.
_Plate XIX_
[Illustration: Fig. 40. Hamitic fisherman]
[Illustration: Fig. 41. A small pearling _gatîra_]
[Illustration: Fig. 42. A large pearling _sambûk_ with ten canoes]
The Hamites are skilful sailors of their small boats and of
the little dug-out canoes in which pearl fishing is done. These
measure about 16 ft. in length with a beam of 18 in. to 2 ft. For
a short distance weather seems to be of no consideration to them;
one sees canoes tearing along under full sail, the steersman
busy throwing out[34] the water with his spare hand, while the
other occupant hangs to the mast which threatens to be carried
away by the wind at every moment, and leans as far over the side
as he can to prevent her capsizing. I know several cases of men
travelling eighty to a hundred miles along the coast in such canoes,
partly on the open sea and partly on the shallow water over the
reefs. One instance is particularly remarkable, a bent old man,
practically blind with age, appeared, having travelled from the
next village to the north, eighty miles away. His only companions
were two particularly irresponsible-looking little boys, whose ages
I should estimate at 8 and 10. I enquired how he managed the boat
seeing he was blind. “The boys tell me to luff or bear away and
I do as they say” he replied, as if that were quite a simple,
safe, and easy method of travel.
Pearl fishing is carried on by the Arabs all over the Red Sea by
means of vessels of every size from the smallest, carrying four men
and a boy, to the largest with a crew of twenty or more. Frequently
the captain is a patriarch, the crew being largely his family and
connections, with a few negro slaves or ex-slaves.
The _sambûk_ carries as many canoes, dug out of solid tree trunks,
as it can, up to half the number of the crew, and the actual fishing
is done from these canoes, the large vessels being merely means of
transport and eating and sleeping places.
On reaching the fishing-ground the _sambûk_ anchors, under the
shelter of a reef, perhaps miles out to sea, or perhaps near some
islet or sandbank. The canoes with which it is loaded are launched
and two men paddle away in each. Though both can dive they go in
pairs distinguished as “captain” and “paddler,” the former
being chosen for good eyesight and skill in distinguishing the
pearl shells from the weeds, sponge, and stones among which they
grow. A bad captain “sees every stone as a shell” which results
in waste of energy in useless diving. He examines the sea-bottom
by means of a “water telescope” (Arabic “Maraya,” a word
also applied to mirrors, among other things), a paraffin tin with a
glass bottom. The glass is pressed on the surface of the sea, thus
flattening out ripples and giving a smooth surface through which, in
this transparent sea, objects can be clearly seen at a depth of from
twenty, thirty, and sometimes even sixty feet[35]. So the canoe is
slowly paddled over the sea until a shell is sighted, when the canoe
is manœuvred into the proper position, and the diver descends and
secures it. The business is not generally a simple dive and return,
though that is a clever enough thing to do without upsetting the
canoe. In the case of not quite fully-grown oysters the creature
is attached to the bottom by a very strong silky green cable,
and I have watched the diver plant both feet firmly on the bottom,
and wrench and twist at the sharp-edged shell with both hands for
some time before it would come away.
The average duration of a long dive is 90 seconds, two minutes being
the longest I have seen. To one in the boat counting the seconds
waiting for the reappearance of the diver this seems a long time, and
doubtless the exaggerated reports of divers staying under water for
five minutes have thus arisen. Two minutes of considerable exertion
under the pressure of 30 ft. of water is surely a sufficiently
remarkable feat. The greatest depth to which a naked diver descends
is thirteen fathoms, equal to seventy-eight feet.
_Plate XX_
[Illustration: Fig. 43. A pearl oyster seen; manœuvring the canoe]
[Illustration: Fig. 44. The dive]
[Illustration: Fig. 45. The “oyster” secured]
[Illustration: Fig. 46. Landing on Dongonab beach]
The captain only dives for an hour or two in the morning,
after which he saves his eyes for finding the shells which his
paddler secures. These men, whether Arabs of the _sambûks_ or
Hamites who go out from their villages in canoes, dive without
any apparatus at all. A few negroes descend by a weight and cord
in likely places where the water is too deep to see the bottom,
on the chance of coming across shells. The Hamites ridicule them
for using this method, but so far as I can see their results are
just as profitable. Two or three large shells seem to be considered
an adequate reward for a day’s great labour.
The provisions for a _sambûks_ cruise of six months are of the
simplest, sacks of dûra corn and a barrel or two of the brackish
warm water of the desert wells. Stones for grinding the corn, a big
cooking-pot and a basin or two are the whole equipment. The fire
is kindled on a box of sand. A sheep kept alive until a feast day,
is sometimes seen on board, but coffee is the one luxury. It is
a terribly hard life. Think of coming in from a day’s work of
diving and paddling a canoe under that blazing sun to a meal of
tasteless dûra porridge, sometimes a little fish, burnt rather
than cooked[36], and warm brackish and dirty water, eaten probably
without shelter from the sun, or at best under a scrap of flimsy
cotton, here set against a sun which blazes and scorches rather
than shines. Well have they earned their night’s rest, yet what
a bed is theirs, a surface of hard wood without even the flatness
and smoothness of the plank bed of a prison cell.
Though sharks occur and are sometimes common in the Red Sea,
a native does not look round for them before going overboard,
though if one should be seen, diving is over for the day. To one
locality, named Shark Island, divers will not go for fear of these
beasts, but diving is continually going on in a bay where several
sharks are captured each year. I have only heard of one fatality,
in which case a man’s feet were taken off and he bled to death
after regaining his canoe.
Fishing is done by running a net round a shoal of fish, by
throwing-net, hook and line, trolling with a scrap of white rag
or sheepskin with white wool left on, and by spearing. The latter
method alone is peculiar to this coast so far as I know, so the
former need but scant mention. The throwing-net is circular, about
twelve feet in diameter, made of fine string with small mesh. The
circumference is weighted with small pieces of lead. In use the
fisherman grasps the centre of the net and folds the rest over his
arm carefully, after wringing out excess of water. He then walks
cautiously along by sandy shallows, looking for the ripplings,
invisible to foreign eyes, which indicate the movements of fish. On
seeing these, bending double, he creeps up as cautiously as possible
until near enough to throw. This is done very suddenly and with a
circular motion, so that the net spreads out parachute fashion in
the air and descends vertically upon the fleeing fish. The fisherman
kills any that are enclosed by biting their heads through the meshes
of the net before removal. The fish thus captured is generally a
species of mullet about the size of a herring, and excellent on
the table. Its native name is El Arabi, i.e. the Arab. The method
is of course only possible in shallow water with a sandy bottom,
but such ground occurs at the head of all the harbours, so the
throwing-net is much used. I have seen two men returning from
fishing with festoons of “Arabs” covering their whole bodies,
but such good luck as this is not common.
Hook and line fishing is the same here as anywhere else. The
favourite baits are “sardines” and pieces of the flesh of the
giant clam (_Tridacna_) or of the big whelks (_Fusus_, _Murex_,
and _Strombus_), all of which are as easily obtained as lug-worms
or mussels at home. Clams’ flesh is the commonest, and anyone
interested in curio-collecting should ask a fisherman to keep for
him the pearls found in them. As the clam shell is an opaque white,
so are the pearls, which, though consequently valueless, are as
much true pearls as those formed by the lustrous pearl oyster.
“Sardines” are known even to the natives by this name, but are a
small species of anchovy of the sardine size. At certain times they
collect, presumably for breeding purposes, into shoals in the shallow
water so dense as to form black patches 10 or 20 yards across,
from which it is easy to collect a bucket-full in a few minutes by
means of a sheet. They are kept alive by the fisherman allowing his
canoe to be a third full of water in which they swim until thrown
overboard to attract fish, or impaled on the hook as bait.
The number of species of fish thus caught is large and the greater
number are very good. The best are several species of _Caranx_
known as “bayâda,” some of which attain to a great size,
sometimes four or five feet long, but the smaller are better for
eating. The most peculiar is perhaps the “abu sêf” or “father
of a sword,” a most appropriate name. It is ribbon-shaped, three
feet long or so, back and belly quite straight and flattened from
side to side, in fact just the shape of a sword blade. Further,
its sides are of the most dazzling whiteness, brighter than any
silver, and its ferocious teeth and vigorous movements bring the
terror of a sword to all the smaller fish.
The nets and spears bring in the greatest variety of all, the
brilliant blue, pink, and green species of the parrot-beaked
_Pseudoscarus_, which actually eat coral; the queer bladder-fish,
in which also the teeth are fused up like beaks, which can blow
themselves up like footballs, in one species (_Tetraodon hystrix_)
thus erecting the hundreds of fearful spines into which its scales
are modified; the box or coffer fish, the skins of which are quite
stiff and bony and cover square bodies, which in some species
have horn-like spikes pointing forward over the eyes; file fish
(_Ballistes_) which feed by crunching up shellfish (including pearl
oysters) with their powerful jaws; in fact enough variety of strange
habits and shapes and colours, striking by their brilliance or
interesting by their resemblances to the inanimate environment of
their possessors, to fill another book (were half known) or stock
a museum.
Besides fish of ordinary size the larger species, such as rays and
sharks, are generally captured by spearing. Nowadays the spear is a
piece of round bar iron, half an inch in diameter, a rough unbarbed
point at one end and with an eyehole, to which a line is attached,
at the other. It is twelve feet long, and quite small fish may be
impaled upon it in twenty-four feet of water. Its use is often
combined with pearl fishing. Should the captain see a fish the
spear is handed to him as he leans over the side of the canoe,
and he watches the fish through the water glass in one hand, the
spear being held in the other, with perhaps half its length in
the water, more or less according to the depth. The canoe being
rightly placed, a sudden jerk sends the spear shooting downwards,
and more often than not the fish is impaled at the first attempt;
so little splash is there, that it is often possible to throw it
several times without driving the fish away altogether.
There are in most tropic seas certain gigantic rays or skates, whose
horizontally flattened bodies are like a huge square, ten to twenty
feet across. One corner is the head, eyes above, mouth underneath,
the two side corners are fins, while to the fourth is attached the
tail. This is a strange thing for a fish, being like a whip-lash, say
6 feet long, provided at its base with one or more erectile spikes
four to six inches long, sharp and barbed all along each edge, and
further very poisonous. The natives of both Zanzibar and the Red Sea
assure me that even in the case of the smaller species, to tread on
these spikes is death. Hence the common name of the family, Sting
Rays. It is interesting to note that these dangerous implements
are used purely in self-defence. All species are conspicuously
coloured, one being yellow brown with large bright blue spots,
another black with round white spots. The largest are black, and
so conspicuous on the sandy bottoms they frequent that none but the
most unteachable animal, human or otherwise, can incur the dreadful
penalty of careless interference with them. Otherwise the animals
are perfectly harmless, living on shellfish which their small but
powerful jaws can crush up[37]. Yet so impressive is the size of
some species, so ghostly the appearance of a vast black living
shadow rising from the blue depths under the boat, and so queer the
formation of the head in some, that they are universally known as
Devil fish. And for all their harmless diet and their warning colour
which considerately advises that one interferes with them at one’s
own risk, I join in hearty approval of their opprobrious name.
_Plate XXI_
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Fig. 47. Pearl-divers]
As is so sadly true of most marine organisms, we know far too
little of their habits. What is the reason for the strange leaps
they make into the air, falling back on to the water with a thudding
splash that can be heard a mile away? It is usually done by night,
a circumstance that adds to the strangeness of this sudden obtrusion
upon our minds of the existence of a scarcely known world beneath
the water, which we, in our preoccupation with our own half of the
world, had almost forgotten.
So much for the prey, now to its hunting. They occasionally appear
on the surface, two or three pairs swimming together, the black
point of the side fin appearing above water, now on this side,
now on that. On one occasion I was out in a small sailing boat
with three or four canoes of pearl-divers, and as the fish when
chased went down wind, we were able to follow, spread out in
a long line so that whichever vessel saw the prey could signal
to the others. We thus kept the chase going for an hour or more,
striking with fish spears repeatedly, but as these are not barbed,
and as in all that hundred or more square feet of body the brain and
heart occupy but a few square inches, the spears may go through and
through, and be withdrawn again when all the line has been run out,
with no appreciable damage to the animal. So on this occasion we
made no capture, but the hour’s chase over this silver sea with
glimpses of mystery beneath was a pleasure to remember.
Another chase, also without capture, was stranger still. I found a
pearling canoe moving over the dead calm sea with no visible means
of propulsion. On reaching them I found they had made fast to a
fish and dared not play the line attached to the spear for fear of
its breaking away. Looking down into the blue with a water glass one
saw the dim shadow of one of those monsters, _Pristis_ by name, half
shark, half ray, in which the snout is prolonged into a beak, into
the sides of which are set formidable teeth, an object frequently
exposed for sale in curio shops as the sawfish’s jaw. This was
one of the largest species of the genus and must have been ten to
twelve feet long without the toothed snout.
We seemed to be in a dilemma; hauling upon the line would almost
certainly withdraw the spear before the fish would be near enough
for further attack, and the canoe had already been drifting about
for two hours or so. However I understood that there was some
hope of capture if the beast could be induced to approach shallow
water, though I was left to wait and see the bold plan which was
in the natives’ minds. By dint of careful manœuvring we at last
approached a reef, when one of the sailors unrove the boat’s
rigging and made a running noose with which he actually dived to
the bottom, braving the six feet of two-edged saw, to slip the
noose over the monster’s tail! I, watching in safety from above,
saw one of the finest diving feats imaginable, the man with the
noose swimming to and fro, following the slow beats of the gigantic
tail, watching his opportunity. Alas, as might have been expected,
the monster was startled, a sudden wriggle and he disappeared,
carrying the spear with him.
CHAPTER VI
DAILY LIFE—WOMEN
Theoretically the women are supposed not to shew their faces and to
be hidden from the world, liable to divorce at the caprice of the
husband, and to be their downtrodden mindless slaves. As a matter of
fact so far from men having four legal wives and numerous concubines,
practically every marriage is monogamous. A tribe of nomads cannot
enclose their women within high walls, and as for veiling, the most
that is done is to hold a corner of their robe over the mouth, or
perhaps between their teeth, and this is probably done as much to
ward off the evil eye as from any ideas of modesty. No woman will,
however, enter the yard enclosing my workshops without urgent cause,
and if brought into my office by her husband she covers her face
completely and squats out of sight behind my writing table, whence
the husband must cuff her on to her feet before business can proceed.
As a general rule the manner and look of the women is as of persons
who know they have rights and a position, and who habitually
make themselves heard in the family councils. Often I have been
aware of the idea in a man’s mind which in English might be
expressed by “I must ask the Missis,” and often it is bluntly
put into words. Indeed, among these Northern tribes the women have
a remarkable freedom, too much for the characters of many of them,
as some subsequent anecdotes shew.
In any dispute brought before me, formally or informally, I find
that, though it appears to be between men only, and to deal with
men’s concerns exclusively, a woman turns up sooner or later,
and often that complainant’s whole case has been put into his
mouth by his wife or some female relative. It is safe to say that
if the men only went to law on their own account, and were left to
settle things their own way, the hard lot of the magistrate would
be much lightened. While blaming the women, it is only fair to say
that the men shew themselves born lawyers in their statements of a
case. The complainant’s account of a transaction makes things look
black for the defendant, and certainly justifies his being sent for,
even if a hundred miles away, but on his arrival one frequently
finds that, though containing no direct lies, the complainant’s
story will bear a different interpretation.
As for divorce, and the consequent laxity of the marriage tie,
all natives feel the difference between a regular marriage and an
irregular alliance, and, if an individual did not, the wife’s
father and brothers would soon point it out. Indeed, a wife can
keep her husband in due subjection by appeals to her relatives.
One morning, after we had been out at sea since sunrise, when I
gave the signal for breakfast, one of my sailors remarked, “That
is good news; we _are_ hungry this morning.”
“Why more than usual?”
“We were out with you yesterday till seven o’clock so when we
got home there was no supper.”
“But you are married men; did not your wives have anything ready
for you?”
“Oh no, they had eaten their own suppers and gone to sleep. Women
do as they like with us. You see, in a town we could go out and
buy something ready cooked, but that is not possible here.”
The idea that wifely duty involved getting up and providing
something, rather than that a husband who had been kept at sea
overtime should go hungry to bed, seemed to them a sweet, but
unattainable ideal. I deprecate wife-beating, but I asked “Did
you not feel inclined to strike them?” but that course would have
meant settling with the father and brothers-in-law, the explanation
that the husbands had come in hungry from the sea and had found
no supper provided being, to their ideas, adequately met by the
retort, “You must let them do as they like, that is the custom
of our tribe and you must do as others do.”
_Plate XXII_
[Illustration: Fig. 48. Spinning goats’ hair. Note nose ring and
bead ornaments (N.B. The word WAR on the tent door merely means that
the sack originally contained War Office stores)]
Marriage is by purchase, and though the bride has no choice,
brothers and sons-in-law are carefully chosen. I once ventured on
the impertinent question, “Now that your sister’s marriage with
so-and-so is not to take place who will she marry?”
“It is so hard to find a husband who will treat her well.”
“Oh yes, of course you don’t want her to marry a man who might
beat her.”
“No I don’t, for if he did it would be my business to beat him,
and I do not intend to have that bother put upon me,” brotherly
love being thus seen to have a practical side.
I know of few cases of legal polygamy and but one or two of
concubinage. One of the former cases is that of my oldest skipper,
a really good old man, whose one grief is that he remains childless
near the close of life.
Divorce was suggested in a case of persistent causeless desertion,
but the husband’s reply was, “I took her when she was such a
little thing, so I love her.”
In another case the woman is a hopeless imbecile. Relatives begged me
to fire a gun close to her head in the hope of awaking her senses,
which I declared useless and dangerous, and refused to do. “She
is my cousin, so I cannot divorce her,” said the husband, an
elderly man who shews her every kindness.
After some months of consultations, in which I shared and tried
to act as peacemaker, one case actually did lead to divorce, and
the lady was known as “the mother of Ali’s child” instead
of as Ali’s wife. In a few weeks, however, Ali came begging for
advance of wages. This being refused he entered into explanations,
“You see I am going to take my wife back. Being divorced, she
has had nothing to eat for a month, so now I must give her a good
feed.” This literal translation of his speech must evidently be
taken in the spirit, for the lady still lives.
Pecuniary questions are so intimately associated with all matters
of marriage and divorce that men’s actions must not be read as
though they indicated feelings only. In the same way the women’s
independence is not only due to their knowledge of their value as
women but also to the fact that the husband, if of the poorer class,
paid, say, six goats, a camel, and four pounds in cash for them,
besides providing for the wedding feast, this involving a debt
which will take him a year or two to pay off, sometimes many years.
Ibrahim’s story is a good illustration of the freedom of women,
which is often abused, and the subjection in which they keep their
men folk. It gives an instance also of the pagan devil worship
which is the real belief of these Muslim when faced by calamity.
Ibrahim is a simple kindly old man, one of four brothers, all of
whom have passed their lives upon the sea. They are old men now,
and their sons are sailors too. The portrait of one of the four is
on Plate X, and decrepit though he looks he still goes to sea in
his own boat, or rather canoe, taking the few goats which are his
wealth across to an island where a shower has fallen. There was
a touch of heroism when he came to me saying, “If you will give
me work as a sailor you will see I am quite strong still. I used
to be captain, but I cannot be that now as my eyes have gone dim,
but try me as a sailor.”
Coming of such a family Ibrahim easily obtained the post of skipper
of my little schooner when it became vacant in my absence. But though
conscientious according to his lights, and a good sailor in native
fashion, he turned out to be not quite the man we needed. He would
travel two hundred miles to fetch the letters, the arrival of which
made a gleam in the darkness of isolation in which we live here. His
arrival was the event of the month—or should have been, but his
reply to the demand was often “Letters? I forgot.” People who
have never been quite alone for even one month cannot imagine the
disappointment, though they may gauge the effect upon business.
As is so often the case here he was an elderly man when he married
a girl of fourteen or less.
I once asked, “Do you think it really quite right for a
white-haired old man to take a little girl like that?”
“If he has the money of course it is quite right” was the
expected reply.
Marital love seems almost unknown, but family affection sometimes
rises strong in later years, apart from its normal origin in the
mutual love of young man and maid, but if the marriage is childless,
or circumstances make it uncomfortable, the worst results follow
in many cases.
His young wife, as wives often do here, one day decided that to live
with her father’s people in the hills would be more agreeable
than with her husband by the sea. By and by Ibrahim began begging
for leave to go to see her, his appeals that she should return to
him having been in vain.
Her replies, as he repeated them to me, were certainly explicit. “I
have only got a couple of girls by you. That’s no good, so I
don’t want _you_ any more.”
Cases like this give rise to an immense amount of solemn conference
between relatives to the _n_th degree and the village elders[38], in
spite of the fact that many women go their own way in any case. The
stages were reported to me at intervals, and in the end the woman
reappeared of her own accord. Alas, her motive soon became obvious,
for she was illegitimately “burdened,” i.e. pregnant. So poor
Ibrahim’s joy was turned to anger and perplexity. He dearly loved
his two little daughters, the two who were held as “not good
enough” by their mother, and wished to keep them while divorcing
the mother. My advice being asked (though I am about half the age
of complainant) I was in a quandary, since the infants were not old
enough to do without a woman’s care and Ibrahim was not prepared
with a substitute.
At this point I came home on leave, and on my return three months
later I found that Ibrahim had actually become reconciled to his
faithless wife; the child of “some young fellow in the hills”
had been born a week or so, and the old man rejoiced over him as
though he had been his own son.
A week later, and surely the hand of Providence was visible even
to fatalists.
“Please come and see Ibrahim’s wife, she is very ill.” Even I
could see that the woman was dying, and that nothing could be done
for her, but at least I succeeded in saving the child from being
fed on “samin,” stinking native butter, which might soon have
killed him.
The inconceivable stagnation of life in a desert coast village makes
any event a godsend. Illness brings joy to all, even the sufferer
seeming to be supported by the knowledge that he is a benefactor
to the public. He is invariably surrounded by a deeply interested
crowd, and never fails to shew appropriate symptoms.
In case of wounds the men are absolutely stoical, where a white man
could not restrain evidence of suffering, and the application of
a red hot nail, which is a frequent treatment for most complaints,
is borne without a murmur. And so the gentle groaning of the sick
is never allowed to become indecorous, but merely serves to prove
that the host and patient is conscious of, and means to fulfil,
his duty to his guests.
In this case things were very different, the woman was beyond even
involuntary groans. The first thing to do was to send a boat for
Ibrahim, who was absent on an island ten miles away. His return
was delayed a full day by his going another five miles down the
coast to the next village, where he spent a month’s wages on
new clothes and borrowed all the jewellery he could. With these
his dying wife was decked out, as a means of persuading the evil
spirit, which had caused her illness, to depart. At home meanwhile
drums were being vigorously beaten outside the tent, a few feet away
from her unconscious head, in the hope that what suasion could not
effect in the mind of the malignant spirit might result from fear.
A stifling crowd of women and children filled the tiny tent,
crowding upon the dying, while behind, in the shade, another party
were making tea very cosily, around one who appeared to be already
sewing the shroud.
The day after Ibrahim arrived the shrieks of this crowd of women
suddenly announced the death. Within half an hour the body was buried
and the mourners were about their ordinary occupations. Ibrahim
wept like a child, though why he should grieve for such a wife it
is hard for a white man to say.
Negro women, being escaped or liberated slaves, and so having no
relatives who can settle disputes with their husbands, sometimes
come in to complain of being beaten, though they owe protection
to the fact that negro women are fewer than the men, so that a
husband who is disagreeable to his wife runs the risk of losing
that valuable property. Hamitic women only come to try and get
an increased allowance from their husbands rarely to complain of
ill-treatment, from which they are protected by their relatives.
The making and mending of clothes, that great part of women’s daily
work, is non-existent with us, for, as before stated, the lengths of
flimsy cotton are worn as they come from the shop. Washing is often
in progress, rather a miserable business in sea-water without soap,
but the thinness of the stuff makes it easier[39].
Besides cooking and the care of children and animals the women have
certain manufactures. The palm-leaf matting for the outer covering
of the tents and houses is bought ready made, but the inner coarse
blanket material is woven at home from the hair of the owner’s
goats, which is collected and spun into coarse thread as it becomes
available. The spinning is entirely by hand, the thread being merely
wound on a dangling stick which is kept spinning by hand. When a
dozen or so large balls of this grey-black and brown thread have
accumulated, a rough weaving frame of three sticks is pegged out on
the sand, and weaving goes on for some days. Neighbours are called
in to help, three to six women generally working together.
Any man passing near women who are working at blanket making must
beware lest they should throw the balls of wool at him. If he is
struck by one the women have the right to demand a present, which
is divided among the helpers.
The palm-leaves used in basket making and for the “Serîr” or
sleeping mat are brought from Suakin, no palms growing in all our
country. These baskets are so closely woven that when once the
fibres are thoroughly wetted they become watertight. The figures
on Plate XVI illustrate a milk-bowl made in this way; the other
baskets have covers and are used to keep women’s trinkets &c.,
or the fragile earthenware coffee-pot, one being ornamented by the
interweaving of strips of thin leather, the other by pieces of red
flannel and tufts of camels’ hair. In other cases the leaves are
bought ready dyed and the resulting basket displays bands of colour.
In making a “Serîr,” or sleeping mat, a woman slits up the
midribs of palm leaves and provides a number of goat-skins scraped
free of hair. These skins are cut into narrow strips like string
and woven in and out between the palm midribs which are laid
side by side, and the number of skins used in making one mat is
surprising. The work is tedious, and she gets neighbours’ help;
the result, as an addition to comfort, seems hardly worth the labour.
_Plate XXIII_
[Illustration: Fig. 49. Weaving. Behind the three women is finished
blanket, in front the threads of the warp]
[Illustration: Fig. 50. Marriageable girl of thirteen cooking rice
in antique brass pot]
It is the women’s business to strike and pitch the tents. In the
village this is done not only on arrival and departure, but after
the tent has stood some time in one place it is shifted to a fresh
site by way of a “spring cleaning.”
Old women and children drive the goats out to “graze” in
the desert in the early morning and may feed and tether them on
their return, but, as already remarked in Chapter III, a peculiar
superstition declares that men must do the milking. They also bring
water from the well, in goat-skins on donkeys.
Women suffer sometimes from a mysterious disease, the symptoms
of which seem closely to resemble those of the “vapours” of
our ancestresses. The help of a female shêkh has to be called in,
sometimes at great expense. First seeing the patient she prescribes
what articles of clothing, especially what ornaments, are to be worn,
and then goes off alone into the desert, where, according to my
informant, she behaves like a maniac, apparently invoking good and
exorcising evil spirits. “Vapours” would of course yield most
easily to suggestion, and the little break in the monotony of life,
the fuss and mild excitement, are quite enough to bring about a cure.
In my demonstration of the independence of women even in a Moslem
community I am conscious that the less agreeable side of their
character becomes unduly prominent. I would now leave on record
that in many cases the standard of wifely duty is far above what
one has any right to expect from the conditions of their lives.
The best women are often the least conspicuous members of any
community, but their presence is made evident in the existence of any
kind of prosperity or real happiness. I conclude my account by saying
that in this village amid all the laxity of an Oriental civilisation
bordering on savagery, in spite of its desolation and poverty,
lack of defence against either the dreadful heat of summer or the
cold of winter, the hunger that makes men eat the food of cattle,
and where fresh water is often an unattainable luxury, men find
the happiness of home in a way which multitudes of our own urban
poor do not know. Where this is so goodness must necessarily be;
though its laws differ from those we ourselves know, its presence
is none the less evident.
_Plate XXIV_
[Illustration: Fig. 51. Baby girl with lamb, which is _not_ woolly]
PART II
CHAPTER VII
CORALS AND CORAL ANIMALS
Directly we look at the ground in the neighbourhood of Port Sudan
or Suakin, or indeed anywhere on this part of the Red Sea coast,
we see that it is largely composed of shells and fragments of
coral. Further, it is easy to see that these differ from the
fossils of home limestones in their extreme abundance, in their
lying loose among the surrounding sand, and in their being familiar
to the collector of shells as common species still living in the
neighbouring sea. The same is true of the corals, though in this
case the identification is not quite so obvious. The fact is we are
walking upon a coral-reef, almost exactly like those still forming
and growing in the sea, which has been elevated by earth movements
above the water, and every grain of the earth was once part of a
living creature.
Such elevated coral-reefs are common in the world, but they rarely
remain so little altered by the upheaval as here. All this dry
land and these splendid harbours, many mountain masses in different
parts of the world, innumerable islands in the Pacific and Indian
Oceans rising from enormous depths of water, are monuments of the
life-activity of certain lowly organisms.
So much is generally understood, but too often the vision is of
“patient insects building islands in the deep.” At least the
visitor to the new town of Port Sudan must recognise the coral
organism as the fundamental fact of all that he has come so far to
see. They are the builders of those foundations of which the great
quay-walls are but a trimming and straightening of an infinitesimal
portion, but it is no more possible to directly observe the building
action of the coral polyps than to see the growth of the bones in
a child.
Fig. 52. A simple sea-anemone.
Figs. 53 and 54. Young and fully developed colonial anemones.
Figs. 55 and 56. Two views of a living coral polyp (_Caryophyllia
smithii_) from above and from the side. The radial plates of
limestone, conspicuous in Fig. 57, are seen through the transparent
body wall. Otherwise the animal is like Fig. 52.
(Drawn from living animal by H. C. Chadwick, A.L.S.)
Fig. 57. The stony cup of _Caryophyllia_, seen from above and from
the side, after removal of the polyp’s flesh.
_Plate XXV_
[Illustration: Fig. 52]
[Illustration: Fig. 53]
[Illustration: Fig. 54]
[Illustration: Fig. 55]
[Illustration: Fig. 56]
[Illustration: Fig. 57
Sea-anemones and corals]
An examination of any typical coral fragment, living or dead, massive
or branched, shews that the surface of the stone is shaped into
little cups, which may be large (half an inch or more in diameter)
or very small; they may entirely cover the surface or be scattered at
intervals, be sunk below the general level or project boldly from it
(see the figures of corals on Plate XXVI). In any case, all ordinary
corals consist of a multitude of such cups borne upon a common mass
of the same stony material, and each cup may be regarded as the
remains of one individual “polyp” as the coral animal is called.
It will be a simpler way of gaining an idea of what a coral polyp
really is to take a least specialised member of its class, one in
which each individual lives disconnected from its fellows and does
not secrete the complicated skeleton characteristic of the stony
corals. Fig. 52 shews a “sea-anemone” in no material respect
different to those which Gosse has so beautifully figured from our
own shores. It is seen to be a graceful translucent cylinder fixed
by its base to some chance stone or shell. This extreme simplicity
of form gives the living animal a by no means inconsiderable beauty.
The free end of the cylinder bears a circle of what look like
hairs, but which are found on testing to be highly sensitive to
touch and are surprisingly adhesive for organs of such transparent
delicacy. They are consequently better named the tentacles, their
function being to adhere to and close down upon any little water-flea
or such-like animal that has the bad luck to swim against them. They
are also provided with stinging cells which are used for paralysing
their prey and for defence. In the centre of the disc is the mouth,
a simple opening, a mere hole in the top of a sac.
Our polyp, or anemone, has no organs of locomotion, no organs
of sight, taste or hearing, indeed no brain. It has at any rate
the rudiments of a nervous and muscular system, for it is able to
move its tentacles all towards that one which has captured prey and
assist it in conveying the food to the mouth. The body is sensitive
all over, for any part when touched will contract, and a violent
shock causes the tentacles to fold together and the whole animal to
close down to a shapeless hemispherical mass. This is the limit of
its sensory and muscular powers, two or three muscular movements,
a few of the simplest reactions to outside influences, nothing that
could be called even the sense of touch.
Internally again the principal interest of the organism is its
extreme simplicity. There is no stomach or gut, no heart or veins,
no lung or gills, no kidneys and no brain. The animal is in fact a
simple sac, the inner walls are much folded to increase their area,
but there is but one body-space to serve for everything. In this
space the food is digested. There is but one opening into it from
the outside, so the indigestible remnants of the food are voided
by the same opening as that they entered by.
Simplicity of organisation could scarcely go farther; we have here
an example of one of the lowest forms of life. Lowly organisms of
this kind shew an astonishing indifference to the separation of
one part from another. No cutting or mutilation does any permanent
harm. Chop the beast to fragments, and not only will each piece
remain alive, but it will grow until it encloses a new sac, forms
a new mouth, tentacles, and adhesive base, and behold a number of
new and complete polyps. This possibility has been taken advantage
of by nature, and numbers of these lowly forms of life propagate
themselves in this way. A projection arises on the side of the
animal, is automatically amputated, grows missing organs, and becomes
a complete and independent animal. The process is exactly like the
planting of rose-cuttings, one of the cases of asexual reproduction
in the animal kingdom.
Now in many cases, where propagation by buds takes place, the
buds undergo their full development into complete polyps while
remaining connected with the parent. An example of a “colony” of
sea-anemones thus formed is given by Plate XXV, Figs. 53 and 54. An
allied form, known as _Palythoa_, is common in the Red Sea as little
star-like rings of tentacles, of a beautiful deep, yet bright, green,
carpeting the sand and stones in shallow water. Each star, or polyp
head, measures about a quarter-inch in diameter, so that when a few
dozen occur together they form a quite conspicuous patch of colour.
As already stated the corals are similar “colonial” organisms,
the numerous cups on their stony branches representing each one polyp
head. But how the polyps are connected with the stony material is
best explained by, as before, taking the simplest possible case,
that of a solitary non-colonial polyp, which is exactly like our
simple sea-anemone, but has a stony cup like one of those of the
ordinary corals.
Plate XXV, Figs. 55 and 56, represents such a form, which is in
fact the only British stony coral[40]. But for differences in
shape and proportion, the upper part of the organism is exactly
similar to the sea-anemone shewn in Fig. 52, but beneath it is
a stony mass, the coral cup, secreted by the base of the polyp,
a seat exactly adapted to its own shape. The empty cup, after
removal of the anemone, is shewn as seen from above in Fig. 57, to
the right, and the curious radial plates of the same stony matter,
so characteristic of all coral cups, are very plain. This polyp is
comparatively large, measuring half an inch or more across.
This cup is not formed in the complicated way in which bone is
made in the higher animals. The material is the cheapest possible,
viz. limestone; this occurs in minute quantities in solution in all
sea-water, and the coral polyp has the power of absorbing it[41]
from the water and rendering it insoluble and stony in just those
places where it is needed to form the kind of cup characteristic of
the species. Another difference from bone is that the secretion is
altogether outside the body of the animal; the cup is a mere dead
structure from the first. One can imagine the animal as throwing
down a limestone seat for itself, and as the seat thickens the
polyp is raised more and more above the sea-bottom.
Galaxea Seriatopora Favia
Porites Coeloria Stylophora
(another form)
Siderastrea Pavonia Favia
Pavonia Pocillopora
Pocillopora Porites Hydnopora
(a common kind)
_Plate XXVI_
[Illustration: Fig. 58. Stony corals of 13 species belonging to
9 genera; generic names only given]
_Plate XXVII_
[Illustration: Fig. 59. _Dendrophyllia_, a simple colonial coral
with distinct polyp cups]
Imagine now the polyp to bud, as does _Palythoa_, and each bud
to secrete its own cup, while the connecting branches also throw
down the same limestone, so that the cups are connected on to one
mass, and we have at once the formation of ordinary reef coral,
of which perhaps the simplest possible case is the _Dendrophyllia_,
figured on Plate XXVII, where each polyp gives rise to but one bud,
which gives out one other, so each branch is like a simple chain
of polyps and their cups. The other corals figured are rather
more complicated, since one polyp gives off many buds, and their
branches are correspondingly more massive. In the hemispherical
corals, the connecting branches are short, practically non-existent,
and the polyps are crowded together, as a kind of skin, over the
solid mass of limestone they have secreted. Certain species of
coral form enormous colonies, containing hundreds of thousands of
little polyps. I remember a certain part of the fringing reef of
Zanzibar[42] over which the water was 6 feet or more deep. Being
perfectly clear, and so favourable to coral growth, it was inhabited
by a species of the genus _Porites_, which formed huge cylinders,
the flat tops measuring 6 to 12 feet across, level with that of the
lowest spring-tide, since it is impossible for the polyps to live
above that level. So closely were these great cylinders planted
in the water that it was easy, by striding and jumping from one to
another, to cross the channel to the shallower part of the reef on
the other side.
From what has been said of the formation of the coral cups it is
clear that the quantity of living matter going to the formation of
these great cylinders is very small, a mere gelatinous film over
the surface.
The fundamental simplicity of structure, which is common to every
coral, does not preclude the evolution of an amazing variety of
forms. In the course of time as many species have been evolved
as there are possible combinations of the conditions, animate and
inanimate, which affect coral growth and survival. In form these
range from huge and solid stones, weighing many tons, to tiny
delicate things like petrified lace or ferns, some of substance
nearly as hard as shells, others so spongy as to be easily cut into
by a knife. I have been enabled to give two plates illustrating
a few out of this amazing variety. Both massive, hemispherical
or dome-shaped, and more delicate branched species are shewn, but
lobed growths, such as that shewn at the bottom of the first group,
intergrade the two divisions. The latter specimen is of particular
interest, being a species of the genus _Porites_, already referred
to as forming great cylinders of solid stone. This small specimen
was taken from shallow water, near lowest tide level, so that the
polyp cups, which are too small to be visible in the photograph,
were intact only on its sides. Above they were killed by the air
and sun, and the stone they had formed, being exposed to the action
of the sea, has been dissolved away slightly, leaving a narrow rim
round the edge, where the part that was protected by living flesh
shews the height the colony originally attained.
In the middle of the plate are small dome-shaped colonies, of species
which, though rarely growing to the size of the _Porites_ cylinders,
may form very considerable boulders. Notice the different shapes
of the polyp cups, with their radiating plates, and the varying
beauty they impart to the surface of the stone, a beauty which is
enhanced by examination under a lens.
_Plate XXVIII_
[Illustration: Fig. 60. Stony corals
All are forms of genus _Madrepora_ except the lowest, which is a
species of _Symphyllia_]
Most of the branched kinds belong to one great genus _Madrepora_,
one of the most conspicuous of all the forms seen in a living reef,
and which contains a very great number of species. In spite of the
wide variety of outer shape, the structure of the coral polyps
is almost identical throughout this genus. The colonies may be
quite small and are generally of moderate size, but one tremendous
growth has been recorded, which covered an acre of the sea bottom
and sent its branches of stone to the height of 50 feet. In this
case a single coral equalled in size a plantation of large trees,
but what is usually seen is a network of branches springing from
one thick stem and spreading horizontally, and covering a fan-shaped
or circular area of a square yard at most.
Not only are the growth-forms of corals varied as those of plants,
but the details of the polyp cups are well worth attention. Typically
the surface of the coral is covered with round depressions,
which may be minute, as in _Porites_, or half an inch across as in
_Caryophyllia_ and the dome-shaped species shewn on Plate XXVI. All
are partially filled up by complicated series of radial plates, and
a central core, best seen in the illustration of _Caryophyllia_, and
the arrangement and ornamentation of these form an endless variety of
patterns. In other cases the depressions, instead of being round, are
elongated, forming meandering grooves over the surface, which, from
their superficial likeness to the convolutions of the human brain,
give the name “Brain coral” to certain kinds. In others again the
walls of the cups disappear, and the system is reduced to a network
of plates, converging to the centres of the polyps, or these may be
so thickened and flattened that the spaces between them appear as
fine lines, tracing a lace-like pattern on the surface of the stone.
One is tempted to write a whole book on the beauties of corals
and coral animals but must refrain; one other form is however so
interesting, and at the same time so common, that a short special
description is given.
In many sheltered water gardens may be seen numbers of what look like
overturned, stalkless, mushrooms. On handling they are found to lie
loose on the sand and to be stony corals. They are in fact single
polyps of phenomenal size, being up to six inches across, and the
radiating plates, which so resemble the “gills” of a mushroom
(hence the name of this genus, _Fungia_) correspond to those already
seen in the other corals illustrated. The cup wall is however absent.
The life history is as strange as the coral that results. The young
polyp produces at first a quite ordinary, small, cylindrical cup,
Plate XXIX, which is fixed to a stone in the usual way. After
reaching a certain size this swells at the top into a disc, like
a mushroom on its stalk, except that the mushroom head is turned
wrong side up. A little later this head falls off on to the sand,
where it continues to grow into the big _Fungia_ discs first met
with. This, however, is not the death of the original polyp, which
goes on growing new heads which in turn fall off, _ad infinitum_!
Many attempts have been made to visualise the beauties of a coral
garden, in poetry, romance, and works of sober science. I can make no
claim for my own picture, but that perhaps it is written with better
acquaintance than is generally possible to poets and romanticists,
and that it is free from exaggeration, as the writings of a biologist
should be.
Let us imagine our exploration from the beginning. It is a calm
morning in summer, the sea a pearl of beauty, under the new-risen
sun. The heat, great even in the early morning, is unnoticed in
enjoyment of the delicate pink and blue and golden shades reflected
by the mirror-like surface, unbroken by any indication of what lies
below. The tints of reef and shoal, which form so beautiful a part
of the seascape when the water is rippled, are now exchanged for
atmospheric colours, which, as we float over from deep to shallow
water, give place to a panorama of coral gardens below.
_Plate XXIX_
[Illustration: Fig. 61]
[Illustration: Fig. 62]
[Illustration: Fig. 63]
Mushroom Corals
Fig. 61. _Herpolitha_, an elongated fungid
Fig. 62. The young form of _Fungia_
Fig. 63. A typical _Fungia_-disc
As we row, keeping watch ahead, the reef seems suddenly to spring
up before us, so steep is its slope.
The pleasure of the sight of a new and beautiful world of shapes
and colours, mimicking yet utterly unlike those of life on land,
is for us enhanced by the vigour of its life and growth, in happy
contrast to the desert shore.
On the edge of the shoal _Porites_ and other solid forms appear
as great rocky buttresses among the lighter plant-like growths,
or, a little way from it may rise from the depths as an isolated
pillar. In many places in the Red Sea such coral pinnacles abound
in comparatively deep water, a horror of unexpected danger to
the sailor.
There is nothing more fascinating than the edge of a reef in the
open sea, where numbers of forms and their delightful groupings
can be seen in succession, one below another, till they become hazy
and gradually lost in the blue depths, sixty to ninety feet below
us. There are precipices clothed with a thick bush of spreading
coral, some seeking the light by reaching out horizontally, others by
growing upwards tree fashion, what appear to be bare rocks turning
out to be massive colonies, as much alive as the more plant-like
forms, caves, dark in contrast to the bright corals that surround
their mouths, and the white shell-sand with which they are floored.
The general colour of living corals is very various, the snow white
or creamy skeletons seen in museums being covered by a tinted film of
polyps. The majority of species are some shade of brown, from deep
chocolate to the golden colour of some seaweed covered boulders on
home shores, but among these bright tints are abundant. The brown
branches of _Madrepora_ are generally tipped with light violet, pink
or white, as though each ended in a flower, while other branched
corals are a brilliant scarlet or bright green all over. Another
forms a series of large thin sheets, spreading horizontally one
above another, and all of a brilliant yellow! In these the flesh is
inconspicuous, appearing as a mere colouring of the stony branches,
but in others the polyps are as conspicuous as “sea-anemones,”
with typical flower-like discs, a row of tentacles surrounding
the mouth, or the tentacles may be so long that nothing else is
visible. One of these, _Galaxea_, is very beautiful, shades of
bright or dark green mingling with a greater or less proportion of
brown, so that the rounded knolls of coral may resemble hillocks
of grass, or of brown seaweed. Another large coral is almost devoid
of tentacles altogether, but the polyps are large and the stone is
covered as it were with green brown velvet, laid down in soft folds.
Of the inhabitants of these gardens and grottoes there is no space
to speak. Anemones of all sizes and colours abound, and flower-like
animals, the most beautiful of which are the sensitive sea-worms,
add colour even to the corals. The gorgeous fish that lazily pass
in and out, as though flaunting their beauty they could be careless
of danger, have been described by every traveller.
The association between certain smaller fish, crabs and other higher
animals with corals is remarkable. One sees for instance a branched
coral with a shoal of tiny green fish hovering near, or in another
case the fish are banded vertically black and white. Drop a pebble
among them and they instantly disappear among the branches, and if
the coral is taken out of the water the fish still cling to their
refuge, and most of them are captured with it. These are but two
examples of a whole world of life found only among corals.
Seeing that all corals are derivable from the sea-anemone (some form
of which must have been the original ancestor of the whole family),
and that the sea-anemone has been proved to be very distinctly an
animal, I trust that the animal nature of the corals is now too
firmly fixed in the reader’s mind to be shaken by their vegetable
fixity, vegetative growth and form, or even by the fact that I am
about to explain, viz. that the majority of corals do _not_ obtain
their nourishment by the capture of prey, but by the decomposition
of the carbonic acid gas contained in the sea-water, a method of
feeding which is the most distinctive feature of plant-life as
opposed to animal. To recapitulate the well-known and fundamental
fact of the life of this world, the plants are characterised by
their taking up carbonic acid gas which, by the power of sunlight
upon their green matter, they split up in some way so as to form
starch from the carbon with water, while the oxygen is liberated
back into the air. The animals, on the other hand, eat the food ready
prepared for them by the plants, which is consumed in their bodies,
and burned, as it were, back to carbonic acid, which land-animals get
rid of in breathing. So there is a balance, the oxygen necessary to
animal life being freed by the plants from the carbonic acid given
by the animals, which carbonic acid is the necessary food-stuff of
the plants.
The process in the sea is exactly similar, only that the gases
concerned are dissolved in the water and rarely separate and become
visible as bubbles. Fishes give off carbonic acid gas, dissolved
in the sea-water, from their gills, and this is broken up by the
seaweeds which liberate the oxygen from which the fishes and all
animals re-form carbonic acid gas.
Now the amazing thing about the corals is that the polyps have
entered into an alliance with certain microscopic plants which
come to live in their bodies, and they feed upon the starchy
products these plants form in sunlight, and even upon the plants
themselves. So intimate is the union of these strange partners
that neither can live without the other, the coral has lost its
independence, and in fact as well as in appearance leads the life of
a plant. At the first sight of a coral sea one wonders what takes
the place of the great beds of brown and green weed which fringe
British shores, and are a source of the oxygen essential to animal
life. The discovery of these plant partners of the corals gives the
answer. This easy life, this evasion of the necessity of capturing
prey, is doubtless the reason for the degeneration of the polyp
structure noticed above.
One of the greatest interests of these lowly forms of life is their
place in the evolution of the higher. We have left all that is
familiar, the creatures with heads and limbs, far behind, on the
surface as it were, and are groping among the foundations of the
edifice of creation. It is difficult indeed to express how very far
down we are without some description of the rest of the series. But
this is impossible; I am asked to give means of understanding what
a coral is, and should not be thanked for giving in reply a treatise
on Zoology. Let us take two steps only of the process of evolution,
and let these short lengths give an expression of the whole descent.
Consider the vast interval of time and changes of structure
involved in the evolution of man from his ape-like ancestor. How
many thousands of years, what vast advances! How far above the
purely animal is the lowest savage, and how far above that the
best of civilised man! And yet even in the case of the brain, the
development of which is man’s main advance, the man’s brain is
but the further development of the ape’s[43], which has already
gone the greater part of the way manwards from the condition found
in ordinary animals.
Now we and the apes together are derived from some fish-like
ancestor. We all had gill bars fundamentally like those of a
fish at one stage of our existences. It is a vast descent through
the reptiles to the amphibia and then to the fishes[44]! And the
fishes again are our second step illustrative of the vast changes
involved. Fish are just fish to the ordinary man, and yet the fact
is that the difference between man and ape is just nothing to that
between the ordinary higher fish, the kinds that come in after the
soup, and the sharks. The shark family have not yet attained the
possession of true bone, for instance, and their brain development
is almost rudimentary. But we are already in the dim beginnings of
geological history, for sharks essentially like those we now know
were living when almost the earliest of rocks were being laid down
as mud in primeval oceans. These were times incredibly remote, when
land animals were not in existence, when plants were represented
only by seaweeds, the whole land a desert but for possibly some
creeping films of vegetation adapted to life on damp soil ashore,
times long ages before those strange reptiles Iguanodon, Diplodocus,
the whale-like Ichthyosaurus, the giant ferns and lycopods of the
coal measures, whose fossil remains remind us of nightmare worlds
which have passed away, had ever come into being.
We are at the beginning of geological history, and yet the corals are
a large and flourishing class, coral-reefs are growing as nowadays,
and the corals themselves, though of course of altogether different
forms, are essentially the same down to the first syllable of
recorded time. But having proofs of evolution which are independent
of the geological record over these vast aeons, we may safely carry
back the process into those times represented by rocks so ancient
that no fossil trace of life is found in them, to the times when the
lowest fish-like vertebrata were not, and the simple polyp was the
highest product of life upon the earth. We know that most probably
there really was such a time, but to imagine it is like trying to
comprehend the solar system by arithmetic. We may speculate and
wonder at the first beginnings of life, but I, for one, prefer to
leave it to each reader’s imagination.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BUILDING OF REEFS
Sea-water, besides containing comparatively large quantities of
common salt, contains several other substances in solution in less
quantity. One of these is the limestone[45] which the coral polyp
extracts and renders solid as its stony skeleton, and of which,
in essentially the same way, the “shell fish,” whether oyster,
winkles or crabs make their hard coverings. Another constituent
is magnesium carbonate, a substance rather similar to limestone,
to which we refer later.
Having examined the individual stone formed by the growth of a
coral colony we must consider how such stones are aggregated to
form a reef.
It is obvious that colonies cannot live for ever, any more than do
individuals, and we need to know the fate of a dead colony and how
it is replaced by a living one which shall continue the building. So
great is the competition among the crowds of the floating young of
the fixed animals that any vacant spot is at once appropriated. When
a coral colony dies the coloured film of flesh speedily rots away
and the snow-white stony skeleton remains, washed clean by waves and
currents[46]. In a few days this is covered with a film of the finest
green seaweed, invisible among which are the embryos of several
orders of animals, e.g. shell-fish, or, there may be the larvae
of some other coral. There is a tense struggle for survival among
these young creatures, but on a growing reef conditions of course
generally favour the coral’s young (otherwise the reef would cease
to grow), some of which grow at the expense of nearly everything else
and cover the site. Many of the large hemispherical corals live on
the reef like loose stones, but on turning them over one may find
quite a small shell, or coral branch, attached to the centre of the
underside. This is the foundation of the whole, the resting place of
the tiny floating larva, the growth of which first covered the stone
on which it settled by a vigorous colony which when large enough
to be independent of support continued its growth until the mass
exceeded by hundreds of times the bulk of the original foundation.
The more delicate of coral skeletons, such as those of the porous
branched madrepores, rarely survive the death of the polyps that
formed them. On losing its coat of living flesh the coral is exposed
to the action of boring animals, as well as to the direct solvent
action of the sea-water, and many are thus destroyed. Partly they
go back into solution, but the greater portion is broken down to
mud and sand. In shallow water branched colonies are broken up into
pebbles and coarse sand by the waves, and these materials serve to
fill in the spaces between the larger colonies and pack the whole
together into a solid mass.
There are other constituents of coral reefs of not very much less
importance than the corals themselves. Large masses are formed of
the bivalve shells which live in the coral mud, and which, by the
solidification of this mud, form with it a limestone, such as that
of which the houses of Port Sudan are built. Although among the
very numerous and conspicuous fossils of this stone coral branches
are not the commonest, yet the mass of shells and hardened mud is
every bit as much a part of the reef as anything else is. In some
reefs too, even where coral is growing abundantly, the shells of the
great clam _Tridacna_ are so abundant as to make up a considerable
part of the total mass. Others again contain quantities of certain
peculiar seaweeds (of which the “coralline” of British seas is
one) which, though true plants in every detail, have the property of
taking up limestone from the sea and forming therewith a skeleton,
even harder and more compact than that of the corals. Plate XXX
shews the appearance of these plants, and will enable the reader to
identify some of those he meets with. These sometimes form a cement,
by which the coral colonies and fragments are held together, and in
some others the whole reef is formed of them[47]. Other organisms
assist, but I observe my principle of dealing only with the most
important features and desist from enumerating all.
This is the whole structure of the interior of such a reef as that
which fringes the Red Sea coast, as seen e.g. during the excavation
of the quay walls or slipway at Port Sudan. Great “stones”
which are the more massive colonies, generally the genus _Porites_,
are bedded in with smaller colonies whole or broken. In places are
collections of grey mud and sand, also formed from coral by the
action of boring organisms or perhaps as the residue left after
partial solution by the sea.
“How fast does a coral reef grow?” is a question often asked,
and never as yet truly answered. Probably each of the hundreds
of species of coral has its own maximum rate of growth, which is
however rarely attained, as it is certain that the rate of every
colony of each species varies very widely with its position on the
reef and its immediate surroundings. So taking the rate of growth
of a few samples would go a very little way towards giving that
of the corals in any given square yard of the reef edge. Although
individual colonies may grow quite rapidly this is but half the
question. We must know also full details of the action of eroding
and transporting sea currents, solution, boring organisms (in
coral, coral sand and mud) and subtract the total from that of the
deposition of stone by living polyps, to obtain the net increase.
_Plate XXX_
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Figs. 64 and 65. Stony seaweeds,
massive and branched. _Lithothamnia_]
The boring animals mentioned as reducing coral stone to mud are
very easily found and examined. Almost any old worn piece of coral,
and many still living colonies, are found to be studded with small
slit-like holes with slightly raised borders. On breaking into the
stone each hole is found to lead at once into an oval cavity, say an
inch long by three-eighths in diameter, containing a bivalve shell of
about the same size, _Lithodomus_ by name, from its appearance known
as the “date shell,” which has made the hollow and is continually
enlarging it. Other colonies when broken across instead of shewing
pure white limestone are found to be honeycombed with yellow or red
spongy matter. This is the sponge _Clione_, which has the property,
especially astonishing in a sponge, of boring into any limestone,
whether coral or shell, making it quite rotten and so, finally,
reducing it to mud and sand.
Certain worms live in the same way. The largest species of these,
by name _Eunice siciliensis_, attains a length of a yard or so,
and the thickness of a quarter of an inch, but so intricate is its
boring that it is practically impossible to extract a full-grown
specimen entire. The head end is at the innermost part of the burrow,
and when extracted the two white gouge-like teeth, by which the
burrow is cut out, are easily seen.
There is a fish too, _Pseudoscarus_ by name, which actually lives on
coral! It is commonly taken by fishermen and is easily recognised
by its gorgeous green, blue and pink colours, but particularly by
its teeth, which are fused into two pairs of chisels, with which
the surface of the coral, and with it its living matter, is browsed
away. Cut open a specimen of this fish and you find its guts full
of fragments of coral[48].
Figs. 66 and 67. Two specimens of _Porites_.
In 66 the flesh has been left on the coral and where it is broken
it is seen that the dark coloured living matter penetrates the
mass only to the bottoms of the coral cups. In this small piece
the openings of 14 _Lithodomus_ burrows are seen, and in four of
them the lips of the shell are visible.
In 67 the base of the still living coral is rotting away, being full
of small holes formed by the sponge _Clione_ and small boring worms.
Fig. 68. An old piece of coral in which so much of the surface
has rotted away that the numerous _Lithodomus_ borings, of which
only the small openings can be seen in living corals, are fully
exposed. This in spite of partial protection by growth of encrusting
stony seaweed as at the point marked _a_.
Fig. 69. Section of a large shell, a material very much harder than
any coral, yet bored in the same way by both mollusca and sponge.
Fig. 70. The mollusc _Pholas_ lying in its burrow in coral.
Fig. 70 about natural size, the rest about half this.
From specimens in the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology.
_Plate XXXI_
[Illustration: Fig. 66]
[Illustration: Fig. 67]
[Illustration: Fig. 68]
[Illustration: Fig. 69]
[Illustration: Fig. 70
Borings of molluscs and sponges]
_Pholas_, another boring bivalve mollusc, common in shales on
some British coasts, is less often seen. Its burrow is deeply
buried in a solid living colony separated from the outside by a
comparatively long passage. But it is not nearly so common as the
preceding forms, and lives more solitary, _Lithodomus_ generally
occurring in numbers together.
After the coral has been broken down by these means, the sand is
further reduced to fine mud by the action of those animals which
live by burrowing in it, and passing large quantities through their
guts, after the manner of earthworms. Just as there is a great fauna
which lives on the nourishment filtered from large quantities of
sea-water[49] so there is another great and varied community of sand
eaters. There are first of all the worms, next, but more important in
the tropics, great numbers of large holothurians or “sea slugs”
(though slugs they are _not_), some of which crawl on and eat only
the surface sand, but one species burrows deeply and raises casts
like an earthworm, but a hundred times the size. Considering the
large effects produced by the ordinary earthworm in a year, that
resulting from the presence of animals hundreds of times their bulk,
whose casts in many lagoons entirely cover the bottom, must be very
considerable indeed.
One observation that can be made by anybody is to note how long it
is before corals reappear once a reef has been cleared out, e.g. for
the foundations of a quay wall. Two small portions of an apparently
growing reef at Port Sudan were buried under a pile of stones for
the foundations of the east and west Customs landings, and four
years later there was no growth of coral on the artificial slopes
thus made, though every condition apparently remains as favourable
as before. Again at a point inside Dongonab Bay, where coral growth
is luxuriant in shallows, the coral was some years ago collected
from one spot and a sea wall built with it. A few small colonies
have established themselves upon the sides of the wall after an
interval of twelve years; they are perfectly healthy, yet their
bulk is an infinitesimal fraction of that removed from the wall by
solution and attrition. This shews how even among growing coral one
cannot be sure that the degradation of rock to sand and mud is not
in excess of aggradation, i.e. its building up by coral organisms,
and how a lagoon may be rapidly eating away its encircling reefs
and yet contain comparatively luxuriant coral gardens.
[Illustration: Diagram 1. Section across a Coral Reef, fringing
the shore]
It is in its external form that a coral reef shews features
which give it an individuality above that of a mere heap of
stones. Generally it rises with a steep slope from the sea bottom
which ends in a low precipice, above which is another and more gentle
slope to the highest point of the reef, a foot or two above lowest
water, which is near its outer edge. Passing landwards the reef
level is lower again, and we may have a boat channel or series of
lagoons, where the native canoes can travel on calm water however
the sea may rage outside. This is succeeded by a flat of bare rock,
which rises slowly up to the base of the undercut coral cliffs as
in imaginary section in Diagram 1 and the Photograph on Plate XXXII.
We have here three striking features, viz. precipitous reef
edge, raised border and reef flat with boat channel, strongly
differentiating the shore of a coral sea from the more or less
even slope we are accustomed to at home, resulting in a nearly
waveless shore and breakers out at sea, an endless line of purest
white dividing the green of the shallows from the blue-black of
the deep water.
_Plate XXXII_
[Illustration: Fig. 71. Undercut cliffs of Rawaya. The whole
foreground is reef flat formed by the planing down of the land]
Imagine land newly raised from the sea upon which coral growth is
only beginning. In section its coastline would be a more or less
gradual slope (to take the simplest case) as the line A, B in
Diagram 2, sea level being represented by the line C, D. Suppose
the scale to be such that the depth C to A is about 50 fathoms. Now
it is found that under the best of conditions reef corals do not
grow at this depth; if the conditions are less favourable so the
maximum depth at which
[Illustration: Diagram 2. The Commencement of a Reef]
these corals grow is decreased. (That this fact is the crux
of the problems to be discussed later may as well be noted at
once.) Coral growth will be most luxuriant in the shallow water,
and the first stage of our reef will be a mound of coral of the
shape shewn in section by the dotted area. Between E and D this
comes to the surface, and the corals, projecting above the water
at lowest spring tides, are killed at the top, so that E to D
becomes an almost flat surface of dead corals, some of which may,
however, be still living where their bases are immersed in clear
sea-water. A continuation of this process gives us a reef flat
of considerable area, indicated by the line F, D, the slope A, F
becoming correspondingly steepened. At the point F the waves have
thrown up a long low mound of coral fragments and shells, which,
in the way described below, may be consolidated into a ridge of
solid rock.
It is easy to see how an extension of coral growth would make A, F
a regular precipice, as F approximates to C. What happens after F,
the reef edge, grows out to water 50 fathoms deep, where no living
foundation can be laid for
[Illustration: Diagram 3. Further Growth of the Reef]
the support of the still growing reef above? Diagram 3
explains. Passing seawards from F is the gentle slope formed by the
breaking waves, next a precipice, followed by a very steep slope
to the sea bottom beyond A formed of the broken and dead corals
fallen from the growing zone above, and which forms the foundation
on which the shallow water corals extend the reef seawards.
[Illustration: Diagram 4. The Abrasion of the Coast]
Now at the same time as growth has added to the reef seawards
the waves have cut down the land on the other side. Consider this
case separately and then combine with that above. As before, A,
B in Diagram 4 is the outline in section of recently formed land
upon which the sea has as yet had no action, and C, D is the level
of lowest tides, C′, D′ that of the highest. Between these two
levels, upon the land mass lying between D and D′, is the never
ceasing beat of waves and the wear of silt-carrying currents, so that
in time the land is eaten away along a line a little above C, D, say
X, Y, and a cliff, Y, Z, is formed. We are assuming that the material
of the land is sufficiently coherent to form such a flat and cliff,
but even so in general X, Y becomes a sloping shore, not a flat. It
only remains as a flat if for some reason the seaward surface at X
is protected against further detrition by waves, e.g. by the growth
of corals and stony seaweeds. If they are present, even if their
growth adds nothing to the mass of the rock, it hinders its decay
and causes the formation of a reef flat in place of a sloping shore.
[Illustration: Diagram 5. Formation of fringing reef partly by
growth of coral, partly by cutting down of land]
Now these two processes, addition by growth and abrasion by wave
action, go on simultaneously, and to get at the true method of
formation of a reef flat in the Red Sea the two diagrams must be
combined, as in Diagram 5, where as before F is the raised reef
edge and F, Y the whole extent of the reef flat, and the cliff Z,
Y is undermined as shewn. Where, as in some seas, F to D is recent
growth and X to Y is rather older coral rock, it is impossible to
locate accurately the dividing line between reef formed by recent
growth and that cut out of the land, but near shore, where the
flat is free from mud and sand, its surface is seen to consist of
_sections_ of the constituent shells and corals, cut as cleanly as
if done by a stonemason (see Plate XXXIII). Even such hard shells
as those of the “giant clam,” _Tridacna_, are cut across at the
same level, thus shewing very clearly the origin of the surface by
the planing down of a mass of rock to that level.
The boat channel indicated between F and G remains to be accounted
for. As the reef flat widens it results in a great area covered by
shallow water at high tide level and partly bare at low. Exposed to
a tropic sun life is impossible for any but a few specialised forms,
the rock is unprotected from such wave motion as there is, and from
boring organisms, which agencies quickly reduce its level. Strong
currents also flow over the surface, for the breakers throw water
over the raised edge which may have to travel several miles before
reaching a gap through which it can return to the sea, and this
with tidal currents cause swift rivers of muddy water to flow over
the reef flat parallel with the shore. The obvious result is the
hollowing out of a boat channel[50], and the accumulation in it
of great quantities of mud and sand, which in many places form the
greater part of its actual surface, but which eventually are swept
out to sea.
The presence of certain marine flowering plants of grass-like form
(_Cymodocea_ and other genera) assists, if not wholly responsible
for, the formation of such accumulations by binding the mass together
by their strong and tangled roots and rhizomes.
When the channel has become broad and deep enough, coral growth may
resume sway in it, sometimes to such an extent as almost to block
it up again.
I need offer no proof of the formation of a reef flat and precipice
by coral growth, the thing is obvious, at least in the case of
ordinary fringing reefs. But the hollowing out of the boat channel,
and with it that of other lagoons enclosed by coral, is less
obvious, and it is natural to assign to a feature so distinctive
of coral reefs an origin more directly dependent on the laws of
coral growth. The proof comes from a consideration of the simplest
case. Do we know of any reefs where solution and abrasion have formed
these characteristic features without aid from coral growth? We do.
_Plate XXXIII_
[Illustration: Fig. 72. A portion of a reef flat shewing _sections_
of contained shells]
[Illustration: Fig. 73. The under surface of the same stone
shewing that the reef is composed of a loosely cohering mass of
shells and broken coral. In the centre of the mass is a shell
easily recognisable as one living in abundance nowadays, _Strombus
fasciatus_]
The east coast of the island of Zanzibar is, like that of the Sudan
on the Red Sea, composed entirely of elevated coral. But for some
reason this abundant growth ceased shortly after the elevation of
the island, and the reef edge bears now nothing but a little stony
and filamentous seaweed, and in deeper water forests of sea-grass
(_Cymodocea_). The reef is very wide, up to three miles, the edge
regularly raised, and boat channel, as above mentioned, generally
well developed. On the raised edge of the reef are numbers of stones,
a foot or two in diameter, composed of the same recrystallised
coral rock[51] as the shores and cliffs of the island. Now this rock
differs very widely from that formed of recent coral in its hardness
and weight. Its specific gravity totally forbids the assumption that
these stones were torn from the reef by breakers and cast up in their
present position above low tide level and indeed, though constantly
among them and turning them over to search for specimens of marine
life, I never saw one that had recently been moved by the waves, much
less broken away from some projection of the submarine precipice.
In fact these are the hardest remnants of the mass of rock which
has been removed in the cutting out of the reef, and their presence
proves (1) that this was the mode of formation of the reefs, (2) that
the addition by growth taking place since the elevation of the old
reef has been either nothing or very inconsiderable. Here solution,
attrition, and boring organisms alone have carved out from dead
rock all the features of a reef which has grown up undisturbed[52].
The present flora of the reef edge may have been preceded by a
flora and fauna capable of affording a more efficient protection,
as is at present the case in the adjacent and similar island of
Pemba, where the reef is narrower and consequently cleaner, and
some stunted corals and _Tubipora_ grow on the outer slope of the
reef edge, a position where such species are never found in Zanzibar.
The absence of corals from the outer slope of the reef edge is
remarkable seeing that they flourish in a few places in the boat
channel, so much so in one place as to almost block it up and
form a new reef surface. They flourish too round all the many
sandbanks and islets of the channel which separates Zanzibar from
the mainland of Africa. The mud from the broad reef flat together
with the strong currents that impinge upon these coasts are amply
sufficient to prevent the settlement of the delicate coral larvae,
if not to destroy full-grown colonies.
Another case from the Cape Verde Islands, where reef corals do not
exist at all, is shewn on Plate XXXIV. A reef flat, with raised
definite edge and miniature boat channel complete, has been cut
out of sandstone, the edge of which was protected by a growth
of stony seaweed (lithothamnia), and vast numbers of the shelly
tubes of that strange animal _Vermetus_[53]. These two organisms
combine to form a continuous crust over the whole surface of the
seaward edge of the sandstone, and so greatly delay its removal
by the sea, but landwards, this protection being absent, the reef
flat is hollowed out into a “boat channel.” This sandstone is
a local deposit just to the south-west of the town of St Vincent,
but the volcanic rocks of which the island is composed are cut down
to a narrow flat in the same way, but less regularly.
_Plate XXXIV_
[Illustration: Fig. 74. A sandstone reef near St Vincent, Cape
Verde Islands]
[Illustration: Fig. 75. An embryo fringing reef near Ramleh,
Alexandria]
A third case, from the Mediterranean near Alexandria, is so striking
as to be worth illustrating, though only the embryo of a reef, as
it were a ledge a few yards wide, has been formed as yet. The rock
is a calcareous sandstone, a consolidated dune, and the protecting
organisms are much the same as those found in the Cape Verde Islands,
but here forming a less coherent coating to the rock. The regularity
of the ledge laid bare by the retreat of a wave is very striking.
Reefs may shew other features, no one arrangement can be taken
as typical of all. Instead of the smooth slope and rounded ridge
which compose the reef edge on this coast and that of Zanzibar it
is usual, in many oceanic reefs, for the growing edge to be cut
into by deep and narrow fissures, up which the great breakers send
violent torrents of water.
The land, or reef islands, may be either portions of the
reef elevated above sea level, containing fossil corals in the
positions in which they grow, or it may be partly formed of a mass
of corals thrown up by storms backed generally by an accumulation
of sand. The coral rock thus elevated may be, as in the Red Sea,
but little different from the original material of which it was
formed, but more generally it is much altered. The continual
wetting by spray or rain and drying under the tropical sun has a
very marked effect in hardening and consolidating elevated coral,
or coral sand. The upper parts are dissolved, and as the water
sinks into the porous corals and becomes supersaturated with lime,
the latter is crystallised out, thus filling up all cavities
with _crystalline_ limestone. Thus in the end the highly porous
heterogeneous limestone becomes a rock of exceeding hardness,
crystalline and homogeneous. All the more delicate organisms are
dissolved, only the largest remaining recognisable. At the same time
as sea-water contains magnesium carbonate as well as limestone, and
the former is less soluble than the latter, it tends to be deposited
more quickly, so that it comes to replace the original limestone
to some extent[54]. The alteration in the external appearance of
the rock is very marked. Instead of the yellow, rather shapeless,
cliffs of the Red Sea coast, in most other parts of the world,
where tides supply spray and there is a considerable rainfall,
we have coal-black rock with a very peculiar surface, all covered
with sharp points and knife edges separating depressions left by
the solution of the stone by water, hence the name “coral rag”
applied to such rock. Where it forms the shore of a sheltered bay
its homogeneity causes the undermining by the sea to go on to an
astonishing extent before the unsupported piece falls away from the
cliff to which it is attached. Such projections of the rocks which
may be much longer than those shewn on Plate XXXV, also illustrate
the hardness of this recrystallised material, for on striking one
with a hammer a loud clear bell-like note is produced. Given the
right conditions and we have the same peculiar result in the Red
Sea and even in the Mediterranean. For instance, a considerable
swell breaks at times on the narrow reef fringing the east side
of the Tella Tella Kebir Islands, thus keeping the cliff behind it
drenched with spray. In consequence the rock has become like that of
Zanzibar and British East Africa. And generally, wherever the coral
rock is exposed to spray it takes on these characters partially
or completely, as is the case at the bases of all the cliffs along
a narrow band just about sea level, where the rock is “’twixt
wind and water.” Here the outer part is converted into a black,
hard, and pitted crust, higher up it is harder than normal but
above gradually passes into the slightly altered rock of the normal
cliffs. Such a crust also covers the reef flats of the Red Sea,
the reef within consisting, as before noted, of loose masses of
coral bedded in with shells and sand. A portion of this crust is
photographed on Plate XXXIII; the upper surface (Fig. 72) with its
_sections_ of contained shells has already been referred to. It is
nearly smooth and very hard. The under side of the same fragment
is shewn in the next figure and is seen to consist of an irregular
mass of shells and coral branches lightly cemented to the crust,
from between which the sand, which has not been consolidated, has
fallen away. The formation of beach sandstone is practically the same
process of cementation, by alternate solution and deposition of lime,
taking place in a mass of shell and coral sand instead of larger
fragments, the rock following exactly the curve of the sandbank, of
which it is obviously a part which has been consolidated _in situ_.
_Plate XXXV_
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Figs. 76 and 77. Coral Cliffs, Zanzibar]
Fig. 76. Chuaka Bay. Note undermining of fallen fragments
„ 77. Bawi Island. Rock masses supported by narrow stalks
Coral reefs are classified into three sets according to their
relation with other land[55].
I. _Fringing reefs_, which, as the name implies, border the land,
are continuous with it, and the seaward edge of which can be reached
by wading.
II. _Barrier reefs_, which run parallel to the coast but separated
from it by deep water navigable for coasting vessels larger than
canoes.
III. _Atolls_, ring- or crescent-shaped reefs having no obvious
relation to any land and typically found far out in the ocean,
from the great depths of which they rise with steep slopes to,
at most, a few feet above high tide level.
Fringing reefs we have already dealt with; the two agents
described—growth and abrasion of coral—will account for all of
them. Barriers and atolls are more puzzling. Why should the barrier
form its line parallel to the coast, though at a distance from
it, and the very existence of atolls is one of the most striking
phenomena of Nature.
The problem is complicated by the fact that ordinary reef corals
die out at a depth of 50 fathoms or so. Now 50 fathoms is a mere
nothing compared to the depths from which the Pacific atolls rise,
and is only a quarter the depth often found within a few hundred
yards of the Red Sea reefs. How then to account for the building
of reefs in deep water?
One suggestion was that atoll rings were formed by the growth of a
mere cap of coral round the edge of the craters of huge submarine
volcanoes. But that postulates far too large a number of such
immense volcanoes[56], and the early stages of these formations have
not been found. Darwin’s hypothesis was hailed with joy as the
obvious solution, and held the field against all rivals for many
years. Briefly it is that corals formed a reef by direct growth in
shallow water on the coast of an island, forming a fringe thereto
in the way explained above. Now is postulated one of those great,
slow earth movements such as have very often occurred in the past
and are occurring at the present day. In this case the island is
to sink slowly, at such a rate that the reef grows upwards as fast
as it is submerged. The result is obviously a mass of corals of a
thickness equal to the total sinking movement of our island, though
every individual coral grew while in water under 50 fathoms deep.
When our island is half submerged the fringing reef has become a
barrier, when wholly gone the reef ring remains enclosing an empty
lagoon, and is the only mark of the grave of a drowned island. Thus
Darwin’s theory has the further merit of referring the two forms
of reef, barrier and atoll, to one common cause, the sinking of the
land. But we have no idea of how the original islands were formed
in such numbers, and many believe that no such vast sinking of the
ocean basins has occurred since they were formed. Also, if solution
be ignored, it is difficult to see why, as the island sank, coral
growth did not close in over the submerged land, and so form a vast
reef flat instead of leaving a lagoon up to 50 fathoms deep.
To settle the matter an expedition was sent to a typical atoll,
Funafuti, and a boring 1200 feet deep was made to find out what
the interior of the reef is made of. The material brought out of
the bore hole has been carefully examined by experts, and reported
to consist of the remains of exactly similar corals to those found
near the surface, and this result was taken by one or two geologists
as complete vindication of Darwin’s theory. But apart from the
extreme difficulty of the identification of all coral species,
especially those which have been subject to partial crystallisation
and so on, one remembers that a considerable part of the foundations
in deep water are formed of corals which have fallen down the steep
slope from the growing reef above, so that their presence buried a
thousand fathoms deep proves nothing, while the boring at Funafuti
only went to about 200 fathoms.
[Illustration: Diagram 6. Original elevation A of sea bottom shaded,
B₁-B₄ additions formed by growth, C₁-C₃ slopes of coral
&c. fallen from above. The thick line of C₃ is outline of section
of the atoll mass resulting.]
After all it is easier to imagine that the atoll grew up from the
bottom of the deep sea. The only postulate is a chance elevation on
the sea bottom. On such elevations it is found that the remains of
marine organisms, including deep sea corals (as distinct from reef
builders), tend to accumulate much more rapidly than on the floor
of the surrounding depths. The elevation is consequently slowly
but surely raised, and the higher it grows the more rapid the
accumulation, until at last reef corals obtain a footing forming
a cap or pinnacle reaching to the surface. From this masses of
coral, sand, stones or large boulders, are always falling on to the
foundation slopes, forming successive sloping layers indicated by
the dotted lines, upon which fresh growth takes its rise[57]. When
the coral reef has become of some breadth (and atoll rings may be
30 miles or more across) a boring at the edge might descend for a
thousand fathoms and never meet with the original foundations, but
would pass only through recent corals fallen from the shallow zone.
We should expect to find a continuous surface of coral at sea
level. As a matter of fact there is a broad lagoon, generally of
considerable depth, one or two gaps through the encircling reef
giving communication with the open ocean. This is the natural result
of the causes described when dealing with the boat channel of a
fringing reef; it is the same thing on a much larger scale. Seeing
that the rate of growth of coral masses is always only the excess
of growth over destruction and solution, the presence of growing
corals is no evidence against the fact that the lagoon shores may be
undergoing destruction, and that such coral growth as is present may
add nothing to the inner sides of the reef in the end. No more does
the accumulation of great quantities of mud prove that the lagoon
will in time be quite filled in. Mud and sand[58] are but stages in
the destruction of coral rock, and its presence where that process
is going on is to be expected. An abnormal tide, a shift of the
currents, and vast quantities are swept out through the gaps in the
reefs. My home on the Red Sea is beside a large landlocked lagoon in
which coral gardens of great luxuriance, whence collections of many
species can be procured, are frequent. Spite of this, the evidence
is as clear as possible that its shores and islands are undergoing
rapid denudation, and its reefs are being cut down by currents to
banks below water level. As in the Red Sea the level rarely alters
by more than a foot once in the twenty-four hours, and often the
rise or fall is much less, the action of tidal currents is at a
minimum, yet even so they produce well-marked effects.
Barrier reefs may be formed from fringing reefs by the enlargement
of the boat channel, while the reef is extending seawards.
The island of Zanzibar, 60 miles long by 20 wide, and 20 miles from
the mainland of Africa, seems to be a part of the East African
barrier system, and it certainly was separated from the mainland
by the destruction of the intervening land; the shallow dividing
channel being full of shoals and sandbanks formed by cutting down
of islands. The fauna of Zanzibar, including leopards, serval cats,
&c., can be accounted for in no other way. The Great Barrier of
Australia, a thousand miles long, is the same thing on a vastly
greater scale. But, as described in the next chapter, the Barrier
system of the Red Sea is quite another thing, and its mode of
formation may possibly be unique in the world.
CHAPTER IX
GEOGRAPHY OF RED SEA AND FOUNDATIONS OF THE REEF SYSTEMS
_The Climate_ has already been roughly described but it is
interesting enough to deal with in more detail.
One might suppose the extremes of dry heat and cold of the desert
climate to be moderated by the sea, and the resulting mean to be a
fairly mild and equable climate. Actually we get alternations of
desert and sea climates, extreme dry heat in summer and steaming
winds from the sea, both bringing great discomfort.
The winter from November to March is cool and pleasant so long
as the prevailing north-east wind blows, but there are spells
of very disagreeable weather even in winter. When the wind is
from the south-east the temperature rises and at the same time it
becomes very damp, saltish moisture being over everything, so that
even the natives become lazy and depressed and many suffer from
rheumatism, &c.
One has however the satisfaction of knowing that the south-east
wind usually lasts but three days or so, and never more than a week,
when the north wind comes back and we revive.
The south wind is generally preceded by a day’s calm and increases
in strength until the end, when a short calm ushers in a very strong
wind from the north. On several occasions I have actually seen the
approach of this sudden and welcome change as a line of low cloud,
formed by the condensation of vapour where the cold north wind
meets the damp from the south.
This sudden change was the cause of the wrecking of a _sambûk_ which
was beating down to Port Sudan in a south-east wind. Anchoring one
night in a long narrow harbour open to the north, they were caught by
the north wind next morning and, being unable to beat out against it,
were driven on to the reef. The crew had to walk in to Port Sudan,
distant about twenty-five miles, without food or water, one of them
having a badly crushed wrist. As I had cargo on the _sambûk_ I went
up immediately, and after only two or three days there was nothing
visible of the _sambûk_, but fragments scattered over miles of reef.
In winter the desert wind, due north or a little west of north,
is very much colder than the usual north-north-east The mornings
indeed may be quite chilly, and though this is very welcome to the
Englishman the natives suffer considerably. On the first day or
two of such a period the wind is strong, charged perhaps with sand,
and so dry that the backs of books curl as if they had been before
a fire.
In the summer the alternations of climate may be astonishingly
rapid, both may occur on one hot-weather day in July or August as
follows. The land breeze is very weak, and dies away about 6 a.m.,
when already the sun is blazing hot. By 8 a.m. it is intolerable,
but as it is still dead calm pearlers and fishermen are at sea
making use of their opportunity. If however they expect a day of
“hurûr” or hot wind they do not go far away, and when warned
by two or three preliminary puffs of wind off shore, they must make
all haste to return, or risk being swept out to sea. In half an
hour the wind may be furiously strong, heated as by a furnace and
bearing dense clouds of fine dust, of the colour and density of a
London fog, together with coarser sand that stings the face. Woe
to one who has to travel against such a storm! The dry heat soon
produces intolerable thirst, the eyes, nose and mouth are filled
with sand, while one’s face, eyelashes and even teeth are caked
with mud produced by it with the natural moisture.
These conditions continue until noon, when a change may be
expected, but may be deferred until 4 p.m., or rarely even 6
p.m. The wind suddenly ceases, the world becomes again visible,
and the temperature drops from say 105° F. to 95° F. But soon
there comes the reverse wind, almost equally strong, from the sea,
and the humidity increases so much that the fall of temperature is
not the relief that might be expected, being but the change from
oven to steam-kettle. The natives tell me that this wind, so hot
in the plains, among the mountains is cold, and is heated by its
passage over the sun-roasted plains. Apparently the great heat here
originates miniature local cyclones, cold air from the mountain tops,
or drawn over the mountains, rushing down to fill the low pressure
area on the plains, being heated there and rushing on a few miles
out to sea, whence the easterly return wind originates. At Dongonab
these “hurûr” winds are rarer than they are further south,
where they are of almost daily occurrence during the summer, while
at Halaib, 100 miles further north, the natives tell me they do not
occur at all. Consequently we are sometimes visited by the return
wind in the morning, caused by “hurûr” at a point further down
the coast. Such a cyclone is illustrated by the frontispiece, which
represents the combination of thunder clouds over the mountains
while a “hurûr” rages over the plain and for several miles
out to sea. But among the barrier reefs, though the wind is blowing
directly towards them, all is glassy calm.
The rainfall is extremely scanty and local, though markedly better
in the south, where the population is correspondingly greater and
the fauna richer.
There are two seasons when rain may be hoped for, viz. the
“kharîf” which centres round August, and which is referred to
in the frontispiece, and the winter months, but if rain fell for an
hour or two on three days it would be considered a liberal supply
for the whole year in most places. At Dongonab there has been no
rain (above a millimetre or two) since December, 1907, though one
or two showers have fallen on Rawaya and Makawar[59]. There is of
course much more rain on the hills than on the plains, but even so
grass grows only in scattered areas to which the people migrate.
_Tides._ The Red Sea undergoes considerable variations of level
at its extremities, up to seven feet at Suez, but in the middle
the variations are small, only a few centimetres at Port Sudan. At
Dongonab the difference between highest and lowest levels recorded
is 80 cm., but the maximum change in any 24 hours is rarely over
30 cm. Records shew a distinct tide, but this may be interfered
with by changes of level due to wind and changes of atmospheric
pressure, and in any case one of the usual two tides of the 24 hours
is practically suppressed, the water remaining near high tide level
until it falls for next day’s tide. In the summer the average level
is lower than in winter and the tidal effects are partially masked
by the results of the peculiar climatic conditions. The water may
remain low for days, so that all the coral which has grown above
that level since the last occasion of extreme low water, which may
have been one or even two years ago, dies off.
I suppose that every school-boy looking at an atlas, is struck
by the peculiar shape of the Red Sea, and is led to ponder on
the usefulness of this peculiar canal, the sole value of which
is that it gives communication between Europe and the East, a
value which needed but the trifling addition possible to human
effort to make it the great highway of the world. Its own shores
are desolate wastes, in itself it has no attraction for traffic,
and even its shape seems to indicate that it is but a passage
to other seas. (See map inside the cover.) For so narrow a sea,
only a little over a hundred miles wide, the depth is great,
two hundred to five hundred fathoms at the side and a thousand in
the middle. These peculiarities are also well marked in the deep
Gulf of Akaba which bounds Sinai on the east—the Gulf of Suez,
on the west, being a shallower branch valley. Both these gulfs,
like the Red Sea, are bounded on either side by high mountains,
and those of the southern part of Sinai are particularly grand in
the savage barrenness of their jagged peaks and vast precipices.
The Gulf of Akaba is directly in line with the Jordan Valley, a
similar depression on a smaller scale, only partially occupied by
water, the Dead Sea, while southwards we find another dry valley
running through British East Africa and adjoining territories,
a great trough bounded by plateaux, several thousand feet above
its bottom. We can thus trace
[Illustration: Diagram 7. Formation of a rift valley]
this trough-like valley from Palestine to some degrees south of
the Equator as a stupendous crack in the earth’s surface, well
named “The Great Rift Valley[60].” The Red Sea is its greatest
section, its total depth here being, say, 5000 feet from the summit
of the mountains[61] to sea level and 6000 feet to the sea bottom,
11,000 feet in all.
The formation of such a valley, by the dropping down of a series of
strips of country below the level of the remainder, is illustrated
by Diagram 7. To study the simplest possible case we draw a section
through the ground and imagine it formed of three kinds of rock,
of which two form horizontal sheets, AA and BB, over the third
CC. These were originally unbroken, and in the positions shewn by
the lines of dashes, but were broken by the dropping down of the
central part to form the valley shewn here in section. The floor
of the valley has the same structure as the original surface of
the ground, the same three beds, A, B and C, occurring in the same
positions, but at a lower level. They are found again in each of
the steps on the valley’s sides, their regular reappearance in
this way being conclusive proof of the earth movements postulated.
The vertical lines FFFF, between each step and the next drop, along
which the continuity of the beds is broken, are termed “faults,”
a geological term which should be remembered.
Rift valleys are found elsewhere in the world, but are exceptional,
ordinary valleys, with their winding courses and rounded outlines,
having been formed by the action of streams, which slowly wash away
the ground and hollow out their courses to the sea.
The actual structure of the middle portion of the Red Sea Valley
is shewn diagrammatically by the section on page 145. Five steps
are shewn, Nos. 2 and 3 being further separated by a minor fault
valley. The details are described later.
The southern part of the sea, below Masawa, has recently been
subjected to volcanic[62] action; many of the islands there are
quite well-preserved volcanic cones, but as regards the rest of the
sea, though earth movements have been frequent and considerable,
there are now no traces of volcanic action, and the movements that
have occurred have not necessarily involved cataclysms greater than
severe earthquakes.
There are however in the north two islands the existence of which
is most readily explained by volcanic action. I refer to the coral
formations known as “The Brothers” and “Daedalus Shoal,” the
former a pair of low islets, the latter a flat reef, rising out of
the centre of the sea and surrounded by water hundreds of fathoms
deep. They are extremely steep-sided cones, and what could form and
support such structures far out from land is puzzling. A certain view
of another section of the Rift Valley, that once seen can never be
forgotten, seems to offer an explanation. After passing through the
forests of the Kikuyu Plateau by the Uganda Railway one comes out
into the open on the brink of the great escarpment of the Rift Valley
and looks across a trough 3000 feet deep to the similar forest-clad
heights of the Mau on the other side. The continuity of the valley
is rudely broken by two volcanic cones rising abruptly in the middle
of the flat bottom of the trough. On consideration the strangeness
of their appearance in the middle of a valley passes away, one sees
that the bottom of such a rift must be a zone of weakness of the
earth’s crust where volcanoes might naturally be expected to arise.
[Illustration: Diagram 8. Formation of atoll as a cap of coral
growing on a mound of loose volcanic material. A original mound,
B as cut down by the sea, C the atoll.]
If the water were removed from the Red Sea Valley would not the
appearance of The Brothers and Daedalus be very much like that of
the two volcanoes of British East Africa, allowing for the steeper
angle at which their materials would lie under water? Given such
cones of loose volcanic ash, &c., wave action would quickly level
down their summits until coral growth afforded protection and formed
a cap of rock, part of which is now raised again above sea level as
the islands on one of which the lighthouse is built.
The ring-shaped reef of Sanganeb[63], opposite Port Sudan, which is
outside the Barrier system and separated from it by water 400 fathoms
deep, may be built on a similar foundation. Like the two coral reefs
above it rises with extremely steep slopes from this deep water,
and is the summit of a submarine pinnacle rather than hill.
On the other hand, the foundations of these strangely isolated
reefs may be like a certain island which, rising high above sea
level, shews its structure, a centre of olivine rock fringed with
coral. This island is variously known as Zeberjed, St Johns, and
Emerald Island, the latter name due to its possession of mines for
peridots, which are worked by the Khedive of Egypt. Its position
is 23° 30′ N., distant about 60 miles from the African coast,
a formation quite independent of the sides of the Rift Valley. It
is an example of the “Block Mountains” described by Professor
Gregory, portions of the original earth surface which have remained
standing when the surrounding country dropped down to form the
trough of the Rift Valley, not a mass of land thrust upwards and
subsequently carved into peaks and valleys by running water, which
is the way ordinary mountain ranges are formed.
One gets a good idea of the structure of the Red Sea coasts on
leaving the Gulf of Suez for the voyage south, before the ship’s
course passes far from land. On the western horizon is a range
of wild mountains, a grey plain ending in a yellow shore-line
separating them from the sea, and the off-lying islands are of the
same colour. The plain is formed of gravel from the high hills,
its yellow border seawards being coral limestone, and the islands
also. In the sea are numerous reefs, here of very intricate plan,
lines of white breakers separating the deep blue black water from
large areas of green and brown shoals in waveless lagoons. There are
deep channels between these reefs and the shore, which is itself
fringed by a shallow reef with its edge at low water level but
bearing perhaps one or two fathoms of water on its surface within.
This being the simple structure of both sides of the whole Red Sea
trough I may proceed to describe in detail one section of the coast,
that bounding the territory of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, between
18° and 22° N. This section includes two (Ras Rawaya and Ras
Salak) of the three promontories which break the straight line of
the west coast north of Masawa, the third being Ras Benas, further
north. The map opposite shews clearly the fringing reef which lies
along the whole coastline, the numerous harbours, of which Port
Sudan, Suakin, and Trinkitat are of commercial importance[64],
the deep channel separating the fringing from the barrier reefs,
and the atoll of Sanganeb on which the lighthouse is built.
[Illustration: Fig. 78. Coast of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Sandstone hills shaded, _small_ islands black. Coastline double,
the outer line being the edge of the fringing reef. The thin lines
enclosing roughly oval or elongated areas at sea are the barrier
reefs. Figures on sea represent depths in fathoms.]
On land the bases of the high mountains are indicated, and certain
lower hills, of sandstone, which rise in the midst of the maritime
plain. A striking fact is visible on first inspection of this map,
viz. that not only is the Red Sea a nearly parallel-sided trough but
that the constituents of the sides are themselves placed in lines
parallel to the coast. The Archean hills[65], the lesser sandstone
ranges, the coral bounding the maritime plain, and the barrier reefs,
are all four roughly parallel to the main axis of the sea.
We will consider each feature in more detail. For the Archean
hills consult the extremely interesting memoirs of the Egyptian
Geological Survey[66]; for our purposes it is enough to note that
they are all of ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks, that they
rise to heights of from four to eight thousand feet, and the valley
bottoms are generally flat and filled in with gravel.
The maritime plain is from five to ten miles wide, sloping up
regularly from the sea towards the bases of the hills, where it
may attain a level of several hundred feet. Except at its seaward
edge, it is composed of black gravel, the product of the decay of
the hills carried down by the torrents resulting from the rare but
furious rain-storms, and spread out to form the plain. Sand-hills
occur, but not very commonly, though the gravel is mingled with
sand throughout, and in sections of the plain exposed by wells,
layers of gravel alternate with sand, fine or coarse, as far as
the deepest borings have been carried[67].
The pebbles, though black predominate, are of a most remarkable
variety of kinds and colours. Bright green and red, yellow and
clear white are abundant, and any square yard would yield a rich
collection in Petrology. As the torrents open out into the level
plain they lose themselves, continually taking to fresh channels,
so that the _débris_ from series of hills quite distant from one
another are mingled; in a given spot gravel from one valley is laid
down this year, from another and totally distinct one another. One
would expect gravel which had been carried by torrents a distance
of many miles to be rounded down by friction into smooth boulders
or pebbles, like those of our home streams. As a matter of fact it
is nearly always angular, the rounded surfaces we should expect
being rarely met with on the surface. The pebbles, as we now see
them, have been re-formed from larger stones since their transport
through the valleys and over the plain. Large stones, lying half
buried in smaller material, shew the usual rounded surfaces of
water-borne rock, but they are invariably split up by fissures,
which may be half an inch broad, so that the stone is as it were
built up of angular fragments fitted together after the style of a
puzzle picture. During the hundreds of years they have lain there,
apparently secure from all interference, they have been exposed to
innumerable fierce heats and cold nights, which, causing successive
minute expansions and contractions, have at last split the stones
into small pieces. This is the origin of the irregularly shaped
gravel; first indeed it was rounded by the grinding and pounding of
the torrents of hundreds of successive winters, then it was split
up again by the silent invisible stresses of heat and cold.
_Plate XXXVI_
[Illustration: Fig. 79. The maritime plain and Irba Mountains
Yemêna oasis in foreground and gravel-covered ridge across middle
distance]
_Plate XXXVII_
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Figs. 80 and 81. Corals, in position
of growth, on the summit of Jebel Têtâwib]
The accumulation of this vast mass of gravel and sand in the manner
described has taken a length of time compared to which a human
life is but a moment. Even from the geological point of view it has
been not inconsiderable. There is abundant evidence that the plain
was formed, much as it is now, at a time when the coast-line was
entirely different, and though there is no good evidence of the
country’s having been other than desert throughout historical
time, there probably was a greater rainfall when the formation of
the plain was in full swing.
The sandstone hills are particularly interesting in that one finds
a regular layer of coral on their summits, which shews that they
were once nearly level with the sea, and are in fact coral reefs
which have been elevated to heights of from 100 to 1000 feet. In
some of those hills to which I have had access the corals on the
summit are wonderfully well preserved, and by this fact, and that
the species are indistinguishable from those now living in the
sea, prove the elevation of the hills to have been geologically
recent. Further, the larger coral colonies are at once seen to be
still in the position in which they grew, not tilted or overthrown
in any way. This is not the case with the older rocks on which they
lie, the strata of which are frequently twisted and broken, and
this is particularly noticeable sometimes in the case of the layer
of gypsum which is often found between the coral and the sandstone
(Fig. 89 on page 144).
The hills are not marked on any map, indeed no survey has yet been
made hereabouts. My account is therefore incomplete, but this does
not invalidate the conclusions drawn. From seaward these hills are
very easily distinguished from the jagged hills of archean rock,
the true boundary of the Rift Valley, by their flat tops and the
light yellow colour of their cliffs, and also by their generally
being nearer the sea even than the great mounds of gravel which
sometimes form the foot-hills of the mountain range.
Passing from south to north the first range is met with a few miles
north of Mersa[68] Durûr, as a chain of low butts rising from the
alluvial plain a few miles inland. These become higher and more
continuous as one passes northwards, culminating in two considerable
hills, of about the same height and area of base, the northern of
which is marked on the charts, where it is called Table Mountain,
and given a height of 1000 feet.
At about five miles inland from Dongonab are a couple of small hills
standing alone, but a little farther north lying inland from the
middle of the North Basin of Dongonab Bay is a considerable range,
extending towards the hills about Khor Shinab, Hamama, &c., from
which it is separated by an interval of only a few miles.
The Abu Hamâma[69] range (which I so name from its most prominent
though not highest peak, a landmark for sailors) extends from about
the inner branches of Khor Shinab to some distance beyond Khor Abu
Hamâma, lying much nearer the sea than do the others. Its height
is estimated by a government surveyor at from 500 to 700 feet. (Map,
p. 126.)
These ranges are wholly inland, and rise from the maritime plain,
which they divide longitudinally. The scattered ranges of sandstone
are not the whole of this formation however. I give a view of a part
of the maritime plain in which it is seen to rise as a distinct fold
across the middle distance. This appears to consist of the usual
gravel, but where cut into by the Yemêna ravine a very different
state of things is displayed. It is practically all sandstone,
covered by a few feet of gravel and gypsum conglomerate. Of coral I
only saw one large boulder, having no time for a search. There is
yet another range rising from the sea, namely two small hills on
the peninsula of Rawaya, and the islands of Makawar and Mayitib,
of which Makawar is the only considerable elevation. This range is
of special interest and will be described in detail.
_Plate XXXVIII_
[Illustration: Fig. 82. Water-hole under a stratum of hard gravel
and gypsum conglomerate, in the lower part of the ravine]
[Illustration: Fig. 83. Exposure of _sandstone_ under the gravel
of the plain
Two views in Yemêna ravine, which cuts the maritime plain]
_Coral of the coast-line._
This band of elevated coral is never very wide, about a mile at
Suakin, exclusive of the reef, and rather less at Port Sudan. At
Suakin, and to the south it is very slightly raised above sea level,
but at Port Sudan and generally to the north it is from 10—20
feet higher, and is separated from the gravel plain by a depression
a few hundred yards wide. This depression is often very near sea
level and floored with mud in which grow the plants of salt marshes.
Although to the ordinary non-scientific person the idea that most
land was once beneath the sea, and nearly all rocks were formed
beneath the water, may be known, yet unfamiliar, no one can land
on these coral shores without being specially and personally
impressed by the fact that, as the ground is entirely formed of
corals and shells it has been raised up from the sea, beneath which
it was formed. One may walk about on a limestone hill in England
and, by patient collection of fossils, partially corroborate the
geologist’s assertion that the whole thing is a mass of ancient
shells, squeezed together and finally thrust up from the sea bottom,
but here, so fresh are the shells, so familiar their forms and so
abundant the coral, often complete in all its delicate detail[70]
(like those figured opposite pages 88 and 91) that every man may
be his own geologist and assert the origin of the rock as a matter
of personal knowledge. Further, he may assert that all the shells
and most of the corals[71] are exactly like those now living on
the Red Sea reefs, and so deduce the fact that the uplifting of
the original coral reef has been geologically recent, long ages
since the successive worlds of species of animal whose remains make
up the older, and to British minds, more usual, limestones had,
one after another, passed away and been finally replaced by the
inhabitants of our own world.
It is one of the most recent of rocks, and yet it gives some idea
of the meaning of the expression “Geologic time” to remember
that these very ordinary-looking shells lived thousands of years
before the builders of the pyramids.
We can better appreciate the raw newness of the Red Sea cliffs if
we digress a little to the comparison with the very different rocks
of Equatorial East Africa and elsewhere which have however much
the same origin. These latter are much more typical of elevated
coral the world over, the Red Sea, owing to its nearly rainless
climate, having peculiarly well preserved the corals of its raised
reefs. Plate XXXV of cliffs in Zanzibar should be compared with the
Red Sea rocks on Plates XXXII and XXXVII, and the comparison made
in Chapter VIII, page 111, referred to. Of course the differences
between the elevated coral of the Equatorial coast and that of the
Red Sea might be due to the former being of greater age; though, if
such a difference exists, as it is not considerable[72], we are led
to lay more stress on the different physical conditions under which
they are placed. These are that the equatorial rocks are exposed
to a considerable rainfall, and, owing to the tides, to far more
drenching by spray than are those of the Red Sea, resulting in the
solution of the surface layers of the rock and the crystallisation
of the dissolved limestone in all the cavities of the interior,
thus making the rock both crystalline and homogeneous within,
as before described.
Where the Red Sea rock is exposed to alternate wetting and drying
the beginnings of this change are evident. All the way along the
coast from sea level up to a few feet above that portion of the
cliff which is undermined by the waves, the rock is harder and more
homogeneous, but this is merely a local alteration due to the action
of spray. I had opportunities of examining the internal structure of
these cliffs both when the foundations of the quay walls were being
dredged out and when the slipway was excavated at Port Sudan. In
both cases I found that within the homogeneity of the outer crust
disappeared completely, giving place to exactly the structure of
a recent growing reef, the larger colonies of coral forming great
boulders bedded into a loose mass composed of smaller species
and the broken fragments of those more delicately branched. At a
depth of five metres I picked out shells retaining almost perfectly
the colours and appearance of their living relatives of the same
species. The general colour of the excavation was grey, the colour
of the mud which is formed by the disintegration of coral and shells
by boring worms, molluscs and sponges.
The finding of beds of coral on the tops of the sandstone hills at
heights of 500 feet and more above sea level, and the fact that
dead coral and shells form the ground along the coastline, are
explained, as we have seen, by a general uplifting of the whole
country whereby coral reefs have become dry land and even hill
tops. The breadth of the maritime plain is another evidence of the
same fact, for no such plain can be formed on a sinking coast-line;
in such places the successive deposits of sand and gravel from the
hills are submerged and the following form layers on the top of
the preceding and cannot be carried out beyond them to form a plain.
As an example of such a sinking coast-line compare Norway, where
the hills rise directly from the sea and the valleys have sunk
below the water forming the characteristic fjords.
Startling though the thought of such changes of the relative levels
of sea and land may be, they are of common occurrence, and always
have been, in fact they are the commonplace of geological history
everywhere. Our present case is a movement of very minor degree,
involving but a few hundred feet, a mere detail of the opening of
that stupendous fissure, the Rift Valley, of which the whole Red
Sea is but a portion.
It is interesting to note how very regular this elevation has been,
entirely without twisting or contortion of the strata, so that the
individual corals remain exactly in the same position, relative to
the surrounding rock, as they did when growing on the reef.
Hence also the almost perfect level of the coast-line, which,
spite of “faulting” by which a few small areas rise to a
higher level as hills, and the opening of fissures, preserves
the same level, within 20 feet, for several hundred miles. At
the same time the elevation has been effected in several stages,
as evidenced by the existence of level parallel lines of cliff
along the sides of hills, e.g. Jebel Zêt in the Gulf of Suez,
Jebel Makawar on the Sudan coast, which were cut out by the sea
when the hills were at lower levels, and by successive beds of
coral at different levels on hill sides in positions that could not
be due to tilting of the hill during elevation. Also, at various
sheltered points of the shores of Port Sudan and Suakin harbours,
and elsewhere, the latest stage of this elevation can be traced in
the form of a low cliff, standing a few yards back from the sea,
fronted by a reef flat now dry land, though only a foot or two above
the sea level. The cliff is undermined exactly as are those still
under the influence of the waves, and even the detailed marking of
the rock surface characteristic of this marine erosion remains,
not yet obliterated by the flaking away of the surface through
the action of the sun’s heat and the cold of the clear nights,
or by the filing action of the sand blasts of summer.
As explained in Chapter VIII, page 107, much of the fringing reef is
really a part of the coral limestone of the coast, and its formation
needs no further explanation, but it is interesting to note how
greatly it varies in width in correspondence with the height of the
land behind it. For instance, about Suakin it is up to 1½ miles
wide, at Port Sudan only one-third of this, in correspondence with
the fact that the shore about Suakin is raised scarcely two feet
above sea level, whereas at Port Sudan it rises six to ten feet.
This variation is exactly what we should expect on the theory of
reef formation by abrasion, the cutting down of the low-lying land
involving the removal of comparatively small masses of rock and so
proceeding quickly. Again, on the coast about Ankêfail (see Map,
p. 139), where the land is as high as at Port Sudan, the reef is
only a few yards wide, but this may be partially attributed to the
shelter from waves provided by the large island Makawar.
That the differences in breadth are so marked shews that abrasion
has had much more to do with the formation of the reef flats than
has growth of coral, for we see no reason why this latter factor
should not have operated equally well over the whole coast and
tended to equalise the reefs’ breadths.
But it was also explained in Chapter VII that ordinary corals
cannot grow in very deep water, and as we find depths of even 200
fathoms just over the edges of these reefs we are confronted with
a problem. We have explained the origin of only the surface of the
ground, what lies beneath and how it came about that there was a
foundation ready, within the narrow limits of depth in which corals
could build, continuous through so many hundreds of miles, are the
real problems. The barrier reefs, right away from land, from which
they are separated by deep water, still more conspicuously need an
explanation. These are the main questions of this chapter.
_Barrier Reefs._
The barrier system is not a single linear reef, or line of reefs,
but rather a line of areas of shallow water full of reefs of all
sizes, generally more or less crescentic or ring-shaped. The details
have not been surveyed, except very partially in some cases, the
charts from which the map on page 126 is copied merely giving the
outlines of the areas on which the reefs stand.
Some of these areas are very broad, the southernmost, Towartit,
being eight miles across, their size, intricacy, and their being
completely useless to all navigators but a few pearl fishers,
preventing their survey within the outer borders, except in the
case of that which bounds the passage to Port Sudan on the north,
shewn on the map opposite. This area is obviously a continuation
of the barrier system, spite of the fewness of its reefs, and the
fact that over the greater part of it an average depth of 10 fathoms
obtains. It is a young reef, mostly not yet grown to the surface.
_Origin of Barrier Reefs._
The origin of these reefs cannot be explained by any of the theories
discussed in Chapter VIII. Darwin’s theory is quite inapplicable
as the coast has risen continuously throughout recent geological
time, and no currents could have carved out such a channel as that
separating the reefs from the land, with such irregular great depths
as are shewn on the maps, where, within the barrier depths over 150
fathoms are seen in proximity to soundings of only 30 to 40 fathoms,
or even close alongside surface reefs.
Finally, coral growth alone, as already mentioned, could not
give rise to such sheer precipices as those in which these reefs
generally end.
The examination of two features of the land makes all clear at
once. These are the promontories and sandstone hills, of which
the Rawaya peninsula is the best example, and worth describing in
some detail.
[Illustration: Fig. 84. Approaches to Port Sudan, shewing Sanganeb
atoll, portions of the barrier reefs and fringing reef. The latter
dotted.]
The map opposite shews that Rawaya is a large area joined by a very
narrow neck to the mainland and enclosing a large bay, Khor Dongonab,
about 20 fathoms deep.
Directly south of its extremity are the islands of Makawar and
Mayitib, which, like Rawaya, enclose a deep basin of water (40
fathoms) on their west side, while on the east depths of 200 fathoms
are found only a mile and a half from Mayitib, and 300 fathoms only
three miles away, while half a mile from the islet of Shambaya the
same depth occurs. In comparison the elevation of the peninsula,
and even of the islands, is very trifling, and the difference
of level between them and the maze of reefs which separates them
absolutely negligible. Indeed
[Illustration: Diagram 9. Section through Rawaya and Makawar.]
Rawaya is extremely low, its average being about ten feet above
the sea, the areas of its two hills, Jebel Têtawib in the north,
and Jebel Abu Shagara in the south, being inconsiderable, and their
heights only about 40 and 127 feet. Further, an inspection of the
ground shews that these hills are merely parts of the peninsula which
have been thrust up to a higher level (see Diagram 9), and even on
Makawar, where much of the island attains a height of over 250 feet
with summits of 300 feet, the two ends and west side are low like
Rawaya. In short, Rawaya, Makawar and the reefs between and about
them are obviously one continuous ridge, the middle part of which
is slightly lower, and, by coral growth and wave erosion, has been
built up and cut down into the level area of reefs we now find there.
[Illustration: Fig. 85. Peninsula of Rawaya and reef systems
connected with it
The narrow fringing reef along shore of mainland shaded as are
coral beds in Khor Dongonab. Small Islands are black. Dotted areas
are reefs free from coral.
-·-·-·-·- 10 (and in south basin 20) fathom line.
--------- 100 fathom line.]
The conversion of such low-lying land as Rawaya into a reef maze
follows at once from the action of the sea, restrained by coral
growth, described in Chapter VIII, but the diagrams make the case
clearer.
A is the first stage, the thin line representing the outline of
a partly submarine hill range, the undulations of which are much
exaggerated in the diagram. The horizontal dotted line is the
sea-level, so the diagram represents one summit above the sea,
an island, another submerged, and a third emerging to the right.
[Illustration: Diagram 10. Conversion of a line of low hills,
partly submarine, into a maze of surface reefs
A First stage. B after elevation and second period of abrasion.
----- sea level.
[Legend: wavy lines] additions made by coral growth.
Coarse shading = remains of original hill after abrasion.
Fine shading = coral mud or sand.]
In A the first summit to the left appears above water as a rounded
island, which is cut down considerably and much of its area converted
into reef flat, and the deep lagoon to the right is narrowed by
coral growth on both this reef flat and over the next summit,
as indicated by zigzag shading in the diagram.
As this second summit is at about the right depth below the surface,
coral grows vigorously upon it forming a surface reef, slightly
hollowed out in the middle. The third summit is like the first.
_Plate XXXIX_
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Figs. 86 and 87. Two views on Rawaya
Upper figure in the north of the peninsula, lower near salt works
in the south. Both shew one of the canal-like inlets of the sea
which cut up the western side of the peninsula. In the lower one
the inlet is partially cut off from the sea and the great heat
has evaporated its water leaving a lake of salt. The low ground of
Rawaya is shewn behind as a mere line on the horizon in the upper,
but in the lower photograph the hill of Abu Shagara is included.]
In B the thin line represents the final stage of A, further elevation
and abrasion, with coral growth, resulting in the levelling down
of islands and reefs and partial filling of the deeper lagoons as
shewn by the shaded area of the diagram.
Summit No. 1 is not only cut away altogether but hollowed out into
a shallow lagoon, the deep lagoon has been narrowed considerably
while the ring-shaped reef on summit 2 is much as before, but has
spread out and encloses a larger lagoon, thus becoming a small
atoll. Summit 3 shares the fate of number one.
Now compare the outline of the original hill range in A, with the
shaded line in B, and the levelling action of the sea, both upwards
and downwards, is evident.
This explanation of the origin of the reefs between Makawar and
Rawaya can obviously be extended to those to the south as far as the
Têlat Islands, and to the whole barrier system in fact. The reefs
south of Salak are similarly related to a large area of raised coral
extending from the point northwards, and though there is no bay
here, corresponding to Khor Dongonab, there is a large salt marsh
separating this from other raised coral to the west, and formed by
the filling in of a bay by blown sand. The diagrammatic map overleaf
makes this clearer, and shews that on land we have continuations
of both kinds of reef, the barrier being continued as the eastern
coral ridge, the fringing reefs of Salak Seghir being one with the
limestone on the west side of the swamp. Similarly Ras Benas to the
north (lat. 24° N.) and the angle at the entrance to the Gulf of
Suez, have reefs and islands in continuation of them southwards,
the former being named Makawar, in this as in appearance recalling
the island off Ras Rawaya.
It is now evident that the origin of both barrier and fringing reefs
is identical with that of the whole coast-land, and is not to be
looked for in any laws of coral growth, or marine sedimentation
and abrasion, these factors having merely affected the summits of
submarine hills hundreds of miles long, nearly two thousand feet
high, often peculiarly narrow, and always more or less parallel to
the axis of the sea-filled Rift Valley.
[Illustration: Diagram 11. Fringing and barrier reefs in
neighbourhood of Ras Salak, shewing correspondence of both systems
with coral formations on land
Soundings with line and dot over mean that no bottom was found
after so much line was run out.]
The rocks of which these ranges are composed are laid bare in the
cliffs which have resulted from the upthrusting of the hills of
the Rawaya-Makawar range, and on the hills of the maritime plain.
_Plate XL_
[Illustration: Fig. 88. In a fault ravine of Abu Shagara. Cliff
coral, gypsum and sandstone, the latter containing sheets of
recrystallised gypsum, selenite, in every crack]
I illustrate overleaf part of Jebel Têtâwib in the north part of
Rawaya. It is about 40 feet high, and of this from one to six feet
are occupied by the basal sandstone, a soft laminated rock generally
yellow in colour, sometimes greenish or red. Next is a band, up
to 20 feet thick, of gypsum, the strata of which are considerably
contorted in contrast to the coral formations overlying them, which
are nearly horizontal, and as usual retain the relative positions
they occupied during the growth of the reef. In the south Jebel
Abu Shagara is higher, 127 feet, and its cliffs, being higher,
contain very much more sandstone, but are essentially the same, as
are those of Jebel Makawar and Mayitib, and those of the sandstone
hills of the mainland.
The sandstone ranges, coral coast-line, and barrier reefs are
then three parallel repetitions of the same structure extending
with great regularity along the sides of the Rift Valley from the
entrance to the Gulf of Suez to Suakin, a distance of about 700
miles. Southwards of this point, as we shall see, similar structures
occur, but without this extreme regularity.
Their formation is due to the opening of the Rift Valley which
resulted in these sandstones[73] being thrown into a series of
steps as it were along each side of the trough, as shewn on page
145. Of these we are acquainted with three, but more would probably
be discovered if detailed soundings were taken from outside the
barrier reefs to the narrow trough which runs down the centre of
the sea and is a thousand fathoms deep.
The further history of these three steps or ridges has been as
follows. We will distinguish them as numbers one, two and three,
the former being the highest, the present sandstone hills and ridges
of the maritime plain. The coral caps on these were formed when
the sea reached to the bases of the Archean hills, the sandstone
range No. 1 being a line of barrier reefs off the mountainous
coast-line. The mountains, then as now, were being broken down by
the action of the weather, and the resulting sand and gravel was
washed down into the sea as the beginning of the maritime plain.
[Illustration: Fig. 89. Jebel Têtâwib, in Khor Dongonab, a butt
near its southern extremity, seen from its south side.
The letter B is at a level about 25 feet above the foreground
A. Coral colonies, in position of growth, bedded in a mass of loose
coral débris, shells, &c.
C. Hardened coral-mud. The weathered surface forms rounded masses
in low relief.
D. Gypsum strata, here steeply tilted, and upturned at their ends
in the piece shown in the foreground. They are much folded in other
parts of the cliff.
E. Green and red shaly rock underlying and sometimes interstratified
with the gypsum. It is here broken down into sand. This rock
contains sheets of glass-like recrystallized gypsum.]
Meanwhile organic remains were accumulating on ridge No. 2, and as
elevation brought this within fifty fathoms or so of the surface,
reef corals took possession and covered the summits one after
another as elevation proceeded, so that
[Illustration: Diagram 12]
when ridge No. 1 emerged from the sea altogether, and its bases
were surrounded by the gravel from the hills, No. 2 was a second
barrier reef out at sea.
The same process has been repeated, so that coral growth and
levelling have made ridge No. 3 into the present barrier system
and the maritime plain has reached the one-time barrier No. 2 and
so made this the present coast-line.
During the last of these elevations a good deal of breaking and
cracking of ridges Nos. 2 and 3 took place. For instance, Rawaya was
originally connected with the mainland, the proof being the presence
upon it of scattered pieces of Archean rock which could not possibly
have reached it unless a continuous surface stretched from it to
the old hills. Dongonab Bay, and with it probably other parts of
the channel within the barrier system, have evidently been formed
or enlarged since the maximum extension of the maritime plain. The
harbours of the coast, which are so interesting in themselves as
to deserve separate consideration, were formed also at this time.
Natural harbours, almost completely surrounded by land or reef,
waveless in all weathers, more perfect than almost any made by
man, abound throughout the length of this coast. In one part,
just north of Rawaya, are ten of these strange inlets in a space of
only 40 miles (see map, page 126). That of Suakin has been already
described; on entering for the first time it is hard to believe
that this long parallel-sided, deep channel, bounded by reefs
covered only by a foot or two of water, and then by land only the
same amount above the sea, is not an artificial canal. It leads
nearly straight inland for two miles, but not _quite_ straight,
indeed there is a bend that large steamers frequently fail to clear,
and which led to the abandonment of Suakin as the Port of the Sudan.
Obviously this canal-like inlet is not the mouth of a river, past
or present, for present rivers there are none, and no river, flowing
over a wide plain, through loose and heterogeneous materials, could
cut out such a channel, but would end in a wide shallow estuary or
delta, if it formed a definite mouth at all.
The new harbour of Port Sudan is much wider both in the entrance
and within, but the origin of this deep landlocked basin is equally
puzzling.
The forms of all the harbours of the coast can be reduced to one
plan more or less easily, that of a cross with arms parallel and
at right angles to the coast-line, and are in fact formed by two
cracks in the earth’s surface nearly at right angles. The former
arm is generally the largest, in Port Sudan it is two miles long, the
other arm, which connects this with the sea and forms the shallower
branch harbour, being much the shorter. The same applies to for
instance Wiai, Fîjab, Salak Seghir and Ankêfail Kebir, whereas in
the case of the narrower harbours, like Suakin, Arûs, Shinab and
its neighbours, the arm at right angles to the sea is the longest,
and the plan of the inlet is more like the conventional cross.
[Illustration: Fig. 90. Two of the canal-like “Khor” which
run into the coral plain. Soundings in fathoms, note comparatively
great depth of the water
The arrow in Khor Shinab indicates the point at which the material
of the cliff changes from coral to gravel.]
In Wiai, Fîjab, Salak Seghir and other harbours most of the land
between the inner arm and the sea, corresponding to the East Town
in Port Sudan, has been cut down
[Illustration: Fig. 91]
and converted into reef, upon which strips of sand have accumulated
to form islands in places. In all three harbours currents flowing in
and out have buried the south end of this reef, next the entrance
passage, in a steep sandbank (the point is marked by an arrow on
the plans). As the water is too deep for convenient anchorage of
small vessels, the _sambûks_ run their noses on to these sandbanks,
a couple of sailors walk ashore with the anchor, and they are moored
for the night, as the prevailing wind is from the north.
Salak Seghir has a long narrow winding entrance, like a deep still
river between reefs. Having successfully but fearfully navigated
this in my launch, I found that my sailors’ design was to
run her on to the sandbank, _sambûk_ fashion. I declined this,
for my copper sheathing’s sake, and was all unprepared for the
fact that the passage there is about as wide as my launch is long
and that the inner branch is shallow and full of humps of coral,
giving me a choice of evils which I do not intend to make again. The
sand lying on the reef between the inner harbour and the sea has
become consolidated into sandstone in a narrow parallel-sided band,
perfectly level and almost as regular as an artificial breakwater. A
short length of such a formation would be striking, but this extends
to nearly two miles.
These curious and most useful splits of the land have been made since
the maritime plain was complete, as we saw was the case with Dongonab
Bay, and, consequently, part at least of the barrier system. In some
cases the innermost parts of the harbours are composed of gravel,
not elevated coral. At Fîjab this is due to erosion of the coral,
as shewn by rocks and islets of this material remaining on the
shallows which separate the gravel cliffs from the deeper water,
but in other cases the gravel bounds the actual fault.
This is well seen at Shinab, where almost the whole harbour is
bounded by raised coral cliffs, but near the innermost end this is
overlaid with gravel, and finally gravel replaces the coral in the
most regular manner, shewing that the two materials were in perfect
continuity when the split which made the harbour occurred. The north
and south limbs of the crosses have been largely filled in with water
and wind-carried sand; they were originally of much greater length.
The peculiarities of the coast impress unusual methods upon those
who travel along it by sea. The wave motion varies greatly; from
Port Sudan to Darûr for instance the waves are much the same
as on an open sea, from Darûr to Fîjab the barrier system gives
considerable shelter, the vessel passing into perfect calm for short
periods as she approaches near the reefs in tacking. From Shalak to
the Têlat Islands is a bad bit in stormy weather, quite open sea
and no possibility of anchoring anywhere in an emergency, so that
vessels are often windbound at Salak[74] anchorage, waiting a fall
in the wind in which to reach the next section of the barrier system.
To travel by night is obviously impossible, the navigation of a boat,
even among well-known reefs, when moonlight seems bright as day, is
an experience once tried never repeated, without urgent cause. Even
when the sun is low it is extremely difficult to see one’s way,
though a good native pilot sees indications of reefs where all is
a white glare to even an experienced Englishman. Consequently it
is the invariable custom to get into the nearest harbour about
four o’clock in the afternoon, and if the coast were not thus
liberally provided, the natives’ travel by sea would be nearly
impossible. The start is early next morning, between 2 a.m. and 4
a.m. according to the wind and the distance of the reefs. If the
wind is fairly off shore, so that the neighbourhood of reefs will
not be reached for some time, the start is early and the sail is
hoisted in a strange silence, the sleepy sailors, on these occasions
only, omitting their shouts and chants, and the vessel slips out
of harbour like a slowly-gliding ghost.
As already remarked the formation we have described is that of almost
the whole Red Sea, but south of Suakin it loses the regularity that
is so noticeable northwards. The area marked on the map (p. 126)
as “Suakin Archipelago” consists of innumerable small reefs,
shoals and islets, the water between being of very irregular
depth, three hundred fathoms being found close alongside surface
reefs. Opposite Trinkitat the water shoals gradually, only 30 to
40 fathoms being found as far as 45 miles from land. The shore
itself is extremely low and sandstone hills are absent. The area
marked Shubuk, south of Suakin, shewn on the map enclosed by a
thin semicircular line on the north and east sides and by the land
on the west and south, has a very remarkable structure. An area
of 100 square miles is enclosed by a regular and unbroken reef,
indicated by the above curved line, the space within being a most
intricate maze of reefs with comparatively deep canal-like passages
between them. In the south are broader passages and some islets of
elevated coral. The bounding reef is extremely regular and, on its
eastern side, unbroken. It consists of a steep slope and precipice
of growing coral up to near the surface, when the slope becomes very
gradual and forms a nearly smooth surface of stunted corals with grey
_Xenia_. This extends to among the breakers, above which is a band of
gravel formed of broken and wave-rounded pieces of coral. Within is
sand, and the coral capped sandbanks of the labyrinth. Landwards the
ground is for miles so low and so much broken into by salt lagoons
and marshes that a definite coast-line can scarcely be said to exist.
This is the remains of an old delta of the Khor Baraka, a river which
rises in the Abyssinian highlands, but which nowadays never reaches
the sea. Its floods come down on to the maritime plain at Tokar,
where, spreading over a considerable area, they render possible
the growth of cotton and other crops in the fine soil they leave
soaked with water. Tokar is thus the one fruitful spot of any size
on the whole Red Sea coast, but its character of fertile oasis is
but short-lived. When the crops are gathered even the dry cotton
stalks must be removed lest they should collect the sand, which,
every day of the summer, is carried over them by burning gales,
and so would convert the fertile ground into barren sandhills.
As it is, at any rate at present, impossible to predict these floods
the seed must be sown after each, even though it frequently happens
that another flood comes down and carries it all away. The seed must
then be patiently re-sown, and that left by the last flood will grow
and bear. In the old days, before man was there to make any use of
it, the Baraka formed a regular delta, subject to yearly floods,
a miniature Egypt. The growth of coral in this neighbourhood would
then be impossible, the shifting sand, muddy and freshened water
rendering its life impossible.
Now when the rainfall decreased so that for the greater part of the
year no freshwater stream entered the sea, and the materials of the
edges of the delta became stationary, coral growth arose here and
there, forming a fringing reef, the extension of which seawards must
have been exceptionally rapid in this gradually shelving water. There
was then an elevation of the sea-bottom, here comparatively slight,
and the sea began to cut into the raised coral, carving it out into
islets, surface reefs, tidal channels and lagoons.
At the seaward edge of the reefs, the coral in the purer water could
continue as it is doing now, a rapid and continuous growth, the
uniformity of the conditions producing the remarkable unbroken reef
already described. The disintegrating forces described in Chapter
VIII break the inner side of the reef into sandy flats and pools,
but the extension of these pools into wider spaces and continuous
channels makes coral growth again possible in the shallows on their
banks, so that all the inner sandbanks and rocks are capped with
live corals which prevents their further demolition and gives the
steep-sided canal-like form to the passages between them.
_Living Reefs._
In detail the living reefs of the Red Sea are characterised by (1)
their luxuriant growth of coral, (2) the absence of large stones or
“negro-heads” along their edges, (3) their frequently crescentic
or circular forms. There are remarkably few points on the coast
where coral is not growing in abundance, and at the edges of reefs
in the open sea its luxuriance is wonderful. Even at the inner ends
of the canal-like harbours, where the water is stagnant and dirty,
scattered colonies are found. The absence of rivers probably favours
these growths, but even so the floods bring fresh water into the
harbours occasionally, and colour their waters a deep red brown,
like the Nile in flood, for several days together once or twice a
year. The absence of strong currents carrying mud is another factor;
where such occur, in Khor Dongonab, the vertical sided coral reefs
give place to sloping bottoms of rock covered with stones formed
by the growth of lithothamnia—stony seaweeds—but I only know
this one place where these conditions prevail.
There are no stones of any size on the edges of the reefs, nothing
but a few pieces of coral, a foot or so in diameter at most,
project above lowest water level. It would decrease the danger
of navigation in dead calm weather, which at present, except in
frequented places, is considerable, if larger stones, such as the
“negro-heads” of some reefs, were present at intervals. As in
most cases these larger masses are the remains of former land and
are not, as sometimes stated, fragments of the living reef thrown
up by storms, one cannot expect their presence here, where the reef
edge has grown up _in situ_. But even large boulders such as form the
“hurricane beach” of Pacific atolls, and are cast up by storms
in profusion on the reefs of Queensland, are not found here. There
is plenty of strong wind in the Red Sea, but the strongest of all,
the hot winds of summer, blow off land and do not extend far to sea
and such vast breakers, up to 40 feet high, as are recorded of the
Pacific, never occur. The reef edge above the precipice consists
of a slope of stunted coral which above water-level changes to
a gravel of coral fragments coated with lithothamnia; within is
sand, generally with bands of seaweeds and marine flowering plants
(grass-like in appearance) on the shallows, with muddy pools and
channels a fathom or two deep. The edge is higher than the rest,
but does not appear continuously above lowest water-level. Reefs not
exposed to the waves have not this definite edge, the platform being
covered with two or three feet of water in which stand separate coral
colonies, numerous at the edge, rarer within towards the lagoon.
The crescentic or circular forms of isolated reefs is very far from
being a peculiarity of the Red Sea, but is worth while mentioning
as bearing on the formation of the lagoons of atolls on the larger
scale. From the smallest to the largest these reefs shew a hollowing
out in the centre, where the reef material, not being protected by
living matter, is exposed to the destructive influences detailed
in Chapter VIII.
There are some reefs in the Red Sea quite of the Atoll form, of which
the largest is Sanganeb, the plan of which, on the map on page 137,
is sufficiently explanatory. Another is Tella Tella Seghir, which
is elevated to 40 feet above sea-level, and consists of a ring of
high ground enclosing a depression, once a lagoon though its floor is
now a little above sea-level. The elevation of this ring-shaped reef
has been at least two stages, the lagoon having contained water to
about one-third of its depth comparatively recently, since a line
of undermined cliffs occurs at this level. The _Admiralty Pilot_
remarks that the edge of the ridge bears numerous cairns. Some of
these are artificial I am told, but those I examined were large coral
colonies, in the position in which they grew, left exposed by the
removal of the softer stuff in which they were embedded. One example
of the coral genus _Mussa_ was especially conspicuous, as much so as
the corals illustrated on Plate XXXVII on the top of Jebel Têtâwib.
SUMMARY OF GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE RED SEA.
(1) There was originally a _shallow_ sea covering the space between
the high mountains of both sides of the present Red Sea. In this sea
were laid down sandy and gravelly sediments, and limestones were
formed which are now found in the sandstone hills of the maritime
plain, &c.
The gypsum beds found here are the result of the drying up of the
water of this shallow sea.
(2) The beds of rock thus formed were broken up by the sinking in
of a long strip of the earth’s crust forming the Rift Valley,
which extends from Jordan to Tanganyika. Part of this valley was
filled by sea water and became the Red Sea.
(3) There have been three successive systems of barrier reefs along
the Red Sea coast, which by continual uplift have become,
(_a_) A range of sandstone hills rising from the alluvial maritime
plain.
(_b_) A fringe of limestone along the present coast-line.
(_c_) The present barrier system.
(4) These three ridges were formed by the faulting of sedimentary
rocks which overlay the bases of the Archean hills at the time of
the great movement which opened the Red Sea section of the Great
Rift Valley.
(5) The northern ends of several sections of the present barrier
reefs are elevated above sea-level, and examination of these,
and of the hills of the maritime plain, enable us to reach the
above conclusions.
(6) At the same time Rawaya gives evidence of a seaward movement
as well as uplift, Khor Dongonab and some at least of the channel
within the barrier reefs being recent fault depressions, not merely
an anticlinal fold formed at the opening of the Rift Valley.
The harbours and other fissures in the coral limestones, &c. of
both coast-land and of the barrier reefs are due to the same
secondary faulting.
(7) The maritime plain had its maximum seaward extension after the
growth of coral on the second and third barriers. Owing to elevation
nothing has been added to its seaward slopes since the formation
of the features of the present coast-line by secondary faulting.
(8) The filling in of valleys and the completion of the connection
of the second barrier with the maritime plain has been largely due
to blown sand. The process is continuing, e.g. an extensive plain
near Dongonab shews perfect uniformity in its formation.
INDEX
Acacia bushes, beauty of 3
use 50
Administration by native Shêkhs 27
Akaba 122
Alexandria 111
Amulets 42
Animals resembling seaweed 8
Arabs 15
Archean rocks 127
Arms 23, 27
use of 28
Arûs harbour 148
Association of corals and higher animals 94
with microscopic plants 95
Atbara route to Nile ix
district 19
Axum, mediaeval trade route of 39
Baraka flood and delta 151
Benas, Ras 141
Biologist’s justification viii, x
Bisharia, tribe 15
Block mountains 125
Boring animals 101
Boundaries of Anglo-Egyptian coast vii
Brothers Islets 123
Cape Verde Islands 110
Cats 45
Challenger Society x
Clams (_Tridacna_) 69, 100
as food 59
pearls from 69
Climate, Red Sea coast 118
_Clione_, boring sponge 101
Corals, animal nature of 85
cups and polyps 85
colours 93
formation of colonies 89
genera _Caryophyllia_ (British coral) 87, 91
_Dendrophyllia_ 89
_Fungia_ 92
_Galaxea_ 94
_Madrepora_ 91
_Porites_ 89, 100
(see also plates 26 and 28 and explanation p. 88)
life-history 98
physiology 86, 95
place in evolution 96
plant-like nutrition 95
sizes of colonies 89, 91
variety of forms 90
Coral Reefs—see Reefs
“Coralline” seaweed 100
Crystallisation of coral limestone 111
_Cymodocea_, a marine plant 108
Daedalus shoal 124
Dance, religious 41
Darwin’s theory of atoll formation 114, 136
Delta of the Baraka 151
Depth of Red Sea 121
Destruction of corals 100
Devil fish or sting rays 70
Dhow, or _sambûk_ sailing vessels 59
Diving, as seamanship 63
for pearl oysters 66
Divorce 75
Dongonab Bay 104, 138, 141
reefs in 153
Dongonab plain 155
Dulawa harbour 147
Dunn, Sudan Government Geologist vii
Eclipse of the moon 47
Elevation of reefs above sea 131, 133
in Pemba and Zanzibar 109, 110
_Eunice_, marine worm 101
Evil eye 44
Evolution 96
Faulting, geologic term 122
Fijab harbour 148
Fishing 68
Fish spearing 70, 71
Funafuti atoll reef 114
Gardiner, Prof. J. Stanley ix
Geologic time 97, 132
Geological history of Red Sea, summary 154
Gordon 14
Gregory, Professor 122, 125
Hamitic natives 16
personality of 22
Harbours, natural 146
Hardihood of natives 30, 54, 78
Honesty 49
Ibrahim’s wife 76
Jebel Abu Shagara and J. Têtâwib 138, 143
Jedda 12, 21
Linnean Society x
_Lithodomus_, boring mollusc 101
Lithothamnia, stony seaweeds 110
Luxuries, native 55
Mabrûk, Swahili slave 20
Makawar Island 134, 135, 138
Manufactures 80
Maritime plain 3, 10, 127
Marital relations 32, 73
Medical ideas 47, 78
Medicine, ink as 43
Milking 44
Mohammedanism 33
Mûled dance and service 40
Murray, Messrs x
Nationalities on coast 15
Negroes 17
Newness (geologically) of Red Sea coast 132
Ornaments 24, 25
Osman Digna 20, 27
Pearling 65
Pearls, from _Tridacna_ clams 69
theory of origin of true pearls 44
_Pholas_, coral borer 103
Plant and animal interchange of oxygen 94
_Porites_—see Corals
Porpoise 45
Port Sudan 1, 9, 133, 146
approach by sea 1, 136
reefs at 83, 100, 103
Port Sudan-Atbara route to Khartum ix
Prayer 39
_Pseudoscarus_ 101
Rainfall 120
Rain squall 7
Raised shore-lines 134
Rawaya peninsula 127, 131, 138, 145
Reefs, coral Australian Barrier 117
classification of 113
constituents 99, 131
elevated above sea 83, 131
form of surface 104
fringing and barrier 1, 113, map 137
growth of 100, 105
living of Red Sea 152
origin by abrasion 106, 140
origin of atolls 114
pictorial 5, 8, 92
sandstone, Alexandria 111
sandstone, Cape Verde Islands 110
Zanzibar 89, 109
Religion 33, 35
Rift Valley, the Great 122
step formation of sides 122, 143
Rising and sinking lands 133
Sailors, Arabian 59
Hamitic 65
Salak 127, 141, 149
_Sambûk_ (or dhow) sailing vessel 59
Sand-eating animals 103
Sandstone hills 129
Sanganeb lighthouse 10
atoll reef 124
Sea gardens 8, 92
Seaweed, stony 100
Sexual morality 26, 32
Shêkh Barûd (Port Sudan), stories of 37
Shêkhs, living 27
as dead saints 36, 38
Shinab Harbour 147
Shubuk reefs 150
Slaves’ stories 19
Social relations 32
Songs of labour 31
Sting rays or devil fish 70
Suakin 10, 13, 146
archipelago 9, 150
Subsistence of natives 50
Sunset land 8
Superstitions, native 42
British 49
Tella Tella Island 154
Tents of nomads 53
Têtâwib hill 143
Tides of Red Sea 121
Tokar, dervish stronghold 20
oasis, delta of Baraka floods 151
Travel by sea 150
Trinkitat 150
_Tubipora_ 110
Uganda railway, crossing Rift Valley 124
Utensils 55
Vegetation 3, 52
_Vermetus_ 110
Volcanoes 123
Warning coloration of sting rays 71
Wedding and Arabian sword dances 57
Wiai harbour 148
Women, personality and influence 24, 73, 81
_Xenia_ 151
Yemêna ravine and oasis 130
Zanzibar reefs 89, 109, 117
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
_Plate II_
[Illustration: Fig. 2. Map of Red Sea]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: For the story of Shêkh Barûd’s death see p. 37.]
[Footnote 2: _Acacia tortilis_.]
[Footnote 3: A species of _Carex_ I believe.]
[Footnote 4: I am writing of the neighbourhood of Lat. 22° N. About
Suakin conditions are better, at least for plant life.]
[Footnote 5: Actual temperature of the wind 100° to 115° Fahr.]
[Footnote 6: Besides the completest possible system of harbour
lights, the quays, etc., with every facility for handling cargo,
the needs of shipping are well provided for by a large stock of coal
electrically handled, tugs and water barges, and a complete dockyard
for repairs of any kind up to a considerable magnitude. Since
1910 a salvage tug has been stationed here and the slipway at the
dockyard has been completed and is in use. The town water supply,
though healthy, is slightly brackish (though much less so than most
desert wells), but the very large condensing plants produce and sell
fresh water very cheaply. The railway of course runs alongside the
shipping, the Customs godowns are liberally and conveniently planned,
and the railway bridge rises vertically upwards so that any vessel
may pass up to the dockyard without obstruction.
A first-class hotel has just been opened.
Spite of the harbour’s being practically tideless its water is
perfectly pure, all garbage being collected in barges and towed out
to sea, where they are emptied at a distance of about five miles
from land.
The whole town is a fine example of what can be done by scientific
forethought given free scope and a clear desert site, unhampered
by the presence of partially obsolete arrangements and conflicting
vested interests, and keeping ever in view the great extensions
of every department which the increasing trade of the Sudan will
soon need.]
[Footnote 7: Many of the smaller mosques in Egypt, particularly
those near the deserts (e.g. Suez and Belbês) are very similar.]
[Footnote 8: The population of my own tiny village well illustrates
the cosmopolitan nature of all commercial and administrative activity
in the Sudan; including Government _employés_ we have:
British: one, myself.
Syrians: two, my assistant and a carpenter.
Italian: one, engineer—we communicate in Arabic.
Egyptians: about six.
Arabians: also about six, including natives of Sinai in the north
and the Yemen and Hadramaut in the south.
Hamites: the natives of the country.
Negroes: these include several distinct nationalities, e.g. Nubas
and Nilotic tribes.
Swahili: one, from Zanzibar.
Elsewhere Greeks abound, as in so many countries.
We all speak Arabic, which was however the mother tongue of only
a dozen individuals, and even these speak three or four different
dialects!]
[Footnote 9: I am at a loss for a name for this particular Hamitic
nation. The names Hadendoa, Bisharia and so on, are those of large
tribal subdivisions of one nationality, which again is but one out
of several distinct Hamitic peoples. The name “Beja” is not
known to any native I have met.]
[Footnote 10: Apart from the use of henna, I have detected a distinct
red tinge in some men’s hair, but the wonderful gold and brown
mops of the Somalis are not seen here.]
[Footnote 11: Some Arabs grow bushy beards as dense as any
European’s, but the majority, at any rate before middle age have
only scanty beards, if any.]
[Footnote 12: Contrast Zanzibar and the tropical coast of East
Africa where nearly the whole population is supposed to be a cross
between Arab and negro.]
[Footnote 13: Presumably General Grenfell’s engagement with the
dervishes, Dec. 1888.]
[Footnote 14: Inverted commas indicate quotations from Mabrûk’s
statement. The probability is that the hardships of a seven months’
voyage were actually compressed into so many weeks.]
[Footnote 15: The camel kneels and his halter rope is bound round
one foreknee. Only a fractious beast will rise when so tied, and
straying or running away is impossible.]
[Footnote 16: I am told that the sexual freedom of women is
a peculiarity of one tribe only—the Aliab—but it certainly
applies to all the maritime people with whom I live.]
[Footnote 17: The word Shêkh, meaning literally an old man, is
used to designate alike a dead saint of the highest supernatural
powers or one whose sanctity is barely acknowledged by an occasional
decoration of his tomb by a piece of rag on a stick. Among the
living the Shêkh may be a native leader of any grade, from the
head of a great tribe, with whom the British Governor of a Province
may consult, and to whom is entrusted real power, to one of his
subordinate agents. In my village one of these combines the trade
of butcher with a dreadful dentistry.]
[Footnote 18: Anglicised into “hangar.”]
[Footnote 19: I give a few examples, but Dr and Mrs Seligmann,
being expert anthropologists, were able to extract more curious
information from my own men in half an hour’s talk than I had
done in five years. Their report will be of the highest interest.]
[Footnote 20: I need not say that I refer to national habit. To
say this of personal expression would be an obvious and gross libel.]
[Footnote 21: It is curious how all races of mankind, from Ireland
to India, Borneo, Japan and Zanzibar, should concur in decorating
their holy places in this way. Probably practical convenience is
a prosaic part of the explanation.]
[Footnote 22: In spite of its improbabilities the story illustrates
well-known and interesting phenomena. Such a sudden rise of the sea
as is demanded is quite possible, and the shore level about Jedda,
as elsewhere, is extremely low. Though practically tideless the Red
Sea is subject to variations of level which cannot be predicted,
and which may be as much as three feet vertically. Also objects from
the Arabian shore are very commonly carried across the whole sea and
stranded on the west side. A year or two ago we learnt that abnormal
floods had occurred in Arabia from the number of palm trunks found
stranded, and another time, the whole coast, for 100 miles at least,
was littered with the bases of palm leaves. These had been left on
the ground in some Arabian valley when the leaves were cut for use
or sale, and carried into the sea by a flood.]
[Footnote 23: In Egypt Mûled or Mowled means a fair held on a
saint’s birthday. On the Red Sea coast a man “makes a mûled”
to celebrate any private event, or simply by way of giving an
entertainment.]
[Footnote 24: Really dolphin, but this name is also used for a
certain fish. The true dolphins, like porpoises, are whales in
miniature, air-breathing animals which have become disguised
by a fish-like outer shape in accordance with their marine
life. Internally every structure is like that of the land mammals
from which they are descended, and totally different to that
of fishes.]
[Footnote 25: _Science of the Sea_, issued by the Challenger Society,
John Murray. Any reader interested in Part II of this volume should
obtain this book as a guide to work in Marine Biology.]
[Footnote 26: One would not _drown_ them simply because water
costs money.]
[Footnote 27: Suakin is populous in winter, the inhabitants going
into the hills to escape the summer heat. At my village the reverse
is the case.]
[Footnote 28: Flint and steel are sometimes used, but nowadays
matches are extremely cheap in all corners of the world.]
[Footnote 29: The leaves and midribs of the date palm are essentials
to the people of the desert, nowadays at least, as they use them
for all sorts of handicrafts. There are some date palms near Suakin,
but their matting is imported.]
[Footnote 30: Gourds are continually mentioned in books of travel,
and as the word remained mysterious to me from my eighth to my
twentieth year I explain in detail. Certain species of melon-like
plants produce a hard-skinned fruit, the bitter pulp of which dries
up to a powder, leaving the skins hollow. Cut a hole in this,
clear out the seeds and fibre, and you have a basin or a bottle
according to the shape of the fruit. Only the former shape is seen
on the Red Sea coast.]
[Footnote 31: Is “coffee bean” a corruption of the Arabic
_bûn_?]
[Footnote 32: This is of course the regular way of making Turkish
coffee and can be imitated at home by anyone. The coffee should be
finely ground or crushed like cocoa.]
[Footnote 33: The sheet is passed round a smooth thick thwart and
one or two of the crew take up the slack as the rest haul in. This
_to some extent_ takes the place of tackle.]
[Footnote 34: They do not _bale_ water out of a canoe, but throw
it with a paddle, shell or broken wooden bowl! The method is very
effective.]
[Footnote 35: Merely to see the bottom, without distinguishing
small objects, is often possible at greater depths still.]
[Footnote 36: The flesh of the pearl oysters and clams are only
eaten when all else fails and as fish is obtainable in times of
scarcity it is not much appreciated when anything else is to be had.]
[Footnote 37: Unlike the Ballistes, some species at least are able
to swallow the flesh of shellfish without the shells, so that the
only indications of the origin of their diet is by finding opercula
and radulae among the half-digested mass. They also break up pearl
oysters, leaving the ground strewn with the broken shells.]
[Footnote 38: The rather majestic term “Shêkh” often means
nothing more than this, though it also includes persons of real
importance and power in the country, and saints devoutly venerated.]
[Footnote 39: Donkeys’ dung provides a cheap substitute for
soap. The clothes are buried in the sand of the sea-shore with dung,
left overnight and washed out in the sea next day.]
[Footnote 40: Except certain rare forms obtainable only from very
deep water in the Atlantic.]
[Footnote 41: More correctly by decomposition of calcium sulphate,
thus,
CaSO₄ + H₂CO₃ = CaCO₃ + H₂SO₄,
since the sulphate forms 3·6% while the carbonate only forms 0·2%
of the salts dissolved in sea-water.]
[Footnote 42: Similar masses are common in the Red Sea, but I do
not know of a case quite so striking as this.]
[Footnote 43: The apes include a wide variety of type, e.g. the
baboon is on the whole lower than the ordinary monkey, which is lower
than the big man-like apes, chimpanzee, orang-outang and gorilla. The
lemurs link lower monkeys and ordinary quadrupeds. See Huxley’s
essay “On the relations of man to the lower animals,” 1863.]
[Footnote 44: Avoid the conception of descent as the highest fish
giving rise to the lowest amphibian, the highest amphibian giving
birth to the lowest reptile, and so on. The fishes did not cease
their evolution when the amphibia appeared, and ancestral types
must have been generalised, and so, in one sense, lowly forms.]
[Footnote 45: More accurately gypsum, CaSO₄, which is decomposed
to form limestone CaCO₃ as noted bottom of page 89 above.]
[Footnote 46: To obtain a specimen of coral of this beautiful
snow-white colour it is necessary to remove the flesh from any living
colony, which is usually coloured brown or yellow, by rotting the
same for a week in sea-water in a bucket. Cover the bucket to keep
out dust, and change the water a few times to reduce the smell. The
last traces of decayed flesh are removed by dashing buckets of
water on to the coral. Rinse in fresh water. Or the specimens may
be dried _thoroughly_, rotted in water after return to Europe,
and finally bleached with hydrogen peroxide.]
[Footnote 47: See for instance, among other literature by the same
author, “The Fauna and Geography of the Maldives and Laccadives,”
Cambridge University Press, and “The Percy Sladen Trust Expedition
to the Indian Ocean,” by J. Stanley Gardiner, M.A., F.R.S.,
etc., _Transactions Linnean Soc. Zoology_, Vol. XII., pp. 35, 51,
and illustrations on Plate IX, and on pages 128 and 135.]
[Footnote 48: The duller coloured and peculiarly shaped
“bladder” or “parrot” fish, _Tetraodon_ or “four tooth”
is distinguished by its peculiarly rounded shape and alteration of
scales into spines. Though its teeth are very similar to the coral
eater, _Pseudoscarus_, it eats softer animals, e.g. Ascidians and
Echinoderms, and sometimes shell-fish.]
[Footnote 49: Includes the whole oyster and bivalve shell-fish
family, and many other less generally known forms of life.]
[Footnote 50: Owing to the practical absence of tide in the Red Sea
the boat channels of the fringing reef are discontinuous, so that
at intervals the canoe men must wait for favourable weather and put
out to the open sea. In Zanzibar, e.g., one can travel the whole
60 miles of the east coast within the reef but for the crossing of
one bay, except at lowest spring tides. Some of the deeper parts
of the boat channel of Red Sea reefs are due to faulting (see next
chapter) as may be also a very peculiar reef channel just north of
Mombasa Harbour.]
[Footnote 51: For the qualities and formation of this rock see
page 111.]
[Footnote 52: The absence of similar stones from all other parts
of the reef is to be accounted for by their being subject to the
continual friction of strong sand-laden currents, while those on
the raised edge are exposed to waves of clean water for a portion
of each day only.]
[Footnote 53: These tubes form a mass by coiling loosely together
like a cluster of worms, though the animal which makes them is
exactly like those that have regular spiral shells and move about
freely, e.g. the whelks. The young _Vermetus_ has a shell like a
young whelk, but as it then fixes itself down, the shell degenerates,
and grows into the loosely coiled tube of the adult mollusc. Nothing
could be more different than the body of a _Vermetus_ and that of
a worm, the resemblances between the shell of the one and the tube
of the other being pure coincidence.]
[Footnote 54: More correctly a _compound_, not mixture of carbonates,
is formed, viz. dolomite, CaMg(CO₃)₂.]
[Footnote 55: Examples of all three are well shewn on the map
opposite page 136.]
[Footnote 56: I.e. in the great oceans. As shewn later, volcanic
mounds and islands are found in the Red Sea, and may have formed
the foundations of certain of its reefs.]
[Footnote 57: Gardiner, J. S., “The building of Atolls,”
_Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc._ or The Challenger Society’s _Science of
the Sea_, John Murray.]
[Footnote 58: In some lagoons quantities of sand are formed
of great numbers of the minute shells of lowly organisms, the
foraminifera. This is, of course, a very different thing to that
resulting from breaking up of coral and shells.]
[Footnote 59: 1912 was a rich year! 40 millimetres fell on Oct. 22nd
and 20 millimetres in December, about 2½ inches altogether.]
[Footnote 60: J. W. Gregory, _The Great Rift Valley_, John Murray,
1896.]
[Footnote 61: The ranges bordering the sea are from 4000 feet to
8000 feet high, but of course were much higher in the days when
the Rift opened.]
[Footnote 62: Recently, that is, geologically speaking.]
[Footnote 63: Such ring-shaped reefs, rising out of deep water,
are termed Atolls. Sanganeb is a small example compared to those
of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.]
[Footnote 64: I have marked other harbours as they are interesting
geologically, but there are only three miserable villages on this
whole coast in addition to the two towns. There is no village at
Trinkitat, but the cotton from Tokar is loaded on to _sambûks_
here.]
[Footnote 65: I.e. hills of Archean, ancient rock, as opposed to
the newer sandstones, gravels and limestones.]
[Footnote 66: The Eastern Desert of Egypt, southern section,
describes a part of the Red Sea coast range north of the Sudan
boundary, but essentially similar to the rest.]
[Footnote 67: Two borings, made in the hope of obtaining water two
miles inland, near Port Sudan, were carried down through 300 metres,
nearly 1000 feet, of this kind of material.]
[Footnote 68: “Mersa” in Arabic = anchorage.]
[Footnote 69: Arabic Hamâma = pigeon. The shape of this hill is
a cone with a cubical block on its apex, hence the appropriate
name Pigeon Hill. “Khor” is used for an inlet of the sea,
among other meanings.]
[Footnote 70: Actually many of these shells retain some of their
colour! e.g. the red of the common _Spondylus_, the bands of
_Strombus fasciatus_ and the mottlings of _Cyprina tigrina_ are
quite distinct on some specimens from 100 feet above, and on others
dug out 15 feet below sea level.]
[Footnote 71: _All_ the corals are of existing species, but the
identification is less easy than in the case of the shells.]
[Footnote 72: Such fossils as are found in the Equatorial rocks are
recent species, and the fault harbours of the coast have not had
time to lose altogether the peculiar characters of such structures
under the influence of the rivers which enter them and the strong
tidal currents.]
[Footnote 73: The gypsum often found between the sandstone and
the coral was most probably formed by the drying up of a _shallow_
sea which occupied the site before the Rift Valley appeared, and
probably the sandstones are the sediments deposited in the same sea;
also parts of the present maritime plain were formed as the shore
deposits of this ancient sea.]
[Footnote 74: The forms Salak and Shalak are both used by the
natives.]
=Cambridge University Press=
SELECTED LIST
=The Land of the Blue Poppy.= Travels of a Naturalist in Eastern
Tibet. By F. KINGDON WARD, B.A., F.R.G.S. With 40 plates and 5
maps. Royal 8vo. 12s net.
=The Duab of Turkestan.= A Physiographic sketch and account of
some travels. By W. RICKMER RICKMERS. Large Royal 8vo. With 207
illustrations. 30s net.
=Yun Nan, the link between India and the Yangtze.= By Major
H. R. DAVIES, 52nd Oxfordshire Light Infantry. With map and 73
plates. Royal 8vo. 16s net.
=A History of Geographical Discovery in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries.= By EDWARD HEAWOOD, M.A., Librarian to the
Royal Geographical Society. Crown 8vo. With 59 illustrations. 12s
6d net.
=The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate,= Mesopotamia, Persia and
Central Asia, from the Moslem conquest to the time of Timur. By GUY
LE STRANGE, Author of “Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate,”
etc. Crown 8vo. With 10 maps. 15s
=A History of Ancient Geography.= By H. F. TOZER, M.A., F.R.G.S.,
Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. With 10
maps. 10s 6d
=Outlines of Military Geography.= By T. MILLER MAGUIRE, LL.D.,
of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law. Crown 8vo. With 27 maps and
illustrations. 10s 6d
=The Geography of Disease.= By FRANK G. CLEMOW, M.D. Edin.,
D.P.H. Camb., Physician to H.M. Embassy, Constantinople. With 12
maps and charts. Crown 8vo. 15s
=A Geographical History of Mammals.= By R. LYDEKKER, B.A., F.R.S.,
etc. Crown 8vo. With 82 figures and a map. 10s 6d
=Ethnology.= In two parts: I. Fundamental Ethnical Problems, II. The
Primary Ethnical Groups. By A. H. KEANE, F.R.G.S. Crown 8vo. With
numerous illustrations. _Second edition, revised._ 10s 6d
=Man, Past and Present.= By A. H. KEANE, F.R.G.S. Crown 8vo. With
15 illustrations. 12s
=The Climate of the Continent of Africa.= By ALEXANDER KNOX,
B.A. (Cantab.), F.R.G.S. Royal 8vo. With 13 maps and a diagram. 21s
net.
A complete catalogue of the publications of the University Press
will be sent post free on application
Cambridge University Press Fetter Lane, London. C. F. Clay, Manager
=Cambridge University Press=
SELECTED LIST
=A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races.= By Sir
HARRY H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., Hon. Sc.D. Cantab. New edition,
revised throughout and considerably enlarged. Crown 8vo. With 8
maps. 8s net. Cambridge Historical Series.
=Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African Tribes.= By
C. W. HOBLEY, C.M.G., A.M.Inst.C.E. Demy 8vo. With 54 illustrations
and a map. 7s 6d net.
=The Tribes of Northern and Central Kordofan.= By H. A. MACMICHAEL,
Sudan Civil Service, late Scholar of Magdalene College,
Cambridge. Demy 8vo. With 19 plates. 10s 6d net.
=Brands used by the chief Camel-owning Tribes of Kordofan.= By the
same author. Demy 8vo. With 17 plates. 6s net.
=Initia Amharica.= An Introduction to spoken Amharic. By
C. H. ARMBRUSTER, M.A., Sudan Civil Service. Royal 8vo. Part
I. Grammar. 12s net. Part II. English-Amharic Vocabulary with
phrases. 15s net.
=Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu Languages of East Africa.=
By HILDEGARDE HINDE (Mrs SIDNEY L. HINDE). Crown 8vo. 3s net.
=The Masai Language.= Grammatical Notes, together with a
Vocabulary. Compiled by HILDEGARDE HINDE. Crown 8vo. 3s 6d
=A Grammar of the Somali Language with Examples in Prose and Verse.=
And an account of the Yibir and Midgan Dialects. By J. W. C. KIRK,
B.A. Demy 8vo. 7s 6d net.
=The Modern Egyptian Dialect of Arabic.= A Grammar, with
Exercises, Reading Lessons and Glossaries, from the German of Dr
K. VOLLERS. With numerous additions by the Author. Translated by
F. C. BURKITT, M.A. Crown 8vo. 10s 6d
=Dictionary of the Hausa Language.= By the Rev. CHARLES HENRY
ROBINSON, D.D. Demy 8vo. Vol. I. Hausa-English. Third edition,
revised and enlarged. 12s net. Vol. II. English-Hausa. 9s net
=Specimens of Hausa Literature.= By the Rev. CHARLES HENRY ROBINSON,
D.D. Small 4to. 10s Translation, Transliteration and Notes, without
Facsimiles, 5s
=A Galla-English, English-Galla Dictionary.= Collected and compiled
by E. C. FOOT, F.R.G.S. Published with the aid and approval of
H.M. Foreign Office. Demy 8vo. 6s net.
A complete catalogue of the publications of the University Press
will be sent post free on application
Cambridge University Press Fetter Lane, London. C. F. Clay, Manager
Transcriber's note:
The change indicated in the Errata has been done.
pg 101 (footnote 48) Changed: _Pseudocarus_ to: _Pseudoscarus_
Spelling inconsistencies have been left unchanged.
Pages 84, 88, 102, 126, 137, 144, 147, that contained full-page
captions or figures, have been placed between paragraphs
in the page after them.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Desert and water gardens of the Red Sea : Being an account of the natives and the shore formations of the coast" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.