“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.
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
Fig. 35. Pearling canoes coming in from diving
