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.