Desert and water gardens of the Red Sea

by Cyril Crossland

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.