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
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
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
