On account of the prevalence of north-winds through the greater part of the year, navigation in the Red Sea is nearly always as easy in this direction as it is difficult in the contrary. This accounts for European sailing vessels so rarely reaching Suez; they proceed only as far as Djidda, and that only when coming from India or at the time of the pilgrimage.
I had to spend two hot days on board while my baggage was disembarked. Whoever has been to India knows well enough what is the furnace temperature of the Red Sea, and how, south of the tropic of Cancer, it becomes insufferable. The thermometer stood at midday at about 95° Fahrenheit, and the air was like a vapour-bath. The sea water, a few degrees cooler, afforded us, nevertheless, some refreshment, and we did our utmost to enjoy it at all hours of the day. Still there was something very enervating and depressing about this amphibious life. Had the heat and sun-glare been less overpowering, we might have truly enjoyed the splashing and sport in the bright green floods which spread over the shallows where coral banks ranged themselves below, and where the eye could detect a thousand marvels. Like terraces filled with the choicest plants, the sloping beds of coral descended with variegated festoons into the purple shades of the deep; strange forms were witnessed in these living groves, and conspicuous among others was the “bride of the fish,” which is celebrated in the Arabian fishing-song, “O bride, lovely bride of the fish, come to me.” Ever and anon on my voyage, which was to me as an Odyssey, did I delight to catch fragments of this song, as it was dreamily hummed by the man at the stern during the hot midday hour when the crew had sunk into slumber, and while, noiselessly and spirit-like, our vessel glided through the emerald floods. The enchantment, as of a fairy tale, of these waters with their myriad living forms of every tint and shape, defies all power of description.
Without entering the town, I lost no time in putting off to sea in my little Arab craft. At first we made little headway, but after noon a fresh breeze came from the north-east, which continued all night, so that by the following morning, after a voyage of nearly 100 miles in twenty hours, we slackened sail under the mountains which I had previously visited, in lat. 21° N. The Nubian coast was almost close in front of us. A very primitive kind of compass enabled us to steer to this goal. I was glad to find that no water had reached my baggage, for in the heavy sea the boat had rolled and pitched considerably. We ran along the coast, and each familiar scene revived in me pleasant memories of my former journey, which had been unmarred by a single trouble. Close in view was Cape Roway, where the formation of a lagoon had developed natural salt-works, from which is obtained the salt for the consumption at Djidda, and for export to India. The salt, however, is only secured during the eight hottest months of the year, when the Red Sea is reduced to its lowest level, two or three feet below its altitude in the winter. The only explanation of this phenomenon seems to be the prevalent direction of the wind taken in connection with the position of the water. The bearings of the sea are such that the wind drives the waves with full force towards the Straits of Mandeb, the narrowness of which retards the outflow of the water and produces an immense evaporation.
SUBMARINE MEADOW.
The flat shore between the mountains and the sea with its coral reefs was hidden from our view. A green carpet of samphire covered the coast for miles along the land. This botanically may be represented as coming under the genus Suæda, the name of which is imitated from the Arab “sued,” the original of our “soda.” This plant has long been turned to a profitable account, and to this day Arab boats may be seen about the coast, engaged in the procuring and preserving of it.
Rising directly out of the water close to the shore grow in patches great clusters of Avicennia, so abundant in tropical seas, the beautiful laurel-leaf of which forms a dazzling contrast to the bare brown of the mainland.
Over considerable tracts at the depth of thirty feet the sea bottom resembles a submarine meadow, rich with every species of sea-grass: in these, turtles and dujongs, which are so numerous in this part of the Red Sea, find their pasture land. It must be a very protracted business for these cumbrous creatures to get their sustenance, bit by bit, from these tender leaflets; but they have time enough and nothing else to do.
The little islets in the height of summer are the resort of flocks of water-birds who go there to breed undisturbed. On one of these, in July 1864, we collected over 2000 eggs of the tern, although the dry area above the strand consisted of scarcely so many square feet. At the approach of night the wind failed us, and with fluttering sails we drifted into sight of a place called Durroor. Two antique Turkish guard-houses of small dimensions gleamed with their white walls far across the sea. They are not unlike the rough-walled watch-towers of our fortresses, and are said to have been built by Selim II. when Yemen was subdued; they are the scanty remains of a past which continues to the present, isolated memorials of a barren, inhospitable coast, where all is changeless as the rolling waves.
I shall not easily forget the nights which I passed becalmed upon that sea. Sleep there could be none. Drenched in perspiration, one could only sit by his lamp and indulge the hope that the breeze at daybreak might be somewhat cooler. Air and sea combined to form an interminable mass of vapour through which the moon could only penetrate with a lurid silvery gleam. One bright strip alone cleaves itself a way over the silent waves; it stretches towards an aperture in the horizon, which would seem to be the origin of all the brightness: but all is full of strange illusion, for the moon is here above our heads. The boat floats as though it were an aërial vessel in a globe of vapour; the depth of the sea, illumined by the vertical beams of the moon, is like another sky beneath us, and hosts of mysterious beings, diversified in colour and confused in form, are moving underneath our feet. The calmness of the air and the unbroken stillness of this spectral nature increased the magic of these moonlight nights.
Late in the evening of the third day we ran into the harbour of Suakin. This town, formerly held directly subject to the Turkish power, had three years since, together with Massowa and the adjacent coast, been surrendered to the Viceroy of Egypt. In that short time it had remarkably improved. Formed by nature to serve as a harbour for the Egyptian Soudan, and even for Abyssinia, the place, as long as its administration came from Arabia and Constantinople, could inevitably never rise, and even now its prosperity is only comparative. The Egyptian Government still obstructs all traffic by the heavy duties which it levies even on the natural intercourse with Suez; it is desirous of transferring its interests as a centre to Massowa, watching continually with attentive eyes the ungoverned condition of Abyssinia. Since the traffic on the Nile by way of Berber ever continues in uninterrupted activity, and this place lies but 200 miles from Suakin, whilst the distance between Massowa and Khartoom is twice as far, why any preference should be given to Massowa is altogether incomprehensible.