A NAKHODA (CAPTAIN) AND HIS FAMILY.
The dhow captains are ever ready for an adventure, and, until recently, many came their way. Towards the end of 1916 a number of German secret service men, who had been endeavouring to stir up trouble for the allies by interfering in the politics of the ex-King of Abyssinia, Lij Yassu, and even of the Mad Mullah, determined to leave Africa, as fate was against them. One of these men walked from Abyssinia, and keeping to the French and British Somaliland border approached the coast, where he had arranged with the captain of a dhow to pick him up and take him to Arabia. But the Zeila and Djibouti police were on the look out, and acting on "information received" the dhow was arrested. Shortly afterwards the despondent German was only too glad to give himself up at Djibouti. His chance of escaping to Arabia was hopeless, and he was a lucky man to have reached the coast alive. Others of his ilk did not succeed in doing so, and it is on record that one of them perished miserably of thirst in the bush.
Nowadays, thanks to the British Navy, slave-running and gun-running are "industries" of the past, and the dhow captains, whose hearts are still unchanged, confine their activities, in the illegitimate line, to landing a parcel of silk or cloth at night when the coast is clear. A party of conservancy sweepers has even been known to find, hidden in the garbage that strews our beach, a parcel of firearms landed by some fire-eater who is now repenting his venture in Berbera jail. The dhow men unanimously agree that life is becoming decidedly dull. That it is still sweet is sometimes brought home to them as they fight their open craft through the sudden storms that often take them unawares in these waters; or when, as has been known to happen, a dhow laden with live stock has a hole knocked through her bottom by a restless bullock. The hole has been stopped with the clothes torn from the backs of the crew, and the water that found its way in, and threatened to send all hands to the bottom, bailed out by desperate men armed with bowls, scoops, cups, and any other utensil that came to hand. For, be it known, our Arab and Somal sailormen never dream of danger, and when danger comes it always finds them unprepared, but, full of fight whilst they consider there is a chance. When they realise they must face the worst no vain regrets are wasted on might-have-beens. They humbly bow the neck to fate, and, like their fathers of old, comfort themselves with the thought that what is to be will be—"Inshallah."
[CHAPTER X]
SOMETHING ABOUT THE SLAVE TRADE
British and French pressure—The general question—A naval narrative.
But though dhow captains and ex-slaves keep their mouths shut, the old records, fortunately, tell us something concerning the slave trade, which, thirty odd years ago, the British took such effective measures to stamp out in all territory coming under their influence. I am speaking of the Red Sea and Somali coast. Before the French began to make their presence felt in what is now French Somaliland, and whilst that territory was still a sort of no man's land between British territory on the south and Italian territory on the north, the principal port for the exportation of slaves was at Tajura on the gulf of that name, a small Danakil native town north-west of Djibouti. Danakil territory extends far north of Tajura along the coast into Italian territory, past Asab, another small port on the Red Sea.