Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah: Volume 1 by Sir Richard Francis Burton

Author:Sir Richard Francis Burton [Burton, Sir Richard Francis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Arabian Peninsula -- Description and travel, Islamic Studies
ISBN: 9781402185410
Amazon: 1402185413
Publisher: Adamant Media Corporation
Published: 2000-11-19T18:30:00+00:00

this charming coral reef was nearly being the scene of an ugly accident. The breeze from seaward set us slowly but steadily towards the reef, a fact of which we soon became conscious. Our anchor was not dragging; it had not rope enough to touch the bottom, and vainly we sought for more. In fact the "Golden Wire" was as disgracefully deficient in all the appliances of safety, as any English merchantman in the nineteenth century,-a circumstance which accounts for the shipwrecks and for the terrible loss of life perpetually occurring about the Pilgrimage-season in these seas. Had she struck upon the razor-like edges of the coral-reef, she would have melted

[p.220] away like a sugar-plum in the ripple, for the tide was rising at the time. Having nothing better to do, we began to make as much noise as possible. Fortunately for us, the Rais commanding the Persian's boat was an Arab from Jeddah; and more than once we had treated him with great civility. Guessing the cause of our distress, he sent two sailors overboard with a cable; they swam gallantly up to us; and in a few minutes we were safely moored to the stern of our useful neighbour. Which done, we applied ourselves to the grateful task of beating our Rais, and richly had he deserved it. Before noon, when the wind was shifting, he had not once given himself the trouble to wear; and when the breeze was falling, he preferred dosing to taking advantage of what little wind remained. With energy we might have been moored that night comfortably under the side of Hassani Island, instead of floating about on an unquiet sea with a lee-shore of coral-reef within a few yards of our counter.

At dawn the next day (15th July) we started. We made Jabal Hassani[FN#16] about noon, and an hour or so before sunset we glided into Marsa Mahar. Our resting-place resembled Marsa Dumayghah at an humble distance; the sides of the cove, however, were bolder and more precipitous. The limestone rocks presented a peculiar appearance; in some parts the base and walls had crumbled away, leaving a coping to project like a canopy; in others the wind and rain had cut deep holes, and pierced the friable material with caverns that looked like the work of art. There was a pretty opening of backwood at the bottom of the

[p.221] cove; and palm trees in the blue distance gladdened our eyes, which pined for the sight of something green. The Rais, as usual, would have terrified us with a description of the Hutaym tribe that holds these parts, and I knew from Welsted and Moresby that it is a debased race. But forty-eight hours of cramps on board ship would make a man think lightly of a much more imminent danger.

Wading to shore we cut our feet with the sharp rocks. I remember to have felt the acute pain of something running into my toe: but after looking at the place and extracting

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