Page:Small-boat sailing; an explanation of the management of small yachts, half-decked and open sailing-boats of various rigs; sailing on sea and on river; cruising, etc (IA smallboatsailing01knig).pdf/284

 CHAPTER XIII

TWO CRUISES ON LATEEN-RIGGED CRAFT

A dhow race in the Red Sea—Down the Nile Cataracts.

The following narrative will convey some idea of how the Arabs handle their somewhat clumsy, lateen-rigged craft. My dhow race in the Red Sea was sailed in the November of 1897. Military operations in the Sudan had come to a close for that season, so four correspondents and myself returned home from Berber by way of Suakin, a desert journey of 245 miles. Riding on camels and accompanied by half a dozen armed Fuzzy-Wuzzies, we reached Suakin in eleven days. From Suakin the other correspondents returned by sea to Cairo on their way home; but my destination was the Italian colony of Erythrea, for at Suakin I found awaiting me a telegram from the paper I represented ordering me to travel without delay to Kassala, which was shortly to be handed over by the Italians to the Egyptian Government. By the direct caravan route (along which I travelled some months later), Kassala is but 280 miles from Suakin, but at that time Dervish patrols were wont to water at the wells on