o on top of you and getting scuppered while
entangled in its folds. African dhows could generally be trusted not to
resist search, for when a _reis_ has got his owners or agents at a
civilised port like Suakin he likes to keep respectable even if he _is_
smuggling. Our chief difficulty with such craft, before we tightened the
blockade, was due to the nonchalant manner in which they put to sea and
behaved when at sea. Their skippers had the sketchiest idea of what
constituted proper clearance papers and why such papers must agree with
their present voyage. Their confidence too in our integrity, though
touching, was often embarrassing. One of our rules was that considerable
sums in gold must be given up against a signed voucher realisable at
Port Sudan. I was never very brisk at counting large sums of money, and
one day when hove to off Jeddah there were five dhows rubbing their
noses alongside, with about L800 in gold between them and very little
time to deal with them, as we were in shoal water with no way on the
ship. My operations were not facilitated by the biggest Croesus of the
lot producing some L400 in five different currencies from various parts
of his apparel and stating that he had no idea how much there was but
would abide by my decision. I believe he expected me to give him a
receipt in round hundreds and take the "oddment," as we call it in
Warwickshire, for myself. As it was, I was down half a sovereign or so
over the transaction, having given him the benefit of the doubt over
two measly little gold coins of unascertainable value.

Some of them were just as happy-go-lucky in their seamanship, though
skilful enough in handling their outlandish craft. Early one morning,
about fifty miles out of Jeddah, I boarded a becalmed dhow and found
them with the dregs of one empty water-skin between a dozen men. Not
content with putting to sea with a single _mussick_ of water, they had
hove to and slept all night, and so dropped the night breeze, which
would have carried them to Jeddah before it died down. We gave them
water and their position, but I told the _reis_ that he was putting more
strain on the mercy of Allah than he was, individually, entitled to.

But the craft that plied along the Hejazi coast were sinister customers
and wanted watching. Some time before I joined the patrol one of our
ships was lying a long way out off Um-Lejj, as the water is shallow, and
her duty-boat was working close in-shore examining