that the movements of the patrol would place
H.M.S. "Hardinge" (a roomy ship of the Indian Marine) on station duty
off Jeddah, which was to be my post while the enhanced blockade was in
force--there are few more trying seasons than early summer in those
waters. I joined her from Suez the day after the blockade was closed,
and found her keeping guard over a perfect fleet of dhows. There were
about three dozen craft with over three hundred people on board, for
many native passengers were trying to make Jeddah before we shut down.
The feckless mariners in charge had made the usual oriental calculation
that a day more or less did not matter, but found to their horror that
the Navy was more precise on these points--and there they were.

The first thing to ensure was that the crew, and especially the
passengers, among whom were a good many women and children, did not
suffer from privation. This had already been ably seen to by the ship's
officers--I merely went round the fleet to sift any genuine complaints
from the discontent natural to the situation in which their own
slackness had placed them. I insisted on hearing only one complaint at a
time, otherwise it would have been pandemonium afloat, for they were
anchored close enough together to converse with each other; vociferous
excuses for their unpunctuality were brushed aside, legitimate requests
for more water or food or condensed milk for the children or more
adequate shelter for the women from the sun were attended to at once,
and our floating village quieted down.

The craft were all much the same type of small dhow or _sanbuk_ which
frequents the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, having little in common with
the big-bellied buggalows which ply with rice and dates between the
Persian Gulf and Indian ports but do not come into the Red Sea. These
were much smaller and saucier-looking craft, some fifty to eighty feet
long, with a turn of speed and raking masts. All were lugger-rigged
with lateen sails, and only the poop and bows were decked, the bulwarks
being heightened with strips of matting to prevent seas from breaking
in-board. Sanitary arrangements were provided for by a box-like
cubby-hole over-hanging the boat's side; inexperienced officers often
take it for a vantage-point to heave the lead from, and only find out
too late after attempting to board there, that things are not always
what they seem.

These little vessels are practically the corsair type of Saracenic