VIKINGS OF THE EAST.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 August 1924, Page 14

VIKINGS OF THE EAST.

ARAB DHOWS OUT OF ZANZIBAR. “Here, bwana, are the (Mows,” announced Youssef, the Arab seafarer, his long white gown rustling as he pointed across the blue water that laps the coral shores of Zanzibar. It was' noon, writes L. G. Green, in the Daily Mail, iiiul the close smell hung sickly-sweet along the waterfront of Malindi bazaar. We had just emerged from that rabbit-warren, where human tides of Africa and the Orient mingle in dark alleyways; for there is the sailors ’ quarter, the place where Vikings of the East come to victual their strange craft. So we stood for a while under the betel-palms, gazing at the tangle of masts and spars. The dhow is surely one of th‘e myriad mysteries of the East. In the days of Moses these same clumsy, lateen-rigged craft came all the way from the Red Sea. ports, from the Persian Gulf and Aden, to cast primitive anchors off historic Zanzibar. Evolved and perfected by a maritime race, they have remained unchanged right down the centuries. Daring cockleshells they are' indeed, no bigger than Thames barges, yet capable of riding out a typhoon.

With Youssef I boarded one of the dhows and was astounded at the frail, roughly hewn timbers, the rickety masts, and rotten sails. But the old Arab builders embody in the lines of these roving ships a secret of speed and seaworthiness that Western designers have never known. Crusted with barnaeles, paintless and filthy at close quarters, an Arab dhow at sea demonstrates the true poetry of motion. Against a palm-fringed coast, with a great spread of sail flashing yellow in the tropic sunshine, reflected in blue water, the dhow becomes the most charming vision o-f Eastern seas. Dreams and romance cling to their battered hulls. These are vessels the Queen of Sheba sent to Africa, returning to Egypt with cargoes of gold and spices and passengers huddled in the little cockpit. Youssef’s own memories go no farther back than the slave days, though mention of the Laud of Ophir is still found in Arab sea chanteys. As recently as I8&8 a British naval officer, Lieutenant Cooper, lost his life in attacking a slave dhow near Zanzibar. In tiny, open dhows thousands of men,- women and children were taken from their homes to voyage into bondage. Youssef shakes, his head sadly when he thifiks of the glorious days when dhows carried “black ivory” instead of copra.