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
