this road, so that I could not follow it. My only plan, therefore, was to sail to the Italian port of Massowah, 300 miles down the coast, and thence ride through Erythrea, another 300 miles, to my destination. As no steamers run between Suakin and Massowah, I was compelled to charter a native sailing-craft in order to make this voyage.
It had been blowing hard from the north for several days, and I knew that if it continued to do so I could reach Massowah in two or three days with any boat that could sail at all. I soon found the very vessel for my purpose in the harbour, a dhow of about thirty tons burden. She had two masts, carrying a large lateen sail on her foremast, and a smaller one on her mizzen. She was undecked, but her high stern was partly covered in, forming a poop on which the helmsman stood; so that under this I could find shelter during the voyage, and make myself very fairly comfortable, despite the rats and cockroaches, and the small but very aggressive and venomous mosquitoes that swarmed in that part of the vessel. She must have brought the mosquitoes from her own country, as I had come across none in Suakin or anywhere else in the Sudan. The dhow belonged to Yembo, the port of Medina, on the opposite Arabian coast, and was sailing under the Turkish flag. She was discharging a cargo of dates which she had brought from Yembo. She carried a crew of twelve men, negroes and Arabians of the Hedjaz.
