Voyage By Dhow (2 page)

I was pleasantly surprised that it should be possible to take a taxi to Lahej, although I noted that the driver wore a gun, tucked into an armpit holster. We covered a few miles through Aden’s slatternly outskirts before reaching an open road flanked by the muted outlines of the shipbuilding yards of prehistory. Lahej came rapidly into sight, surrounded by shining oases. The initial brilliance of its surroundings proved on closer approach to be something of a deception, for the town itself was subject to dust storms, its buildings being pallid with a greyish powder that stuck to its walls. Worst of all, the palms grouped by the hundreds in its open spaces released cascades of dust at fairly regular intervals when shaken by gusts of wind. A touch of fanaticism in its religious observances kept the citizens of Lahej more frequently at prayer than elsewhere in southern Arabia. They fasted, made donations to the poor, nurtured the sick, dressed without ostentation, played nothing but religious music, and had outlawed the gramophone. With all that they contrived surely to be the most friendly and companionable people it was possible to imagine. I had hardly released myself from the taxi when a passer-by pushed himself to the front of the small crowd that had gathered, and proceeded to offer me, using a simplified form of his language employed in conversation with foreigners or children, the hospitality of his home. I had already been warned of the almost embarrassing kindness of these people so I was able to excuse myself with a reasonable amount of grace. I then hastened to take refuge in one of the town’s inns, in which Bedouin and their camels were lodged without distinction, before someone else, seeing me at a loose end, could implore me to become a guest in his house.

I was to spend two days in Lahej, enchanted by the rigidity of its customs. It was immediately clear that this was the great playground of the desert, and that these people of Bedouin origin remained Bedouin at heart and were the prisoners of pleasure. A man at the inn had told me, ‘Parties go on all the time. We’re addicts of them. If a man sells a few sheep he’s likely to join with a friend and they hire a tent. It holds 200 people and they put it up in two days. Often it’s for a wedding and everyone is invited. I could take you to a party now, and they’d rush to grab your hand and say “
Ahlan wa sahlan
” (Your very good health).’

The next day was a Friday, when the Sultan accompanied by his numerous family and the nobility of this minuscule realm walked in procession to pray in the mosque. I witnessed an inspiriting scene in which the Lahej army, composed of about one hundred British-trained soldiers, marched both to the rhythm of native drummers and to the music of the only saxophone permitted by the religious authorities to be imported into the state.

In the evening I was invited to a party attended solely by men, at which the chewing of khat—the leaves of a mildly narcotic plant—was general, although this produced only a mild hilarity. A number of the guests had visited the barber earlier in the evening to have themselves cupped and a few arrived still wearing cows’ horns covering gashes on various parts of their bodies. No disquiet was evident when, despite the illegality of photography, I used my spy camera to take pictures of this weird effect and other scenes likely to be of interest to Stevens. But my use of the camera—never seen and hardly even heard of—aroused interest and speculation in Lahej. ‘I’m making pictures for the people back home’, was my reason given, whether or not understood.

Lahej was within 300 miles of one of the greatest of the earth’s total deserts, but it had a temperate climate and substantial rainfall. A guest at the party told me that this was due to the mountain range to the north, the beginnings of which were almost within walking distance. He offered to take me in his camel cart into these mountains, and we set off together the next morning. The distance was covered at a remarkable pace and within two hours we found ourselves in a flowering landscape.

We were now in the forbidden land of the Yemen, passing through countryside watered by mountain streams and covered with a profusion of green vegetation. It was too early in the year to enjoy the summer maximum of this scene, but on all sides the aloes and tamarisks, date palms and banana trees protruded from among flowering aromatic shrubs. My friend, Said Hamud, was a man of education who stressed the fact that the climate of his land, although a part of Asia, was more like that of a country lying far away to the north by the waters of the Atlantic. In winter, he said, there were stiff frosts within fifty miles of Lahej, although no snowfalls. A little later, in season, I was told, these mountain flanks would be clothed with jasmine, clematis and wild briar, as well as—incredibly enough—with bluebells and forget-me-nots. The more accessible valleys had already been cultivated with coffee beans, and fruits of all kinds. My friend pointed out the monkeys in the trees, and as a lover of birds I was delighted to identify the hoopoe and the golden oriole. A pre-Islamic Arab writer had said of this country that, ‘Its inhabitants are all hale and strong; sickness is rarely seen, there are no poisonous plants of animals, nor blind persons, nor fools, and the women are ever young. The climate is like paradise, and one wears the same garment all winter.’

What we had seen that morning explained the eagerness of certain colonial powers to grab whatever they could of this country, and it was fear of the colonialists, we were later to learn, that had induced the Yemeni priest-king Yahya to step up his military and spiritual offensives. Ladislas claimed to have discovered that the Imam had purchased 15,000 defective rifles from the Polish government, and in the same week had trebled the amount of compulsory public prayers. The kingdom’s postal services, he believed, had become a tool of international spies. Thus Sir Bernard Reilly’s letter on our behalf was carried to the Yemen by one of Yahya’s personally appointed postmen, qualified not only to deliver the mail but to preach in the mosque. Such were the methods by which the King hoped to hold nemesis at bay.

Aden had been neither East nor West, but a vigorous hybrid of the both in which whatever differences that existed were being vigorously chamfered away. Lahej was an old-style Arabian town at its best—hospitable, good-humoured and rather poor, with a fine collection of old-fashioned prejudices that elsewhere had gone by the board. Soft veils of dust hung over the buildings and subdued the sun’s rays to a bearable glow. This had been an ancient tented town in which most of the population now lived with reluctance in brick buildings forced upon them by the authorities. It was noisy, for the drummers of the Sultan’s military band marched constantly up and down through the narrow, echoing streets. Most people possessed tents in memory of the good old days, and occupied them whenever they could. ‘You see,’ said a native of the town with whom I struck up a conversation, ‘we’re all Bedouin at heart, and we like to be reminded of the way we lived.’

Perhaps the most extraordinary of my Arabian experiences was my meeting in Lahej with the celebrated outlaw, El Hadrami. He had turned up in the town a few days before my arrival and now basked in the prestige due in these parts to a man who had recently beheaded four of the King of the Yemen’s guards sent to carry out his arrest.

El Hadrami’s enormous fame permitted him to stage a procession of his own, timed on the Friday to follow the ritual of the Sultan’s state visit to the mosque. I missed this demonstration of power, but later, on hearing that there was a journalist in the town, he ordered me to be ushered into his presence. He proved to be an immense and hugely muscular man wearing one of the new sports shirts recently imported from Europe, and with it a kilt. Spotting my camera, he ordered me to take a photograph of him, and drawing his enormous scimitar he slashed ferociously at the air. Several spectators had appeared in the background but were signalled by a movement of his index finger to withdraw. On such occasions El Hadrami was accustomed to invite a few leading citizens to lunch with him, and in this instance I was included.

The town’s small central square was to be taken over for this purpose, but first a team of boys, furnished with brooms, filled the air with clouds of dust swept from the fronds of its palms. A rare local sucker-fish featured on the menu, for the first time that season, I was assured. It was in great demand, not on account of its insipid flavour, but in the belief that a little of what was considered its exceptional intelligence could be passed on to the consumer.

Silence, austerity and religious dictatorship—all the sworn enemies of pleasure—drove the most vigorous of the Yemen’s sons to take refuge in the more congenial environment of the south, and after a short experience among these more relaxed Arabian scenes I formed a new theory of the Bedouin character. For these desert warriors, or ex-warriors, enjoyment was inseparable from the subtle pleasures of risk. Many of the citizens of Lahej had been born in or near the desert with eyes never able wholly to free themselves from imprinted vistas of sand. Boredom was thus their inheritance and in Lahej they demonstrated the lengths they would go to in search of excitement. This town was celebrated throughout southern Arabia for its rifle ranges where the bored shepherd escaping from the dunes did not shoot, but allowed himself to be shot. Finding it hard to believe what I’d been told about this I went to see for myself later on the Saturday. The target stood erect, hands over his eyes, and the marksman paid eight annas to shoot him with small darts at a distance of twenty yards, or a rupee to use a real bullet from which most of the gunpowder had been removed.

In gathering information of the west coast with its flowers, trees, monkeys and exotic birds we made a discovery which Stevens rated as a useful find. Strangely enough, the road passing through these undisturbed surroundings had remained in a remarkable state of repair, despite its evident age. Said Hamud, my friend with the camel cart, had suggested that it was in such excellent condition largely because it had been unused for a century or more. Two or three hundred years back, he thought, it would have been essential to the conduct of hostilities between north and south. Nowadays all the business—and in consequence the disputes—of southern Arabia centred on the Gulf of Aden, where maritime traffic was all-important and what was left of the old roads were no longer used. There had been much talk of war in Lahej, but it would have been pointless, even disastrous, for the government of the Yemen to plan an attack down this ancient military highway, especially when it was known to possess only two armoured vehicles, both of them at that time out of use with engine trouble.

I had asked Said Hamud what Yahya’s chances of success were should conflict break out. His reply was that the north would fare badly under the inevitable air-attacks against which it could offer no defence, but its army would be unbeatable in a defensive battle fought in the mountains. The Yemeni soldier survived rather than lived on a diet of dried figs and unleavened bread, and would be ready to fight to the death—which he would in any case regard as no more than the promotion of his soul.

Back in Aden after my short absence I sensed a change in the atmosphere of the place but some time passed before I decided that this was due to another influx of Italian soldiers. They were all officers, splendidly uniformed and courteous—if slightly aloof in their manner—but still perhaps a little dazzled by their recent victory in Abyssinia. They congregated in the lounges of the better hotels, bowing and smiling slightly when introduced to foreigners, but above all demonstrating a slight superiority, where their British counterparts were concerned, by never appearing to have had too much to drink. It was in the bar on the roof terrace of the Marina Hotel that I spotted Farago, who had been mysteriously absent for most of our stay. He was with an Italian, grinning broadly and gesticulating as he sometimes did. A second Italian officer joined the pair and the soldiers exchanged fascist salutes. At this point I moved behind a potted fern to give some thought to the possible implication of this scene.

That afternoon I located Farago in another part of the hotel and he told me that he had been to Djibouti—clearly at Stevens’ behest. ‘But why on earth Djibouti?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t it French?’ He grinned. ‘These places change hands all the time,’ he said.

It seemed better to change the subject. ‘A lot of Italians about the place,’ I suggested.

‘I noticed that,’ Farago laughed. ‘They’re quick off the mark. No Italian stays longer than he has to in Abyssinia. This must be like coming home to them. Just say “
Buon giorno
” and “
Come va
?” You’ll find they’re all right.’

‘Any news of the permit?’ I asked.

‘None whatever. I can assure you that Sir Bernard Reilly has given it up as hopeless and so have I. All we have to do now is take the dhow to Hodeidah with a pocket full of fivers and talk to the immigration people there.’ He laughed again—a sound in this case finishing in a whine like a dog’s.

‘When do we leave?’

‘Impossible to say. The dhow people probably don’t know themselves. Also they keep as quiet as possible until the last thing to trick the devil who preys on ships. All we can do is be ready with the luggage and sit down to wait until the omens are right. That’s something that can take two or three days.’

‘This sort of thing goes on all the time, I imagine?’

‘All the time. Same as in Abyssinia. They had prayer groups there. You went down to the port and joined a group praying for a change in the wind, or whatever it was that was holding things up. A mullah led the prayers and collected his fees.’

‘And they do that here?’

‘Probably. We’ll soon see.’

Later the news came through that the dhow would be leaving that night, and after a hurried take-off we arrived at the harbour in the early evening. Here, having delivered our gear to a crew member, we climbed aboard by a rope ladder and picked our way over piled-up boxes and bales in search of a place to put down our belongings. Most of the passengers had already settled in and scooped out nests for themselves among what could be shifted of the cargo. A few—perhaps braving the sea for the first time, and nervous in these surroundings—had apprehensively wrapped cloths around their mouths. I was told that this was in reaction to a local belief that at such moments of tension the spirit may suddenly endeavour to make its escape from the body. We had been given deck passages, and this came as a relief, for when we had first looked the dhow over we had noted a stagnant odour rising through the gangway from the depths of the ship.