Voyage By Dhow Read Online Free Page A

body were not well understood or capably treated. Bloodletting was the remedy for most ailments. The traveller returning home after a long journey made for the barber’s parlour and had himself slashed wherever he had felt pain while away. He sat down in a chair, stripped to his loincloth, and the barber cut into the areas that had given trouble. Then heated cows’ horns were cupped over the razor cuts and left there as long as necessary.
    Even khat may produce special effects when taken in abundance. Some of the guests began to sing quietly to the accompaniment of the rebaba and the violin of the musicians. Others fell into melancholy silence. Outside the tent the Hadrami seamen who had been chewing for hours on end laughed and clapped their hands and danced a kind of farandole in the torchlight. An unveiled Subi woman exorcized evil spirits with a prolonged and quavering howl. She was answered by the faint yapping of the pariah dogs that came down from the mountain slopes to devour the Parsee dead and to wander among the tombstones of the ancient Jewish cemetery. A few Yemeni Bedouin looked on with uneasy fascination. It was remembered in the Yemen that the Prophet, when he heard the music of pipes, had put his fingers in his ears, although recently Yahya had written a poem in music’s praise, mentioning that its use promoted calm and the dutiful acceptance of the orders of those placed in authority.
    Finally the feasting and the many delays were at an end. Two days later, half an hour before the appointed sailing time, we rowed out to the dhow and climbed the rope ladder again.
VI
    Promptly at six o’clock the nakhoda raised his arms and gave an order. Several of the crew scrambled down to the bows and heaved the anchor up. Others grasped the rope and began to hoist the sail. This task, like the others on the dhow, was done to a rhythmic chant. A leader set the time by cries of ‘ He bab ’, and, with each heave, the haulers roared all together, ‘ Allah karim ’. Some of the passengers went to help the crew with the sail. Before it was halfway up the mast, a chance breath of wind caught it and the dhow began to move slowly forward. Immediately, the helpers let go of the rope and clambered hastily to the sides to say goodbye to their friends. The air resounded with parting cries of ‘God keep you’, and ‘Go in peace’.
    It was a hot and airless evening. The burnished breast of the harbour curved gently with a sinuous movement from the depths and, in places, a vagrant breeze frosted its surface with changing designs. Momentarily the great triangular sail filled with wind, and strained billowing at the mast. Then just as suddenly it drained out and hung down loosely. We moved so slowly that looking at distant objects we seemed to be stationary. Only a gentle straining of timbers assured us that we were under way, and in the water thin streams of iridescence spread out and curled into rings over the gently heaving wake as the ship’s sides disturbed the oiliness of the surface. Even the gull perched on the mast remained standing trance-like on one leg, and, as night drew close, stirred only to put its head under its wing.
    While we were still a distance from the mouth of the harbour the sun began to roll down the sky, gilding the ship with yellow light. Some of the Yemeni who had previously wound cloths round their mouths now covered themselves completely. They believed that the rays of the setting sun were harmful and, for this reason, in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, the houses had no ordinary glass windows facing west, but in their stead, round or oval apertures with panes of thin alabaster. These they called ‘ kamar ’ (moon) on account of the moonlight effect they gave.
    The sun reached the horizon. Silhouetted against the brilliant sky were the tall raked masts of the dhows that still lay between us and the open sea. The faint stir of urban noises reached us across the still water, rising above the soft