The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [14]
Topography provides other important bounds and constraints. Some areas were very difficult to navigate. The Gulf is one such, but the Red Sea provides the best example. Past Jiddah was especially bad, so that only small specialised ships could make the passage from there to Suez. An Arabic account from the ninth century makes clear the dangers. Ships from the Gulf port of Siraf
put into Judda, where they remain; for their Cargo is thence transported to Kahira [Cairo] by Ships of Kolzum, who are acquainted with the Navigation of the Red Sea, which those of Siraf dare not attempt, because of the extreme Danger, and because this Sea is full of Rocks at the Water's Edge; because also upon the whole Coast there are no Kings, or scarce any inhabited Place; and, in fine, because Ships are every Night obliged to put into some Place of Safety, for Fear of striking upon the Rocks; they sail in the Day time only, and all the Night ride fast at Anchor. This Sea, moreover, is subject to very thick Fogs, and to violent Gales of Wind, and so has nothing to recommend it, either within or without.12
A pilgrim in 1183 wrote of the entry to the important port of Jiddah:
The entry into it is difficult to achieve because of the many reefs and the windings. We observed the art of these captains and the mariners in the handling of their ships through the reefs. It was truly marvellous. They would enter the narrow channels and manage their way through them as a cavalier manages a horse that is light on the bridle and tractable. They came through in a wonderful manner that cannot be described....
He had been eight days at sea, and it had been a hazardous time:
There had been the sudden crises of the sea, the perversity of the wind, the many reefs encountered, and the emergencies that arose from the imperfections of the sailing gear which time and again became entangled and broke when sails were raised or lowered or an anchor raised. At times the bottom of the jilabah would run against a reef when passing through them, and we would listen to a rumbling that called us to abandon hope. Many times we died and lived again.13
Daniel's account in 1700 similarly makes clear the hazards, in this case on a voyage from Suez to Yanbo, the port of Medina. His ship anchored each night in order to avoid reefs, rocks and shoals, and this short voyage took from 12 July to 10 August. They only reached Jiddah on 29 August.14 One of our most graphic accounts comes from Tomé Pires in the early sixteenth century. In the Red Sea
there are many rocky banks and they are difficult to navigate. Men do not navigate except by day; they can always anchor. The best sailing is from the entrance to the strait as far as Kamaran. It is worse from Kamaran to Jiddah and much worse from Jiddah to Tor. From Tor to Suez is a route for small boats even by day, because it is all dirty ('cujo') and bad.15
In our own time it has got no better. Jacques Cousteau sailed there many times, but even in the early 1950s much of it was uncharted and very dangerous. This applied especially to the Far-Sans reef complex, 350 miles long and 30 miles wide, along the Yemen and Hijaz coasts. It is a 'demented masterpiece of outcrops, shoals, foaming reefs, and other lurking ship-breakers.' Things are made worse by another deep structure element, the winds, which for most of the year are north and north-westerly, so that sailing south is extremely hot.16
Scorching winds were an environmental hazard which many travellers commented on. Isabel Burton was in Aden in January 1876 and found it very hot: 'I think it is to Aden that is attached the legend of the sailors who died and went to a certain fiery place, and appeared, and on being asked why they came, they replied that they had caught cold, and had leave to come to