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navigate secure in the knowledge that they knew exactly where they were. In reality it was decades before even western ships achieved this sort of certainty. In 1786 Mrs Fay's ship was running short of provisions, but the captain said this was no problem, as they were near St Helena, where food could be obtained. Alas, it turned out they were still off the East African coast. Right up to 1817, thanks to various errors and careless map-making, there appeared on standard charts of the Indian Ocean a fictitious island at about 28° S and 74° E, which in reality did not exist at all.31 Well into the nineteenth century European sailors, just like their Arab predecessors, hoped to sight a known land or island in order to check their location. One example was St Paul and Amsterdam islands at 77° E and 37–38° S. These marked where ships using the roaring 40s either turned north to India, or kept on going east to Australia. They were used as such up to the 1860s by sailing vessels. But about this time improved navigation methods meant that ships bound for the Australian gold rushes now went further south to take full advantage of the roaring 40s.32

Certainly navigation and map-making improved dramatically in the nineteenth century, so that in the terms used by Edward Said the Indian Ocean was constructed and 'known' by foreigners: knowledge and power coexisted in a symbiotic relationship. The British spent much time and effort on making accurate charts. Captain William Owen on behalf of the British Admiralty spent an arduous five years, 1821–26, in two ships charting the East African coast. The results of these and other expeditions were published in the many Admiralty Guides which are one illustration of the technological superiority of the Europeans at this time. Here and elsewhere they was a strong connection between this advance and the displacement of local traders and ships. In the case of the maps and guides, they obviously made navigation safer for those who could use them, which obviously was mostly Europeans. Local craft seldom had anyone on board who could read them, and also did not have the navigational equipment needed to take advantage of their directions.

These charts and books were one way in which Europeans were able to overcome or at least ameliorate the effects of the deep structure elements I outlined in the first chapter of this book. Many of them no longer acted as iron constraints on what ships and people could do at sea. The monsoons, a strait jacket for millennia, now became largely irrelevant when confronted by steam ships. Poor harbours, or no harbours at all, were overcome by British engineers. Even distance was transformed by steam ships and the Suez Canal. As a capsule example, consider that even in the 1830s a return voyage from England to India took two years. By the 1850s steamers had cut this down to two to three months, and communication within a day became possible with the telegraph in the 1870s.

We have written extensively in previous chapters about the perils and risks associated with wind-propelled ships. Ships of whatever size which depended on the wind had obvious disadvantages, at least in economic terms, if not in aesthetic. They needed very large crews, so that the dhows of the western ocean were often overcrowded with crew, passengers, and traders all mixed together in each other's way, and indeed the distinction between the three was by no means clear cut.

In the first half of the nineteenth century there was considerable variation around the ocean. In some areas, such as in the Gulf and off southern Arabia, local ships did well. In other areas a pronounced dualism developed at this time, and this is before the major impact of steam ships. British sailing ships dominated long-distance trade,

Figure 4 The Honourable East India Company's iron war steamer, the Ship Nemesis, scudding before a heavy gale off the Cape of Good Hope on her passage from England to China. Produced by W.J. Leatham (artist) and R.G. Reeve (engraver), 26 October 1841. © National Maritime Museum, London