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Updated: June 1, 2025
A strong, thick wire had been stretched across the river, attached to sunken dhows, and it became necessary to remove these obstructions before an advance could be made.
From below the mud came up in white billows, which danced, and swirled, and eddied as the air bubbles from the divers' exhaust valves stirred it. And out beyond, in and among the reefs, and along the distant shore, which swung and shimmered in the heat haze, hungry dhows prowled like carrion birds temporarily driven away from a prey.
Charley then explained that the corvette, having captured three of the dhows, all with slaves on board, had hove to for the purpose of transferring their cargoes to her deck; and that while so occupied, Rhymer had arrived with a fourth, several of the Arab crew having been wounded in attempting to get away.
The life, as all agreed, was pleasant enough while the weather was fine, but it would be pleasanter to catch a few dhows, send them as prizes into port, and restore the negroes found on board to liberty. "Faith, I wonder whether we ever shall catch one of those rascals," exclaimed Desmond, beginning to lose patience when, after three days at sea, not a single dhow had been caught sight of.
They feared that the Arabs taken in the dhows had given more trouble than those they had captured; possibly the lieutenant, confiding in the strength of his party, had not thought it necessary to bind them, and they had consequently attempted to regain their liberty.
The sudden impact of the bellam, uncomfortable as it was for all concerned, succeeded where they had failed, in getting them off the mud. An old-world touch is given to the waters of Basra by the high-sterned dhows anchored in the river. Above Ashar Creek the scenery of the banks with its wharves and big steamers is not particularly characteristic of the East.
So now the Arabs had knocked their dhows to pieces to save them; but the men who manned them, as well as the poor slaves with which the majority of them had been crammed, we found, on pulling inshore to examine them later on, had all got safely beyond our reach, far away amid the khors of the desert coast of the barren and inhospitable Nogal country.
"There are Arabs, and not a few, but the greater number of the people are blacks," he observed; "by the way they are walking, they must be slaves. That accounts for the dhows bringing up here; I've no doubt it is a caravan from the interior, and the poor wretches are being brought down to be embarked. Had the ship remained here, all three would have been set free as local traders.
This was quite sufficient to show their character, and the marines and small-armed men began peppering away at every Arab turban or cap of which they could catch sight, while the shells and grape prevented the enemy from returning to their guns in the fort. The tide, rushing in more rapidly than before, quickly enabled the smaller boats, led by Adair, to get up to the dhows.
Captain Kettle went off then in a shore-boat, past a small fleet of pearling dhows, which rolled at their anchors, and after a long pull for the sea was shallow, and the anchorage lay five miles out stepped on to the back of a burly Arab, and was carried the last mile dry-shod.
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