Page 180 - The Tigris Expedition

To Dilmun, the Land of Noah
curiosity when it dawned upon me that here was silent testimony
that these palm stalks did not dissolve quickly in sea water. This one
was still as complete and tough as new, and it must have been
months in the sea for all these molluscs to have grown to such a
great size.
We ran after the old fisherman. He promised to bring
two hundred such palm stems to the asry docks next Friday if
we sent a car for him. And he would personally repair our big
farteh.
Friday came, and so did our driver with the big load of palm
stems. But no fisherman. His wife had told the driver that some
years ago another foreigner had come and asked the fisherman to
build him a farteh. The foreigner had filmed the fisherman as long
as he was building it, but when the boat was ready he had departed,
saying, now they could keep the boat. So, no more boat-building
for foreigners.
But the fisherman had delivered the two hundred stalks against
cash. And that was, after all, what we really needed. Carlo worked
above water and Toru and Gherman below. All the Iraqi berdi reeds
we could spare were stuffed into the gaping wound. Then the long
and tough but slightly pliant palm stalks were stuck down under the
loops and sewn on, Dilmun fashion, side by side like a breastplate.
To look at, the palm stems were amazingly similar to papyrus
reeds. But they were heavier and harder. When the slack spiral loops
were so full and tight that not a single further stalk would enter, a
criss-cross net of string was tied over for extra security. Then Tigris
looked as trim as when we raced towards Failaka.
We had another problem to solve. Khalifa, the fine young Arab
the Minister had chosen to help us on arrival, came back the next
morning with a discouraging report. With the bearing of a true
gentleman and always in spotless white but for his shiny black
shoe-tips, Khalifa looked like an Arab film star; he had also played
as such in some Walt Disney production. His delightful old father
had been one of the last pearl divers on Bahrain, a local profession
which Bibby had traced back to Dilmun times. He could tell us at
once that there was not a single soul left on the island today who
could sew a sail, and the last dhow-sailors were so old that they had
left the sea to the younger generation. Perhaps we would have
better luck if we went to Pakistan.
W° could not continue with our main sail in separate pieces.
Besides, we had discovered that we ought to experiment with a
much larger sail to get the speed we needed for tacking. The
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