Page 213 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
night still ahead of us. While the others returned to sleep, Carlo and
I were back on the bridge sharing the 2 a. in.-4 a.m. watch, and we
agreed that this was the most beautiful moment any of us had ever
had at sea. The soaring peaks and rugged mountain silhouettes that
sheltered us made an unbelievably impressive setting. They were
even more picturesque from this side, their profiles designed to
I delight the senses, and they stopped the wind and calmed the waves
they had so wildly agitated on the other side. To be back on the
bridge in these transformed surroundings was like a happy dream
after a turbulent nightmare. We had succeeded in escaping through
a hole in a fence; the walls of the gulf were behind us. We were in
another world now, a world with different waves, another wind.
Somewhere outside us was the monsoon area. The monsoon blows
! I
regularly across the Indian Ocean as if set in motion by clockwork,
turning like a pendulum to move in opposite directions every
18' half-year. The winter monsoon blows from north-east, from Asia
to Africa; the summer monsoon from south-west, from Africa back
ul
n to Asia. Ideal conditions for primitive craft.
Somehow even the big modern ships we had dreaded inside the
. gulf seemed friendlier out here. A brightly-lit luxury cruiser with
j 1
! ft! coloured lamps in garlands on all decks passed us and made us feel as
i if we too were on a pleasure trip; the last revellers were probably
still in the bars. We certainly envied nobody. It was great to be afloat
on a Sumerian ma-gur.
After breakfast Asbjorn inflated our tiny rubber dinghy and
Norris and Toru went out to film. The palm-stems in the bow were
found to be as tight and solid as when we had jammed them in
before we left Bahrain. Most of the men climbed overboard and had
a swim, but kept a grip on one of the ropes of Tigris.
It was close on noon when someone shouted from the bridge that
a small boat was in sight, emerging from some hills which proved
to be detached islands. The vessel changed course and came towards
us. It was a dhow! For some long moments we were all kept in
suspense. Then Norris exclaimed that he thought he recognised
Rashad through the binoculars. We all looked closely. It was
Rashad. There was Captain Said, too. Everybody. Our dinghy was
25. The people of Oman lived in a large country closed to auto­
mobiles until the present Sultan put his own father in prison seven
years ago and began to modernise the nation.
26. A terraced temple mound unlike any Arab structure but closely
resembling a Mesopotamian ziggurat with ceremonial ramp had just
been discovered in Oman by mining prospectors.
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