Page 397 - The Tigris Expedition

Five Months for Us, Five Millennia for Mankind

and Ra II were taken to Oslo after their expeditions, and were on
exhibition, with sails up, in the Kon-Tiki Museum. But with the
new hall for Ra II there was no possible room for further extension.
If we left Tigris in the polluted harbour of Djibouti, the ropes would
quickly rot and the beautiful reed-ship would fall apart and disinte­
grate in a few months. Business people in different parts were ready
to buy Tigris, the last offer being from the man who towed us out
from Karachi. But I hated the thought ofour proud vessel travelling
about stage-managed by some speculator. In addition, I was upset
by the unbelievable nightmare of modem war and the suffering of
the refugees around us. I was sure the rest of the world was as
ignorant as we had been of what was going on; to them, as to us,
war in some distant part, away from our own doorsteps, was
unreal, merely part of the daily news.
I took a hard decision. Instead of being left to rot, Tigris should
have a proud end, as a torch that would call to men of reason to
resume the cause of peace in a corner of the world where civilisation
first took foothold. We should set the reed bundles ablaze at the
entrance to the Red Sea as a fiery protest against the accelerating
arms race and the fighting in Africa and Asia.
The others were informed of my decision as they came on board
next morning and we all gathered around the breakfast table. They
were shocked at first, but everybody gave wholehearted support to
the plan.
That day I was received at the Djibouti Palace by President
Hassan Gouled Aptidon, an elderly leader of a young nation, and a
wise, friendly and human representative of black Africa. I asked
him for permission to dissolve the expedition and abandon ship in
his country, and explained to him how precisely we had been forced
to navigate to reach his neutral territory. ‘You were lucky,’ he said
with a calm smile; ‘your vessel was able to sail away from the war.
But my little nation is forced to remain here, with war on all sides,
and with constant fear of invasion.’ He added that we were wel­
come to leave our ship and move ashore, but we should know that
his nation was full of refugees, all roads to the outside world were
blocked and the only railway out, to Addis Ababa, had been blown
up. Some meat was flown in from Nairobi, but all other food came
by air from Paris, and his people suffered because they could not
afford the prices. Apart from the port, the Republic of Djibouti had
no source of income, as the limited country around the city was
pure desert.
A very cordial reception by the French Rear-Admiral Darrieus
323
l