Page 54 - The Tigris Expedition

In the Garden of Eden

voyager who had to test an ancient vessel in a modern world. I
explained to Lord Mountbattcn that I had indeed originally used the
name the ‘Persian Gulf’, which I had learnt in school. But officials in
Baghdad had corrected me and my message and made it abundantly
clear that if I wanted to sail anywhere from Iraq it had to be into the
‘Arabian Gulf’.
Lord Mountbatten saw my problem but objected even to the
term ‘the Gulf’, used diplomatically by many shipping people to
distinguish this Old World gulf from the Gulf of Mexico. His
ultimate solution was that the place should not be referred to at all.
However, though I did not want to insult anybody, I could not sail
down the river into nowhere, so I contacted the Norwegian Foreign
Office. Their general practice, they told me, was to speak of the
‘Persian Gulf’ when referring to a port on the Iranian side and to the
‘Arabian Gulf’ when the port was on the coast of some Arab nation.
However, since our experiment was to sail in open water I could not
refer to ports, so I contacted a public relations officer of the United
Nations.
‘It is a considerable problem,’ he admitted. ‘All the nations
around the gulf you are sailing into are to have a meeting against
pollution of their common waters, but we cannot agree on a word
to explain where it is!’ This was a forewarning that should have told
me that the twentieth century, with all its radar and lighthouses, is
not the easiest one for avoiding hidden reefs.
I had hoped for some truly exotic candidate from the United
World Colleges, and was a bit disillusioned to find two young
Scandinavian candidates heading the list: a Norwegian medical
student and a Danish student of mathematics. As a former sergeant
in the Engineers, the Norwegian had the rare advantage of being
specialised in rope-work and bridge-building, which was just what
I needed, for the ship would be all ropes and reeds. Even the masts
and the cabins would be lashed on without a nail. Moreover, a
bridge-like structure of sticks and poles was immediately required
as a cradle to facilitate the assembly of the reeds during the building,
and permit the Final launching into the river. I telephoned the young
applicant in Norway, and Hans Peter Bohn, who insisted on being
called HP, joined me in Rome with a rucksack and camera, and
together we flew back to Baghdad.
After seven hours by car we reached the Garden of Eden Rest-
house a day later than anticipated. I was to have a rendezvous with
the two truck-drivers from Hamburg any day now and wanted to
be on the spot when all the expedition’s food arrived, so as to get it

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