Page 94 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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■U EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST
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men were greatly in need of rest and fresh food, Sharpcigh
! decided to make a brief stay at the islands. It was a
happy decision in every way, as events proved, for though
the group at that time appears to have been uninhabited,
there were obtainable ample supplies of nourishing food
and fruit—amongst the latter the famous coco-clc-mer,
oi double coco-nut, which is found nowhere else in the
tropics. It is this fruit which in after years Gordon ren­
s dered famous by propagation of his singular theory that
it was the Forbidden Fruit and that it grew in the veritable
Garden of Eden. Gordon probably was not acquainted
with Jourdain’s diary ; if he had been he would have found
some confirmation of his view in the terms in which this
estimable sailor referred to the sojourn at the Seychelles.
“ These islands,” Jourdain wrote enthusiastically, “ seemed
•: to us an earthly paradise.” He spoke no more than the
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sentiments of a mariner who after suffering the buffetings
and hardships of the ocean finds peace and content in a safe
haven; but the hero of Khartoum would probably have
read into the passage a deeper significance.
When the Ascension and the Union left the Seychelles
they proceeded to Socotra, a savage, inhospitable land,
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whose Eastern outlines are fairly familiar to voyagers who
proceed via the Red Sea to the Far East and to Australia.
As up to that period no English ship had ever visited the
•country, the visitors created a considerable sensation.
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‘The captain of an Indian craft in harbour at the time found
the presence of the English ships so disconcerting that he
■S! • surreptitiously left the anchorage and put to sea. Shar-
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m peigh, however, wanted a pilot so badly that he could not
afford to allow this opportunity of securing expert assist­
ance to pass. By his orders, therefore, the boat was over-
in

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