Page 130 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

known there, and lie boasted to the people of the town about his
escape from the British ship. ‘When the place was invested, he
used all his exertions to foil 11s in its capture’, fearing that he would
fare ill at the hands of the Edens crew, if lie was captured again.
Loch says that the sentry had the man in his charge until they
were seventeen miles from Muscat - not necessarily seventeen
miles off the coast. The incident is not as remarkable as it would
seem, for many of the Gulf Arabs arc almost as at home in the sea,
as they arc on dry land, being accustomed to spend many hours
in the water when diving for pearls. There arc sharks in the Gulf,
but they rarely attack human beings: stinging rays, saw fish and
poisonous jelly fish (which are seasonal), arc a greater danger to
human beings than sharks. Loch describes the sea snakes which
he saw after leaving Muscat ‘which appear, when swimming in
the water, to be from 12 to 16 feet long’. These snakes, in the
upper part of the Gulf, arc never more than four or five feet long,
though their appearance in the water is deceptive. He speaks of
them as ‘venomous as to cause death to fowls, which were pre­
sented to their bite’, the crew evidently tried some experiments
with sea snakes. They arc dangerous looking creatures, of a
greenish yellow colour, with black stripes, but the Arab divers
have no fear of them, they catch them in their hands, and swing
them about, when they meet them in the sea.
On May 24th, the Eden put in to Bombay where, four days
later, the China fleet arrived. This was a great occasion, and
men came from distant stations to get their letters from home,
and to view the numbers of eligible young ladies, ‘wives to be',
as Loch calls them who had come to India to find husbands, pre­
ferably wealthy nabobs. ‘Generally speaking, in India, officers
make the best husbands, for they are frequently young and un-
injured by the climate’, says the author of The Good Old Days oj
the Honhle John Company. But for the Eden it was an unhappy
visit, cholera was raging in Bombay, and six seamen died while
she was in port, and a seventh man died as she sailed out of the
harbour, when he had only been ill for two hours. ‘The disease
had attacked so many, that the main deck was lined with ham­
mocks of the invalids, besides numbers lying on deck, in a dreadful
state of agony from the spasms which they suffered.’ Consider­
ing the cramped conditions, and the inadequate medical arrange­
ments, it is surprising that not more than seven men died.
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