Somehow even the big modem ships we had dreaded inside the gulf seemed friendher out here. A brightly Ht luxury cruiser wkh colored lamps in garlands on all decks passed us and made us feel as if we too were on a pleasure trip; the last revelers were prob-
ably still in the bars. We certainly envied nobody. It was great to be afloat on a Sumerian ma-gur.
After breakfast Asbjom inflated our tiny rubber dinghy and Norris and Tom went out to film. The palm stems in the bow were found to be as tight and sohd as when we had jammed them in before we left Bahrain. Most of the men chmbed 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 toward us. It was a dhowl For some long moments we were all kept in suspense. Then Norris exclaimed that he thought he recognized Rashad through the binoculars. We aU looked closely. It was Ra-shad. There was Captain Said, too. Everybody. Our dinghy was still in the water and HP was quick to meet the dhow and bring our lost friend back to the reed ship where he belonged. He almost kissed the bundles as he climbed back to us on Tigris, where happy handshakings and embraces awaited him from left and right. It was just great. Rashad was a splendid fellow. We all wanted to hear his adventures, and he just came back at the right time for us to gather around the lunch table. Carlo produced a steaming risotto and salami. Gherman opened tequila, Yuri vodka, and I Norwegian aquavit. There were triple reasons to celebrate, and first of all we toasted Rashad's return.
Rashad was almost overcome with joy at all these festivities in addition to the happy ending of his involuntary captivity. The six men in the dhow had lost contact with us after Sirri island, when Said hastened away after finding himself illegally in Iranian waters. He had later been afraid of coming back against the weather, as the sea was wild and the dhow in a shaky condition. It was leaking, and things got worse when the bolts connecting the only pump snapped one by one until water poured through everywhere. The pitching and rolhng became indescribable, and the splashing from side to side inside the square freshwater tank became so violent that the seams opened and four fifths of the water supply ran out into the hull. The excessive pitching caused by all the water running back and forth in the hull made the propeller rotate almost as much above water as under, with the result that the pistons started to
grumble and create engine trouble. Finally, also before they left us, the steering had become hazardous; the metal casing of the rudder lever broke at the seams and the wooden parts began to waver about. They had not meant to leave us that evening we came to Sirri, but the next day the waves had become still worse and they had no choice. Rashad had argued desperately v^th the captain and the crew to keep a watch for us, but they had been forced to save their own skins. Everyone on the dhow had been dead tired by the time they had come beside the oil rigs, and they had headed as fast as they could toward Ras al Shaikh, vidthout any charts. Captain Said had explained that he steered "by his heart.** They had first reached the wild mountain coast more or less like us, and followed it until they found a narrow cleft in the rock wall. Here they had steered in and entered a channel where it blew so hard between the walls that Tigris would have been unmanageable. But they had turned right into an iimer cove where Rashad felt he had entered something out of a fairy tale. Where the rock walls ended there was a sort of scoop in the mountains and here was an almost prehistoric village, still inhabited, stepped in terraces between the cHffs. Even in this sheltered place the wind penetrated and blew in wild gusts as if from bellows; but they were able to anchor beside some small fishing boats and were totally invisible when we passed Ras al Shaikh looking for hghts. They had repaired the rudder and what else they could with wire and wood, but all that needed welding would have to be done in Muscat. They had come out this morning at six o'clock to look for us, and, failing to see us they had steered north and left the gulf by turning in a tighter curve than that of the main shipping lane. Finally they saw us and everybody had been amazed at the speed we had made. The food on board had been fish, rice and curry, and the company had been good, except that they were all close to exhaustion from pumping and repairing.
For Rashad, to be back on the sturdy Tigris was hke returning from a floating bathtub to a stabilized luxury hner, and never had we seen such extravagance at sea as what Yuri produced from his personal case when the sun set behind the hills of Oman: Russian champagne and caviar, astronaut bread and turkey a la Space, with moon cheese and a whole variety of Sputnik tubes from which we squeezed om- mouths full of pastes, creams, jams, desserts and juices —all the pocket-size dishes that make up the menu of Yuri's countrymen when traveling away from planet earth. Dr. Yuri Ale-
xandrovitch Senkevitch was a serious space scientist, occupied with living conditions in capsules when he was not floating about at water level with us on prehistoric raft-ships. Whether ma-gur or spacecraft, none of us would deny that night that there was still a lot of fun to be had on planet earth. We enjoyed the Sumerian view of a thin shver of moon as we squeezed astronaut mouthfuls between our jaws and celebrated the fact that we really had three very special reasons to make the most of the evening:
Rashad was back with us. We were safe outside the gulf. It was the last day of the yearl
Chapter 7
WE SEARCH
FOR A PYRAMID
AND FIND MAKAN
I
F a railway engine were to come in through my door while I sat at breakfast I would be greatly surprised. But not more surprised than when the bow of a ship came in while I lay in my bed.
It was no dream. I was not asleep. I had awakened earlier when I heard the sound of an engine approaching in the night and a hoarse voice shouting something from a distance in a hostile tone. The voice of a stranger. I recognized the familiar voices of Norris and Rashad shouting back from the bridge as if in despair: "Keep off! Keep oflFl"
It was 2:30 A.M. and stars could be seen through the starboard door opening until a searchhght started to play arrogantly on the starboard wall. I was at once wide awake.
We were somewhere off the coast of Oman. We had been filled with warnings about this area. SmaU boats were said to have been sacked and looted by unidentified modem pirates in this part of the Arabian Sea. The papers had recently reported how a Danish couple in a small yacht had been stripped of everything on board except a meager ration of water by which they survived. Whoever was out there in the dark could not know that we were eleven men
on Tigris, and that there was an exit on either side of our tiny bamboo cabin. I was just about to shake the others awake and sneak out through the portside opening, where we could he in ambush, when I stopped to hsten to the hostile voices, this time very near:
''What is this?" The angry question was shouted in English with an Arab accent.
"A ship," Rashad shouted back, almost indignantly.
"Then what are the two big cubes you carry on board?" The searchhght played again on both our bamboo cabins.
"They are cabins I Keep off I Eleven men from different countries are asleep inside 1"
But Rashad's warning was of no avail. The starlit sky was blackened as the pointed tip of a bow filled the starboard door opening, and in the same second everyone was awakened by a violent shock in the mattresses.
"Get awayl You're breaking our ship!" Rashad yelled in despair from the bridge, while the rest of us responded to the assault with a regular war cry.
Yuri's legs were along the door opening where the bow entered, and half asleep, hearing Rashad's voice, he raged at him through the cane wall: "Tell them to scramble away, these are international waters 1"
"They are not," Rashad retorted angrily. "We are right up under the Oman coast, and besides, you don't tell people to scramble away when they are pointing a machine gun at youl"
We now began to understand the situation. But not so our uninvited visito
rs. I have never seen eyes as big and white with fear and bewilderment as when we caught sight of the black face of the uniformed Omani policeman at the wheel of the vessel the moment he made full speed astern and left the door open for us to crawl out like angry dogs from a kennel. We had been called upon by a patrolling police vessel with three armed men from Oman's coast guard. The crazy bhps from our masthead, intended to keep ships away, must have had the opposite effect. They had arrived for an inspection. But coming close enough to see the golden reed bundles of our Sumerian ma-gur the poUcemen had completely forgotten to steer or stop. No vessel hke the one showing up in the searchlight's beam had sailed in local waters since long before the days of the Prophet. Too confused to steer, they rammed us amidships so that reeds and bamboo shook. Their surprise did not diminish when a
roar as from the falling Tower of Babel, in nine languages, arose from inside the two "cubes," and bearded savages, angry as Hons, crawled forth everywhere. The three stunned pohcemen backed their vessel away faster than they had come.
Never will they see again so many angry men swarming out so fast on hands and knees from two tiny bamboo cabins. Half asleep, but boiling over with mingled fear and fury, we all hurried to the starboard bimdles expecting to find the side of Tigris damaged beyond repair. Confronted v^th eleven men raising their fists and roaring in a multitude of languages, of which they gathered the meaning at least in Arabic and English, the three bewildered patrolmen just went on backing away until they disappeared in the dark behind our accompanying dhow.
The last we heard was a sudden new outburst in Arabic; they got their voices back as they passed our companions, whose vessel was duly marked as from Oman. We were sure we heard them swearing. But no, said Rashad: "They are accusing their own countrymen of keeping company with a vessel fuU of Shatans." He did not have to translate that famihar Semitic word.
If the berdi reeds had been as dry and brittle as they were when we built our ship in Iraq, this intended police inspection would have put an end to our expedition there and then, in the calm waters of Oman, barely south of the Hormuz Strait. But what happens to papyrus happens to berdi too: when sun-dried first and then soaked, the fibers gain an incredible strength. Fortunately for us, the rough sea during the last days in the gulf had wetted all reeds and canes so thoroughly that the Tigris bundles had become as tough as compact rubber fenders, and the plaited cabins flexed like leather shoes. Even in dayhght we could find no damage either above or below the waterline, apart from sUght displacement of a few deck planks and bamboo ribs, aU easily pulled back into place.
The sight of the police boat's bow inside our cabin door made us more alert to the possibihty of a similarly unexpected encounter with a bow of vastly superior dimensions. Such bows had thxmdered past to the right and left of us for forty-eight hours as the old year went out and the new year began. In fact, after two nights and two days feeling like snails between feet in a crowded ballroom, this was the first night we had spent in cahn waters, away from traflBc. When night fell on us after the first day of the year, there was not a ship light to be seen from horizon to horizon, and the sea along the
coast was so calm that stars were reflected in the water. Relaxed and secure, we had crawled to bed only to wake up to a collision.
It had not been without doubt that we had decided to lay our course down along the east coast of Oman. Rarely have I rehved the sentiments of early travelers more intensely than when we emerged from the narrow Hormuz Strait and had the choice of where to steer. We had no predetermined itinerary. The Gulf of Oman opened before us like a funnel as land ran away from the strait in two directions, east and south. The greatest temptation in our case was to avoid further threats from chffs and coasthnes by steering straight for the open Indian Ocean while the wind still blew in that direction. But that is hardly what the first ma-gur on explorations outside the gulf would have done. The fascinating appearance of both the shores running in different directions outside the strait made them most tempting to explore for anyone who, hke ourselves, had never been there before. They fired our curiosity, even though we modem sailors knew from geography that one coast ran on to India and the Far East, while the other ran to the Red Sea and Africa.
Carlo was the only one who voted for leaving the menace of rocks and shores and sailing straight into the open ocean as fast as we could. He felt restless and wanted us to move on while the wind was good. Norris pleaded for a chance to go close inshore along the Arabian peninsula, since the rugged peaks and fierce cliffs of Oman were among the most spectacular formations any of us had seen from the sea. The strange formations offered him some really impressive sequences for the expedition film. Norman supported this itinerary. He said it would take us down to the port of Muscat, where we could overhaul the rig and the steering system before we set off into the open ocean. Others, and I for one, were fascinated by the alternative possibihty of following the coast of mainland Asia.
Iran, the former Persian Empire, was now well within sight on the other side of the Hormuz Strait. Distant blue ridges hovered inland behind friendly coastal hills and hummocks. They seemed to beckon a tempting invitation to follow them as they undulated eastward in parallel rows until lost between sea and sky in the direction of Pakistan. In the broad dayhght blue mountains merged into blue sky, but they stood out clearly in the early dawn when the sky behind them was fiery red and pregnant with a hidden sim. From
left to right this coasthne gradually petered out, and just before the silhouettes of the continental formations completely disappeared in the eastern ocean they took on bizarre shapes such that we could never quite determine whether they were those of fantastic rock islets or cloud formations. It would have been extremely tempting for any early explorer to follow this enticing shoreHne eastward.
I was particularly tempted myself, since we knew those hills would guide us to the coasts of Pakistan and India, the former realm of the Indus Valley civilization. This had been one of the three major civilizations of the ancient world, second to none in age and importance after those of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Throughout the last five millennia an untold number of ma-giu:s must have been among the great variety of ships that had followed this continental coast to and from the Hormuz Strait. Archaeology has proved extensive contact between Mesopotamian ports, like Ur and Uruk, and the mighty city-states of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in the Indus Valley, with the gulf island of Bahrain as an intermediate trading center. This was the sailing route Geoffrey Bibby had challenged me to attempt in a Mesopotamian vessel; a route that tempted me almost irresistibly now.
But we turned our reed bow to the south instead, and followed the Arabian peninsula. This might not have been the first choice of prehistoric explorers. The barren, jagged mountain walls of Oman refused access to all but birds, with hostile cHffs rising straight from the sea. Yet these cUffs seemed to get less forbidding toward the south, where they gradually fell off into roUing hills. No early civih-zation comparable to that of the Indus Valley had ever been known to have flourished in Oman. Yet I had a very special reason to cast my vote with those who favored following this shoreHne in the direction of Africa. Firstly, according to all weathermen, the winter wind in this area ought to blow from Asia to Africa and not turn in the opposite direction until spring. Secondly, and this was something I could not quite get out of my mind, some unconfirmed rumors of archaeological discoveries in Oman had reached me the day before we set sail down the rivers of Iraq. An unknown messenger, a German reporter with mustaches as big as the handlebars of a bike, had called on me with exciting news from Fuad Safar, the acting director-general of Baghdad Museum. According to dependable sources, a Sumerian ziggurat, a stepped temple-pyramid of the type so far never discovered outside the river valleys of Mesopotamia
had been found in the sand somewhere in Oman, on the Muscat side outside the Hormuz Strait.
I had refused to believe it. It sounded like a joke invented by the journalist just because we had painted a ziggurat o
n our sail. But the German swore he was only bringing the message he had been urged to pass on. The noted Baghdad archaeologist had been quite excited, he said, and insisted that we should try to visit Oman. It was the first time, he stressed, that a Simierian structure had been discovered outside Iraq.
I mentioned the strange message to my men. "Too good to be true," said Norman. This was my own feeling too. Pyramids are rare and far between. It is not the sort of thing one stumbles upon in the sand. Potsherds yes, but not pyramids. In the Old World none had been found outside Egypt and Mesopotamia. It would be too much of a coincidence if the first Sumerian ziggurat should be discovered in a distant land bordering the Indian Ocean, just as we hoisted sail hoping to go that far in a Sumerian boat. Although reluctantly, we aU laughed it oflF and tried to forget the message.
But every once in a while, when Norman and I were together on the two tillers at the steering platform, he would acquire a daydreaming expression and then let sHp: "Gee, wouldn't that be something, to find a Sumerian ziggurat in a land facing the Indian Oceanl"
The Tigris Expedition Page 24