first boat that here was a tug towing a barge on a two-hundred-yard cable.
I crawled into the main cabin to get some sleep before my own night watch. I was aheady accustomed to lying calmly and relaxed with eyes closed each time a ship came near, even if a natural reaction would have been to sit up and look out. My ears registered the rhythmic drumming of distant engines that slowly grew in strength and then as slowly died away as ships came and passed us. Then a terrified yell of warning came from the steering platform over and behind my head, followed by the intense droning of a big ship's pistons as it approached us dangerously fast, suddenly so near that the noise chased all of us out on deck like scared mice. I barely had my head out of the portside door opening when I saw our ochre-colored sails brightly Ht by something big and noisy just on the opposite side of the cabin. As I rose naked to my feet with a grip on a mast stay, everything seemed in chaotic movement and I felt as if I were travehng at night through a city street, almost bhnded by the many Hghts from a tall black waU. A fully ht cargo ship rose out of the dark so close that for a few seconds all seemed part of one unit: the two bamboo cabins and the black wall. Only for a moment; then it was torn away again before we had a clear idea of what we had seen, just time enough to hang on as our bundle boat was tossed aside by foaming cascades.
Those of us who had managed to crawl out on deck fast enough had barely had time to exchange exclamations of horror and rehef, when a new yeU came from Yuri on the bridge aft:
"CrazyI Another onel" Yiui's voice was drowned by the thundering pistons of a second steel wall following the first and racing into vision right alongside Tigris, sending us sidelong again with its wake, as if plowing us casually out of its way.
"That was a container ship,** commented Detlef dryly. "They often make thirty knots."
We all remained on deck for a while, commenting on the poor visibihty without moon or stars. The weather did not look promising. We decided to take down the new topsail. It began to drizzle. It was soon time for Torn and me to take over the steering. Hesitantly the others crawled back into the two airy bamboo huts and rolled down the canvas sheltering the cane walls. It began to rain heavily. Soon the cold shower became a cloudburst. We could see nothing, not even our own rig. Torn and I had donned waterproof
suits, good for rain and spray, but not for skin diving. The water fell in torrents and the noise smothered our voices. We were drenched from neck to toe in the cold rain that percolated through our waterproof gear, and were standing in shoes filled Hke flowerpots. It was almost comic—but not quite. I could barely distinguish Tom's Japanese features if I aimed the beam of my flashhght at him, although he was standing almost within reach on the other side of the narrow steering bridge.
Now I could hear something. I shone the light into Tom's face to see his expression. He nodded back as he began to hear it too. Pistons. In the rumbhng cloudburst we could scarcely hear our own voices, but the deep rhythmic thump from some approaching super-ship could not be mistaken, and it came fast. Carlo, supposed to be asleep inside the main cabin, could already hear what we had heard through the thin wall of cane and canvas, and he shouted out to the two of us on the bridge. We were not less uncomfortable than he, but we alone could take action. What should we do? We were indeed masters of the rudder oars and could turn left or right. But which side would take us out of trouble? Whichever way we turned might be the one where the ship was coming and bring us under its bow.
Stiff with cold and apprehension, we could only hang on to the oars with the wind straight at our backs. The thumping grew unbearable; it came straight down upon us with the wind and woke everyone in the two cabins. Our world was compact darkness, we could not see the sail, but knew it was filled with wind and rain as we took the weather from the stem. I could not even turn my head to look behind us, for the rain was slashed fuU force into eyes and face by the following wind.
"Hear the engine!" Carlo shouted in despair through the cane wall. Then we heard no more from our companions as the droning rose to a crescendo and the ship caught up with us. A second later I was overcome with joy. "Yes," I shouted back through the cane wall, "I hear it, and I smell it tool" Then I added: "I can even feel its heatl"
The giant passed by with thimdering pistons, so close that we could really smell the oily air from the engine room, and for a moment I even felt a warm radiation from the colossal steel wall that slid by my side, almost invisible in the rain, although right alongside our starboard bundles. In the dark, behind a compact curtain
of falling water, I was left with the unclear impression of lights passing high above my head at mast-top level. Up there someone with radar and automatic steering had seen even less of us than we of them. Detlef could tell us from experience that in heavy rain even a radar is affected and shows nothing at all in distances less than a mile. Even our strips of tinfoil were of no avail in this weather.
The screen of rain thinned abruptly, so that we could see our bow in the night mist; at the same time we also caught sight of two clusters of lights close ahead. Two more ships. They looked like two galaxies of bright stars moving one after the other from right to left across our course; we were just about to pass between them at a distance we could not quite grasp, due to confused visibility. But in the next second we realized that these ships were shockingly near, both moving incredibly fast, with identical speed and constant separation. No tug towing a barge could move that fast. For an instant Tom and I were bewildered at their speed, then simultaneously we flung ourselves against the tillers to force Tigris to starboard as far as we could go. An unht ship's side had come into view straight ahead; it joined the two speeding galaxies in their common rush. All three clung together; then it dawned on us that they were in fact one ship. A huge supertanker, heavily loaded, with hghts fore and aft only, shd past our bow, its incredibly long and low midsection, with at least a hundred thousand tons of oil, barely visible above the waves. With a strong following wind Tigris responded quickly and turned portside to in time for the black tanker to pass alongside so close that from the steering platform we gazed up through windows and portholes and saw details of walls inside the cabins. We could have recognized a face in the bright electric hght inside, but nobody seemed awake.
We had had enough. The giant tankers were left racing in their own track off the coast of Oman as we made use of a fresh southeast wind to sail farther out and away toward the northeast. Out in the unfrequented part of the sea we felt like human beings again, in an environment shared with fish and birds; we were no longer Lilliputians in a world of robots without flesh and blood, where men on a clumsy ma-gur had no security nor any right to be.
We heard thunder until morning. Then the wind changed to NE and forced us to trim the sail and alter course. All in vain, however, as violent gusts of wind seemed to wait only until we were
correctly trimmed before they entirely changed and struck us from the opposite side. The rain returned in heavy squalls and the rudder oars janmied as the bujffalo hides and hemp-rope lashings that held them in their forks at deck and bridge level swelled and tightened. At 10 A.M. we had a ghmpse of a hazy sun between thick clouds, and Detlef estimated our approximate position. We had struggled our way back up north and were 226° off Muscat at fifteen miles' distance. To our despair the consortium transmitter did not contact anybody now. Neither Muscat, Bahrain nor any ship. At great risk we had managed to come back outside the harbor of Muscat, but nobody was aware of it. The agent with Norris's replacement was probably still looking for us in the sea outside Sur.
Now we all wanted that confounded camera, and for three hours Norman was chmbing up and down in the waving mast to hang up various lengths and forms of antennae. Then suddenly Frank came on the air from Bahrain and got our estimated position. We learned that someone from the Gulf Agency was looking for us in a motor launch off Ras al Daud, where we actually had been. Frank would now try to get Norris's shipment brought back by Land-Rover from Sur to Muscat, if we could try
to remain where we were. By noon we turned the bow aU around from south to north as the current down the coast was strong. We were seriously afraid of getting closer to Oman, for this would mean reentering the shipping lane.
At noon we suddenly made radio contact with a ship in Muscat harbor that telephoned the navy coastal station that had a twenty-four-hour watch. Our agent was alerted; he had already given up his search for us off Sur and now had the camera in Muscat. This was ahnost too exciting. Particularly for Norris, who for nearly a week had felt like a lumberjack without an ax. The manager of the agency, Leif Thoemwall, promised to bring us the camera himself if we came closer to Muscat. In renewed squalls of rain, but with a main wind direction from SSE, we kept moving ever closer to the dreaded shipping lane, but as another night fell we had not seen a sign of a rendezvous ship. Nor could we any longer make radio contact with Muscat or Bahrain, although Norman suddenly heard a voice giving landing instructions to an airplane in Hawaii. He tuned up his receiver, and we all heard an American voice say: ". . . maintain two hundred knots and keep in contact!" We could only join Norman in a roar of laughter at the tragicomic message.
As I went to bed the lights of Muscat could be clearly seen reflected in the night sky. The wind had calmed for a moment. We came close enough to have ships unpleasantly near, then turned around and sailed away from land. The previous night's experiences were still too fresh in our minds. We spent this night in drizzle, safely outside the traflBc, seeing a few ships' lights far away and lightning flashes followed by thunder over Iran. Ajs we crawled into sleeping bags or imder blankets we all commented on how good it was to be away from the brutal wakes of the superships. Detlef confessed that a few times during the last couple of days, he had Iain down feehng a bit seasick, and I, who never feel the sea, had experienced pain as if my stomach was being tossed about inside me.
Next day, at 10 a.m., Norman managed to make contact with Bahrain, and we learned that a tugboat had gone eighteen miles from Muscat the previous day, looking for us, but the weather had been too rough and they had been forced to return to port. More bad weather was forecast, so no one would come out to look for us that day.
The day was so dark that HP had to hght a kerosene lamp to read inside the cabin. We had painted the vaulted roofs with asphalt, Sumerian fashion, but rain trickled down the cane walls in this kind of weather. Four sharks followed us all afternoon. The sea might have seemed terrible for those who saw it from port, but to us it was a real blessing: long, regular rollers, the heavy rain smoothing oflF all the choppy wave crests. Tigris moved over the water as quietly as the shadow of a fehne; all ropes were swoUen and held the woodwork and bamboo tightly in place. It was again so quiet at night that, when I woke, I could help HP to testify that Carlo and Gherman were snoring. We could even hear the friendly gargling and tinkling of water cut into whirls by the rudder oars. The sky cleared for a moment during my night watch, and I found myself steering toward the Southern Cross. In the late morning it cleared again and Norman was able to get an approximate position, and even managed to transmit it to Bahrain Radio. Frank came back and reported that the harbor tugboat Muscat had left Mina Qaboos at sunrise with a speed of ten knots, and would try to contact us by radio when far enough out.
That afternoon, at 3 p.m., Muscat met us almost nose to nose with an Enghsh harbormaster at the wheel and our Swedish agent
Thoemwall waving among the Omanian crew. Two cases of spare parts and a newly mounted somid camera to replace the broken one were all transferred to Norris, who was so afraid that it might drop into the sea that he hardly allowed anyone to give him a hand when the precious cargo was handed from ship to ship.
Our agent was so excited and reheved at having found us at last that he opened a bottle of champagne and drank it all himself, toasting merrily to sea and sky as Muscat turned and raced back to reach port before nightfall.
We turned our own bow away from the mainland, hoisted the topsail above the mainsail, and steered deeper into the sea. We needed no champagne to share the joy of good old Norris as he sat on his mattress in the forward cabin, nursing his new baby, which started the famihar hiccups that meant it heard every word we said. As the sun set we registered a fabulous speed of 3.5 to 4 knots with straight comrse for the open ocean. Makan was gone.
The destination of Tigris was imknown. Unknown, because I had begun to feel a secret desire to change the plans recently made. Our endeavors to help Norris had brought us farther north than I had considered possible in the winter season, when the northeast monsoon should be dominant. Norman's new topsail had given us greater speed and therefore wider steering margins. We appeared to have a choice of any part of the Indian Ocean. There was still a chance to visit Pakistan and see the Indus Valley. The temptation became too big, and for two days I jokingly told the men that our next port of call would be the coast of the great Indus Valley civilization.
On the third day it was no longer a joke. I told the helmsmen to turn about and steer for Pakistan instead of Africa. I had more reason than ever to visit that part of Asia. I wanted to see Meluhha. So far Meluhha had been for me nothing but an unidentifiable name common on Sumerian tablets. I had consulted Bibby's book again and read: "Dilmim and Makan were always being named together, often in the same sentence, and often together with a third land, that of Meluhha."*
We had been to both Dilmun and Makan. Where was Meluhha? Though I had never had any idea, the name had always reminded me of names surviving in the Malay area, like the
Malacca peninsula and the Moluccas archipelago. But now, convinced that Dilmun and Makan had been properly identified, it seemed to me that Meluhha, by a very simple system of elimination, had to be the Indus Valley region. There was no other important coastal civihzation nearer to ancient Mesopotamia, and there was a wealth of evidence to prove contact between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley in Sumerian times, so much contact that there was bound to be some reference to that trading partner in the Sumerian texts. If we set the important Sumerian place name Meluhha aside as unidentified, what then was left as the Sumerian name for the Indus Valley? There had to be one, since it was the only nearby contemporary civilization with which we know they had extensive contact.
As with the Sumerians, so also with their contemporaries in the Indus Valley: their culture collapsed, their cities were abandoned, their very existence was forgotten among surviving nations until their ruins were discovered and their arts and crafts were brought back into the daylight by modem archaeologists. The Sumerians, before they vanished, had exchanged their original hieroglyphic signs for a cuneiform spelHng which modern scientists have been able to decipher. Thus the word "Meluhha" has come down to us as the name for one of their foreign trading partners. But the hieroglyphic signs of the Indus Valley civihzation, although well known today and easily recognizable, have so far withstood all the efforts of the cipher experts, and we know none of their geographical names, not even the one they used for themselves and their own land. Like fingerprints, the Indus Valley script cannot be read, but wherever it is found it identifies the hands that made it.
Indus Valley seals inscribed with Indus Valley script and decorated with characteristic Indus Valley motifs have been excavated by archaeologists, not only in the Indus Valley but also in distant Mesopotamia. A quite considerable number of them have been found during excavations in Iraq, all the way from the former gulf sites of Ur, Uruk, Lagash and Susa up to Kish, Tell Asmar and Brak, the latter site inside the borders of present-day Syria. Contact must have been quite considerable for so many and such far-flung fingerprints to be left even to our day. I have never seen a more beautiful Indus Valley seal than one ornamented with rows of Indian elephants and rhinoceros, found by archaeologists at Tell Asmar in Iraq and on exhibit in Baghdad Museum.
Like Makan, some archaeologists have suspected that Meluhha was in Africa, and for the same reason: that the late Assyrian kings, retmning from overland campaigns on Mediterranean shores, left inscriptions that Makan
and Meluhha were both located somewhere south of Egypt. Thus the scholar Kramer, who placed Makan in upper Egypt, suspected that Meluhha was Ethiopia.^ Bibby on the other hand, after his excavations disclosing extensive Sumerian contacts with Bahrain, wrote:
But it is difficult to fit an African location to the text of the Ur tablets or to the facts of archaeology. Distance alone was a factor, and though I had never been conservative in my estimation of the distances which trading vessels could cover I could not ignore the fact that the saihng distance from Bahrain to Africa was twice that from Bahrain to India. Ivory and gold, which were products of Meluhha, could come equally well from Africa and from India, but the cameHan of Meluhha could only come from Rajputana in India.^
Indeed, when he showed us his excavations of the prehistoric port city on Bahrain, half the size of mighty Ur, Bibby emphasized that he had found an Indus Valley seal just inside the harbor gate. He had also found an Indus Valley flint weight that made him suspect closer trade relations between Bahrain and the Indus Valley than between Bahrain and Mesopotamia, which was only a third of the distance away. Even before he saw the strength and buoyancy of our reed ship in the harbor of Bahrain, Bibby had expressed his confidence in the early sailors of the Dilmun runs:
These merchants who were raising capital and assembling cargo for the voyages to Dilmun were not investing in some wild argosy to a mythical land of immortality beyond the horizon of the known world. This was routine business; it was the way they made their living. Nor should we imagine that the trading was carried on exclusively by Mesopotamians. Two of the people recorded as paying tithes to the Ningal temple are specifically Hsted as natives of Dilmun, so there were probably Dilmunite merchants resident in Mesopotamia and Mesopo-tamian merchants resident in Dilmun, while ships of both countries would be engaged in the carrying traffic. Ships of other nationahties, too, would, in these two first centuries of
The Tigris Expedition Page 29
