Both men tackle challenging topics, a journey across the desert and a Spartan life on board a boom, with a formidable gusto. They also recount their ordeals with a remarkable restraint. When they are tested to their limits, Thesiger and Villiers display the human qualities needed for survival: Determination, calmness, physical and mental strength. This gives their respective books unsurpassed seriousness and depth.
Villiers (1903-1982) spent most of his life at sea recording the last days of commercial sail that ended during the first half of the 20th century. A gifted and prolific writer as well as a skilled seaman and talented photographer, he has published more than 40 books.
After sailing around the world for two years (from 1934 to 1936), in his three-master schooner, the Joseph Conrad, Villiers decided two years later to head for Arabia to witness and record the last days of the majestic Kuwaiti “booms.” He caught the northeast monsoon winds from Aden down to Zanzibar and returned back with the southwest monsoons.
Thanks to the Al-Hamad brothers, a well known family of Kuwaiti merchants, Villiers is introduced to Ali bin Nasr El-Nejdi, a charismatic shipmaster or “nakhoda” who welcomes him on board his ship, the Triumph of Righteousness. Villiers, like Thesiger, does wonders with his pen. If the latter brought the desert alive, the former takes us literally on board the dhow a “handsome sea-bird” floating on the blue water with “her beak-like bow” adding to the illusion.
Villiers’ prose is infused with a deep love for the sea and sailing ships. It is almost impossible to avoid his call. Pushed by an irresistible force, we follow him like an invisible travel companion. From the very first pages, we genuinely share the author’s enthusiasm for his upcoming boat trip:
“In spite of the fish-oil and the other queer odours which rose from her main hatch as we climbed on board, I knew this was the kind of vessel in which I wished to sail. The atmosphere of true adventure and romance lay heavy on her graceful hull, and the very timbers of her worn decks were impregnated with the spirit of colourful wandering.”
Villiers never feels better than on a boat. He is never bored and has always something to write about. He is at first surprised by the total lack of routine on Nedji’s ship but finds this timeless state very pleasant to live in and then does not even care what day it is. Villiers is a great observer of people and nature. Nothing escapes his attention. His descriptions teem with details, and his style is at times funny, moving, pensive and even dramatic.
One of the most tragic events concerns the author himself. The way Villiers experiences his tragic accident is a marvel of stoical restraint and heroic attitude in the face of adversity.
“This pleasant and most interesting life came to a sudden stop one day… There was an accident…The first thing I knew was that I had pains in the head, and I was blind. I could not see anything. I did not know day from night… At first, I remember, I had some difficulty in believing that I could be blind… But in my more conscious moments I was more troubled by the thought that I might have to give up the voyage, than by any fear of permanent blindness.”
After lying about a week in a cabin down below, Villiers longs to climb on the deck for some fresh air. Overwhelmed by the sweetness of the air, he senses the shape of the swelling sail and realizes that he can see: “I was all right. I could stay in the dhow,” he says. These simple words show a deep joy, and they also reveal the author’s inner strength, one of the many qualities of his exceptional character.
The Triumph of Righteousness visits many ports along the East African coast, perpetuating an ancient trade dependant on the monsoon winds. The first stop is the port of Haifun, once known as Opone. While reading the “Periplus of the Errythraen Sea,” written in (A.D 60) by an anonymous chronicler, Villiers discovers that the cargo, listed in the year A.D. 60, was similar to the one the boom was carrying. The products such as wheat, rice, ghee and sugar are exchanged while ailing along the coast.
The most important native dhow ports of all East Africa are Lamu, an old Arab town with narrow streets and the Island of Zanzibar. Zanzibar is important because it indicates the end of the outward voyage.
Pondering on his life on board the dhow, Villiers wonders whether his companions, “these seafarers from Arabia knew more of living than we did, for all our boasted superiority? Certainly they seemed to know more about contentment, and the acceptance of each day for its own worth and the pleasure of its own living. They were not forever wanting to be somewhere else, doing something else. They had no desire to be much wealthier than they were, to acquire vast.”
“Sons of Sindbad” ends with a stirring description of the pearl divers. The word “pearl” conjures images of beauty and wealth but the life of those who dived for pearls in the Gulf was harsh and punishing. The author compares the main deck of a pearler going to sea to a crowded platform of the subway at Times Square in New York, adding that the Triumph of Righteousness was like an ocean liner.
The divers endure almost intolerable hardships and face risk to their health and life. They spent two hours a day on the bottom of the Gulf corresponding to 120 dives, each dive averaging about a minute. Ten dives, ten rests. One rough sleeping place. No comforts. The diver’s only possession: A rag of clothing, prayer beads, a few leaves of tobacco and a toothpick. Nothing else. There is nothing romantic about the pearling business.
“I came away from Kuwait favorably impressed by most aspects of its life, keenly enthusiastic about its ships and an admirer of its seamen. But…the hellish diving, is another matter. If there must be pearls, let them be dredged,” writes Villiers.
When Villiers returned to Kuwait in 1967, he was met at the airport by Nejdi who had become a prosperous businessman.
“Allah is great, His winds are free,” Villiers tells Nejdi upon meeting him at the airport after 29 years. Nejdi replies that he sometimes wished he could use His winds again: “For it was a good life that my sons can never know.” But times had changed. The age of sail was gone.
Sons of Sindbad is all about the joy and the misery of travel. It is also a unique historical document with the dramas and the romance of a bygone era. This book stands out as coolly observed, well detailed and eloquent in its stark realism.
