'Southern Arabia, by Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., F.S.A., Author of 'The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland' 'The Sacred City of the Ethiopians' 'The Cyclades, Or Life Among the Insular Greeks' etc. and Mrs Theodore Bent' [‎292] (347/552)

292
THE EASTEEN SOUDAN
shore was strewn with cinders from the numerous steamers
which ply the Eed Sea, and quantities of straw cases for
bottles, out of which the ospreys, which live here in large
numbers, have built their nests. Turtles revel in the sand,
and corals of lovely colours line the beach, and at one
extremity of the islet we found the remains of a holy
sheikh's hut, with his grave hard by. Many such holy men
dwell on promontories and on remote island rocks along this
coast in sanctified seclusion, and they are regularly supported
by the Bedouin and pearl-fishers, who bring them food and
water, neither of which commodities is to be found in such
localities. Our sailors on New Year's Eve took a handsome
present of bread and candles, presented to them by us, to a
holy man who dwelt on the extreme point of Kas Bernas,
and had a long gossip with him concerning what boats had
passed that way and the prospects of trade—i.e. the slave
t ra ae—in these desert regions. They burnt incense before
his shrine, and the captain devoutly said his evening prayer,
whilst he of the tom-tom, Ahmet Faraj, stood behind and
mimicked him, to the great amusement of his fellows—a
piece of irreverence I have never seen before in any Moham
medan country. Still I think our sailors were as a whole
religious; they observed their fasts and prayers most
regularly during Eamazan, and their only idea of time was
regulated by the five prayers. ' We shall start to-morrow at
" God is great," and anchor at the evening prayer,' and so
forth, they used to say.
It is difficult to estimate how far these coral reefs have
changed since ancient days; there is a lagoon at Berenice
which looks as if it had been the ancient harbour with a
fort at its extremity. Now there are scarcely two feet of
water over the bar across its mouth ; but all ancient accounts
bear testimony to a similar difficulty of navigation down this
coast. At the same time, it is manifest that this coast-line