THE PERSIAN GULF 1 69 



through the entrance the pilot boat which was following had 

 broken down and was far astern. As the ship lay-to and waited for 

 the boat to come out, one of the officers said to the pilot in a 

 joking manner, 'Why don't you swim for it. Pilot?' Without fur- 

 ther word the little man jumped overboard fully clothed and, 

 swimming shorewards on his back, waved good-bye to the ship. 

 In the Red Sea — at Tor in the Sinai Peninsula, at Suakim in 

 the Sudan and at Kamaran, a group of islands off the coast of the 

 Yemen — there are quarantine stations at which pilgrims journey- 

 ing to Mecca in the season are housed long enough to isolate those 

 w^ith infectious diseases before they travel on by ship to Jeddah. 

 On her way south Challenger visited Kamaran, which is under 

 British control, so that the beacons and buoyage provided for the 

 navigation of the pilgrim ships might be improved. Here was 

 Colonel Thompson, who had been the Administrator for 1 8 years, 

 with a staff of Indian doctors and a company of Somali soldiers. 

 The whole station was run on the smartest military lines and was 

 frequently visited by persons of importance, for it was also the 

 calling stage for the Aden and East African air routes. At this 

 time the only such person present was a relation of the King 

 of the Yemen, who, fearing assassination for some reason, had fled 

 to Kamaran for a while, and was enjoying his stay, for he kept 

 demanding the best brandy — only that which came out of the 

 'three star bottle', said he. 



In the Gulf the survey was taken up where it had been dis- 

 continued earlier in the year. The first job was to carry the 

 triangulation northwards along the desert coast from the vicinity 

 of Doha. The ship carried two jeeps for such work. The country 

 north of Doha is more populated than elsewhere, a road of a kind 

 running from here to the northern tip of the peninsula, and for 

 about the first twenty miles or so this road passes through sub- 

 stantial villages built of stone and sunbaked bricks clustered 

 around the residence of a minor sheikh. Twenty-five miles north 

 of Doha, Khor is reached, a township formerly of some impor- 

 tance in the pearling trade, for it is situated at the head of the 

 landlocked harbour of Khor Shaqqiq, But of recent years this inlet 

 has become extremely shallow and the perimeter of the town has 

 tumbled into decay, its few inhabitants using the stones from these 



