We have no monster craft like the Basra dhow, carrying two thousand packages of dates, such as was wrecked off Berbera some years ago. The biggest boat we have, and we are indeed proud of her, barely carries her three hundred sacks of rice, and boasts no compass. Her captain does not require one; he knows the fourteen stars of the hot season and the fourteen stars of the cold season, each of which he will tell you is seen for thirteen days or nights only. As for NUT and THURAYA in the cool season, AKIL, KALEH, SHOLE, SUOD, and SUHAIL, though they be of the twenty-eight stars used by dhow-men to steer by when they are in the heavens, beware! High winds may be expected. "And if it is so dark that you cannot see the stars?" I once asked a dhow captain. "Unless we are dangerously near to the shore, or there are reefs about, we just go on. One can't get lost in the Gulf of Aden." But often dhows do get lost in the Gulf of Aden; and I mean it in the literal sense. A few years ago the Zeila dhow, _Sahalla_, in charge of an Arab named Mahomed Hussain, bound from Berbera to Zeila with mail, a cargo of one hundred bags of jowari and thirteen passengers from Bulhar, capsized about four miles out to sea at half-past three of an August afternoon. Three men and one woman were drowned, and several persons clinging to a mast were in the sea for three days. A small boy seized the tail of a sheep and clung on until the animal dragged him ashore. As a rule sheep are poor swimmers, but luckily for the youngster, who could not swim, this beast was an exception. In years gone by Zeila dhows saw exciting service in the slave trade, but the old dhow captains are naturally reticent concerning any part they may have taken in it. Even the ex-slaves, all of whom profess to be devout Mahomedans, prefer to keep secret, if possible, the story of their adventures and release. According to the jail-master, who is one of the latter, he was nothing but the adopted son of a slave-master, who spent much of his time in teaching his protégé the intricacies and mysteries of the true faith. He holds such a good position nowadays, does our jail-master, that people are charitable enough to forget that he was once "only a slave and a heretic." Human nature is like that.