With regard to the English I had kept myself posted up to the last minute as best I could, and I was aware that an English blockade was being maintained by two gun-boats together with the auxiliary cruiser _Empress of Russia_, in a line extending from Loheia across Kamaran, Jebel Sebejir to Jebel Soghair. My problem now was how I could run this blockade with my sail-boats. To avoid the possibility of both boats being captured at the same time, I gave Lieutenant Gerdts orders to separate from me. A meeting place farther to the north was appointed, where we were to wait a while for each other. Soon the other zambuk was lost to sight in the darkness of the approaching night. Now, for the first time, our lucky star forsook us, for, as the day dawned, the wind died away entirely, and, after the sun had risen, we discovered to our extreme discomfiture that we were exactly where we had no wish to be, namely, right in the middle of the English blockade line. We expected at any moment to see the masthead of an English ship appear above the horizon. Our frame of mind was not of the happiest. The absence of wind detained us more surely than the most superior of foes could have held us. But it had not been without a good reason that I had delayed our departure to the end of the week. I was sufficiently familiar with English customs to know that the gentlemen are disinclined to work during week ends, that is, on Saturdays and Sundays. And nothing did, in fact, come in sight during the entire day. The breeze, which set in during the course of the afternoon, helped us onward considerably, and by evening, soon after sunset, we could go to rest with the comfortable assurance that with two sail-boats, and making but little headway, we had succeeded in running the English blockade. With my flat-bottomed zambuks it was possible for me to shape my further course so as to keep within the coral reefs of the Farsan Bank. This is a dangerous and very long coral bank having an extent of about three hundred and fifty nautical miles, and near which large ships dare not venture. It is not wholly free from danger even for small craft. In the course of the following day, my second zambuk came in sight, and received orders to keep by me.