On the seventeenth of March I signalled to my fleet: "I intend to anchor in the evening." According to our pilot, we were getting into a vicinity where the reefs made it unsafe even for our small craft to sail at night. By six o'clock in the evening we were drawing near to the island of Marka, where we were to anchor. Our pilot was conducting us to our anchorage. My zambuk led the way. The second one followed at a distance of two hundred meters. There was a pretty stiff breeze blowing, with correspondingly high seas, and we were looking forward with eagerness to getting a little rest in the lee of the sheltering island. But we had made our reckoning without our host in the person of our capable Arab pilot. He directed our course so skilfully that my boat suddenly struck a coral reef. A second and a third time she pounded so hard that I had grave fears for the safety of the boat. The next moment we were free of the reef, however, and in deeper water. I dropped anchor at once. Then, in order to keep the boat behind us from running aground upon the same reef, I quickly gave her captain orders by signs and shouts to hold off. This he did, but his boat was already so in the midst of the reefs that, in the endeavor to avoid one reef, he struck another. In a moment more I saw a flag run up, a sign that something had happened. The next instant the boat dipped slowly. From the motion of the mast, I knew that the boat was pounding. Suddenly it disappeared,--only the top of the mast could be seen rising on a slant out of the water. It was now just before sundown. Night sets in very suddenly in these southern latitudes. Ten minutes after the sun has set, it is absolutely dark. There was no moon at the time. Instant help was therefore necessary. Up went the sail on our zambuk. All hands set to work. The anchor was pulled up, and by a difficult manoeuvre in which we came near running aground again, we got away, and hastened to the relief of our comrades. I took my boat as close to the submerged zambuk as possible, and cast anchor again. But on account of the reef I was obliged to keep at a distance of four hundred meters. We had no small boats that we could send back and forth. Each zambuk carries but a single dugout,--a very small and narrow paddle boat, made from a single tree trunk, and capable of carrying no more than two men at the most. With the high seas running at the time, their usefulness was a matter of doubt. Nevertheless I sent mine out at once.