he Arabs at Um-Lejj put a check to their irresponsible sniping of
boats and landing-parties, though one could always expect a little
trouble with an Arab dhow running contraband for the Turks. In these
cases their guilty consciences usually gave them away. Returning to the
coast toward Jeddah unexpectedly, having played the well-worn ruse of
"the cat's away," we sighted a small dhow close in-shore, and should
have left her alone as she was in shoal-water, but, on standing in to
get a nearer view of her, she headed promptly for the beach and ran
aground, disgorging more men than such a craft should carry.

I went away in the duty cutter to investigate, and we had barely
realised that she was heavily loaded with kerosene in tins (a heinous
contraband) when the fact was emphasised by a sputtering rifle-fire from
the scrub along the beach. The ship very soon put a stop to that
demonstration with a round or two of shrapnel, while we busied ourselves
with the dhow. There was no hope of salving her, as she had almost
ripped the keel off her when she took the ground and sat on the bottom
like a dilapidated basket. We broached enough tins to start a
conflagration, lit a fuse made of a strip of old turban soaked in
kerosene, and backed hard from her vicinity, for the kerosene was
low-flash common stuff as marked on the cases, and to play at snapdragon
in half an acre of blazing oil is an uninviting pastime. However, she
just flared without exploding, and we continued our cruise up the coast
just in time to overhaul at racing speed a perfect regatta of dhows
heeling over to every stitch of canvas in their efforts to make Jeddah
before we could get at them, for they had seen the smoke of that burning
oil-dhow and realised that the cat was about. Good money is paid at
Cowes to see no more spirited sailing--we had to put a shot across the
bows of the leading dhow before they would abandon the race.

There was always trouble off Jeddah--the approaches to that reef-girt
harbour lend themselves to blockade-running dhows with sound local
knowledge on board. At night, especially, they had an advantage and
would play "Puss-in-the-Corner" until the cutter lost patience, and a
flickering pin-point of light stabbed the velvet black of the middle
watch, asking permission to fire; one rifle-shot fired high would stop
the game, and I made them come alongside and take a wigging for annoying
the cutter and turning me out; there was seldom anything