After this we made fairly good headway, with a favourable wind, and, occupied in watching the changing scenery opening out as we made our way along the coast, I had almost forgotten the incident. I was settling down to enjoy the trip when, without any warning, we were suddenly pulled up again with a jerk, and the dhow came to a fullstop again.
Every one immediately got into a wild state of excitement, shouting and gesticulating, and making a perfect pandemonium of noise. The captain was shouting as wildly as the rest, and, thinking he was giving orders, I was surprised to see that nobody attempted to carry them out, but on asking the passenger who could speak some English what orders he was giving, and why no one obeyed them, he said, “He is not giving orders, he is praying. He is calling on Allah to help him.” This was no use to me, and I thought the best thing I could do was to take charge myself; so, getting the man to whom I had spoken to act as interpreter, I told them what to do to put things right. They then calmed down a good deal, and I went to take soundings. There was no leadline on board, so I had to make one with some old iron and some pieces of rope that were lying about. On sounding I found plenty of water on one side of the ship, while on the other it was very shallow, so that we were evidently stuck on a reef. As soon as I was certain of this I lashed some rope to the anchor, and had it taken out about twenty or thirty yards from the ship, in the small boat, and then dropped overboard. Then I made everybody lend a hand to pull hard on the rope, and after about six hours’ hard work we managed to pull her off. In case of trouble I kept the axe handy, but they were ready enough to obey my orders, so nothing happened.
When we got her off I found that the dhow was leaking pretty badly, so everybody was kept busy baling out the water, while I took the helm, and, keeping her close in to the land, steered towards Mombasa.
Noticing a large white building on the shore, I asked what it was, and my interpreter told me that it was the residence of a white man, and that the place was called Shimoni; so I took the boat in as close as possible and dropped anchor. On landing I found that the house was occupied by a British official, who offered to put me up, so I stayed the night there. The next morning I found that the dhow had continued her journey, and, as Mombasa was only thirty miles from Shimoni, I walked the rest of the way.