Author: Alan Villiers

Publisher: Arabian Publishing Limited

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780954479237

Alan Villiers travelled to Arabia because he was certain that he was living through the last days of sail, and was determined to record as much of them as he was able. It seemed to him, after two decades at sea, that "as pure sailing craft carrying on their unspoilt ways, only the Arab remained." Choosing Aden as his starting-point, Villiers looked around for Arab dhow masters prepared to take on a lone Westerner as a crewman. At Aden he was put in touch with the captain of one of the great Kuwaiti booms then frequenting the port. This captain, Nejdi, was making the age-old voyage from the Gulf to East Africa, coasting on the north-east monsoon winds, with a cargo of dates from Basra. The return voyage would be made in the early summer of 1939, on the first breezes of the south-west monsoon, from East Africa to Kuwait. From this voyage, made by Arabia's mariners for millennia, Villiers fashioned Sons of Sinbad. Published in 1940, it is the sole work of Arabian travel to have at its centre the seafaring Arabs. Villiers voyaged with his companions as an equal, while deferring to their toughness and indestructibility, and to their superior knowledge of their trade. As great a treasure as the text are the many photographs Villiers took of this voyage by dhow. As in the 1940 editions of Sons of Sinbad, fifty are published here - images that complement the text with depictions of the life and skills of the Arab dhow sailors, of the ports along the route, of Kuwait itself, and of the pearl-divers of the Arabian Gulf. This classic of Arabian travel and maritime adventure is reprinted for the first time since 1969, with a new introduction by William Facey, Yacoub Al-Hijji and Grace Pundyk.--Book jacket.