The Longest Ride – Part V: Bumboats in Port Said

Getting from Greece to South Africa meant going through the Suez Canal for the seagoing cowboys on the S. S. Carroll Victory. When they arrived in Port Said, Egypt, they had hoped the ship would take long enough to get its orders to enter the Canal that they would have time to explore this modern city and do some shopping for souvenirs. 

Port Said, Egypt, November 30, 1946. © Charles Lord

A short four hours in the harbor, however, did not allow time for shore leave. But they needn’t have worried—the shopping came to them. The bumboats that bustle around many Mediterranean ports teemed around the Carroll Victory after the ship anchored in the bay.

The S. S. Carroll Victory attracted bumboats like a magnet in Port Said harbor, November 30, 1946. © Charles Lord

Charlie Lord describes the scene in a letter to his wife: “Egyptians immediately swarmed over the sides from row boats and motorboats like the pirates of yore. They threw ropes up from the boats and began pulling up all kinds of trinkets and goods to sell and trade.

Bumboat activity, Port Said, Egypt, November 30, 1946. Photo by Paul Beard.

“They had leather goods of all sorts including suitcases, hassocks, billfolds, handbags and blackjacks. They had inlaid-wood boxes, knives, rings and bottles of Spanish fly. You know what that is don’t you? Very handy for sailors when in port to give young girls. They had copper rings with glass or quartz, something which would cut glass anyhow, which they sold for gold with 3 diamonds. One cattleman gave 2 shirts and a pair of pants for one. Harry says he gave a sports coat, 2 shirts, and 6 pair of socks for his, worth about five cents perhaps. One of the stones fell out at lunch. I looked at a suede leather woman’s handbag, the Egyptian asked a lot, I said less and got it. So please don’t buy a new handbag.

Seagoing cowboys barter with Egyptians for souvenirs on the S. S. Carroll Victory, November 30, 1946. © Charles Lord

With camera bag in hand, Charlie Lord looks longing to shore in his newly purchased Egyptian fez. Photo courtesy of Charles Lord.

“The ‘pirates’ stole everything they could lay their hands on,” Lord said. “We had our portholes locked and door locked all the time thank goodness. Lots of seamen lost clothing. The third junior mate said the men bring all their stuff aboard just so they can get on to steal things.”

The sailboats in port captivated the seagoing cowboys. “There was a line of hundreds of sailboats, with the longest curving masts,” Lord said. “They made a dramatic picture.”

Sailboats lining the harbor at Port Said, Egypt, November 30, 1946. Photo by Paul Beard.

Lord’s shipmate Harold Jennings noted in his diary, “Entered the Suez Canal at about 1 o’clock today. Weather supposed to get warmer from now on out.” And that it did.

One day out of Port Said, Lord wrote home, “Cattlemen and crewmen busied themselves making hammocks and swings in which to enjoy the warm sun. Men peeled to polo shirts and shorts or just shorts. The weather is wonderful so far.” His tune changed two days later. “Yesterday was very hot,” he said. “A head wind blows smoke from the stacks back on the aft part of the boat and every single thing is covered with the fine black grit. If you pick up a book, the cover feels like sandpaper.”

Seagoing cowboy Maynard Garber beats the tropical heat with a book, December 1946. © Charles Lord

Four days after crossing the Equator and after enduring 11 days of heat with little to do, the sight of Durban, South Africa, on December 11, 1946, lifted the spirits of the restless cowboys. Another foreign world awaited them.

(to be continued)

Rock Springs Victory to Ethiopia #2 – Greece, Suez Canal, and Djibouti

Another unique experience of the S. S. Rock Springs Victory seagoing cowboy crew of March 1947 was delivering Heifer Project animals to Ethiopia. They were one of only two UNRRA livestock crews to travel through the Suez Canal and the only one to deliver animals to the African continent. The other UNRRA ship, the S. S. Carroll Victory, after unloading their initial live cargo in Greece, was sent down to South Africa to pick up a load of horses and deliver them back to Greece – twice.

Like the S. S. Carroll Victory, the Rock Springs Victory stopped in Greece on their way where they unloaded part of UNRRA’s cargo of horses, mules, and cattle in Piraeus, Athen’s port city. Howard Lord’s first impression in Greece was of the hunger. “It just floored me,” he says. “Then here came a little train all decorated up like Christmas. It was their Independence Day in Greece! And I thought, well, they’re able to celebrate.”

Celebrating Greece’s Independence Day, March 25, 1947. Photo courtesy of Bob Heimberger.

Like all cowboys to Piraeus, they also took in the Greek antiquities around Athens.

Touring the Acropolis, March 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

The next leg of the journey took them through Suez Canal, into the Red Sea, and on down the coast of eastern Africa to Djibouti, the capital city of what was then French Somaliland and the port for land-locked Ethiopia.

“We saw lots of wrecked ships and old destroyed tanks from World War II in the Suez Canal,” notes cowboy Stanley Wakeman. Among other things.

Beach huts along the Suez Canal, March 1947. Photo courtesy of Bob Heimberger.

As they sailed on, it got hotter and hotter, from “Very hot” in Wakeman’s journal on March 28 in the Suez Canal, to “105° in the shade” the next day in the Red Sea, to “VERY VERY HOT – 120º” on April 2 in Djibouti. An exaggeration, perhaps? Lord recalls it being “98 degrees all day – every day [in Djibouti]!”

A whole new world awaited there. Because of the lack of an adequate dock, the Rock Springs Victory had to anchor itself offshore and unload the animals and feed into barges, maybe 30 to 40 feet long and 12 feet wide.

Unloading cattle and feed off the S. S. Rock Springs Victory off the shore of Djibouti. April 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

“They’d load the barge full of cattle,” Lord says, “and a young man with a pole would stick it against the bottom of the water and poled that barge into the dock, barely able to move it. Just one single guy with one pole. He’d have to move from side to side. It was really somethin’.”

A sole laborer poling a load of cattle into Djibouti. April 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

On shore, the cowboys must have been as much a curiosity to the Africans as the Africans were to them. These cowboys saw sights no other crew had seen.

Cowboys roaming the area around Djibouti encounter some camels. April 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

With no common language, the Americans took raisins with them to barter for souvenirs. That’s how cowboy Bob Heimberger acquired the metal cup the crew used for their Easter Sunday Communion on their return voyage.

Trading raisins to Djibouti residents for souvenirs, April 1947. Photo courtesy of Bob Heimberger.

For six members of the crew, the voyage was just beginning in Djibouti.

Seagoing cowboys heading on to assignments in Ethiopia, April 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

Five had been selected by the Brethren Service Committee for a special assignment to accompany the cattle to Ethiopia, where they were to stay for a year at the request of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie to train the Ethiopians how to breed and care for the livestock and teach the use of modern farm machinery and agricultural methods. The sixth, a Methodist missionary, would travel on to his project in the Belgian Congo. The remainder of the cowboy crew headed back with their ship to New York City.

Next post: Monkey business on the Rock Springs Victory