Pearls, Arms and Hashish: Pages from the Life of a Red Sea Navigator

by Henri de Monfreid, Ida Treat (Editor)

Overview

First published in 1930, this is the personal adventure narrative of Henri de Monfreid—nobleman, writer, adventurer and inspiration for the swashbuckling gun runner in the Adventures of Tintin.
"Henri de Monfried satisfies the most exacting reader. One is never for a moment suspicious that his amanuensis is crediting him with words he could not use or thoughts he would not entertain. The impression conveyed by Ida Treat's really superb rendering of the French searover's story is that M. de Monfried could write very well indeed if he thought it worthwhile, but that he expresses himself as a rule in other ways.
"Briefly, Henri de Monfried is the son of a Bostonian artist of French descent who lived in the south of France and married a French peasant girl. The boy grew up and tried various callings, but finally yielded to a Wanderlust which took him to French Somaliland, at the southern end of the Red Sea. He became a Moslem and engaged in pearling, gunrunning, slaving, and the smuggling of hashish into Egypt. He has a family. He is fifty years old. The Arabs call him Abd el Hai. This book is what he calls the first half of his life. He is too interested in life itself to take consolation in memoirs as yet. The British navy calls him the Sea Wolf. He makes a hobby of raising the French flag on islands inconveniently near to British coaling stations.
"There are […] sketches of sea-boards and seamen in this book which recall the master's hand and mind. And there is never a word too much. A touch light as a feather; an ironical glance as his adversary departs defeated, or an equally ironical bow as the British Lion mauls him and lets him go—to try again."—Saturday Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789121230
Publisher:	Papamoa Press
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	295
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

HENRY DE MONFREID (1879-1974) was a French adventurer and author. He was famous for his various expeditions as adventurer, smuggler and gunrunner in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa coast from Tanzania to Aden, Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula and Suez.
Born on November 14, 1879 in Leucate, Aude, France, the son of artist painter Georges-Daniel de Monfreid, he went to Djibouti (then a French colony) in 1911 to trade coffee. He built a dhow and used it to traverse the Red Sea, had many adventures and eventually prospered. In the early 1920s he built a small house in Araoué, near Harar in Ethiopia; with the sale of hashish in Egypt passing through the area, he made enough profit to buy a flour mill and build a power plant in Dire Dawa. Between 1912-1940 Monfreid ran guns through the area, dived for pearls and smuggled hashish and morphine into Egypt. He converted to Islam during this period, which included taking the Muslim name Abd-el-Haï ("Slave of The Living One").
During WWII, Monfreid, by now over 60 years old, was captured by the British and deported to Kenya. After the war he retired to a mansion in a small village of la France profonde in Ingrandes, France, and settled down to a life of writing, turning out around 70 books over the next 30 years.
He died on December 13, 1974, aged 95.
IDA TREAT (1899-1978) was born in Joliet, Illinois and attended Western Reserve University. After earning a doctorate in letters at the University of Paris she returned in 1913 to Western Reserve to teach romance languages. In the 1920s she returned to France and worked as a writer and journalist. Whilst working as a correspondent for Paris Vu, she travelled throughout Europe, China, and the South Pacific. Her articles and stories appeared in U.S. periodicals such as The New Yorker, Harpers, and The Saturday Evening Post. In 1948 she joined Vassar as Professor of English and taught writing courses. She retired in 1954 and died in 1978.

Born on November 14, 1879 in Leucate, Aude, France, the son of artist painter Georges-Daniel de Monfreid, he went to Djibouti (then a French colony) in 1911 to trade coffee. He built a dhow and used it to traverse the Red Sea, had many adventures and eventually prospered. In the early 1920s he built a small house in Araoué, near Harar in Ethiopia; with the sale of hashish in Egypt passing through the area, he made enough profit to buy a flour mill and build a power plant in Dire Dawa. Between 1912-1940 Monfreid ran guns through the area, dived for pearls and smuggled hashish and morphine into Egypt. He converted to Islam during this period, which included taking the Muslim name Abd-el-Haï ("Slave of The Living One").
During WWII, Monfreid, by now over 60 years old, was captured by the British and deported to Kenya. After the war he retired to a mansion in a small village of la France profonde in Ingrandes, France, and settled down to a life of writing, turning out around 70 books over the next 30 years.
He died on December 13, 1974, aged 95.
IDA TREAT (1899-1978) was born in Joliet, Illinois and attended Western Reserve University. After earning a doctorate in letters at the University of Paris she returned in 1913 to Western Reserve to teach romance languages. In the 1920s she returned to France and worked as a writer and journalist. Whilst working as a correspondent for Paris Vu, she travelled throughout Europe, China, and the South Pacific. Her articles and stories appeared in U.S. periodicals such as The New Yorker, Harpers, and The Saturday Evening Post. In 1948 she joined Vassar as Professor of English and taught writing courses. She retired in 1954 and died in 1978.