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Pearls, Arms And Hashish: Pages From The Life Of A Red Sea Navigator
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
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About the author
Henry de Monfreid
162 books24 followersHenry de Monfreid (14 November 1879 in Leucate – 13 December 1974) was a French adventurer and author. Born in Leucate, Aude, France, he was the son of artist painter Georges-Daniel de Monfreid and knew Paul Gauguin as a child.
Monfreid was famous for his travels in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa coast from Tanzania to Aden, Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula and Suez, that he sailed in his various expeditions as adventurer, smuggler and gunrunner (during which he said he more than once escaped the Royal Navy coast-guards cutters).
Monfreid is probably best known in the English-speaking world for the following two books:
Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale and
Secrets of the Red Sea, a book about gunrunning.
His books include
Les secrets de la mer Rouge (1931)
Aventures de mer (Grasset, 1932)
La croisière du hachich (Grasset, 1933)
Vers les terres hostiles de l'Éthiopie (Grasset, 1933)
La poursuite du Kaïpan (Grasset, 1934)
Le naufrage de la Marietta (Grasset, 1934)
Le drame éthiopien (Grasset, 1935)
Le lépreux (Grasset, 1935)
Les derniers jours de l'Arabie Heureuse (N.R.F, 1935)
Les guerriers de l'Ogaden (N.R.F, 1936)
Le masque d'or (Grasset, 1936)
L'avion noir (Grasset, 1936)
Le Roi des abeilles (Gallimard)
Le Trésor du pélerin (Gallimard, 1938)
Charras (Editions du Pavois, 1947)
Du Harrar au Kenya (Grasset, 1949)
L'homme sorti de la mer (Grasset, 1951)
Ménélik tel qu’il fut (Grasset, 1954)
Sous le masque Mau-Mau (Grasset, 1956)
Mon aventure à l'île des Forbans (Grasset, 1958)
Le Radeau de la Méduse : comment fut sauvé Djibouti, (Grasset, 1958)
Les Lionnes d'or d'Ethiopie (Laffont, 1964)
Le Feu de Saint-Elme (Laffont, 1973)
Journal de bord (Arthaud, 1984)
Lettres d'Abyssinie (Flammarion, 1999)
Lettres de la mer Rouge (Flammarion, 2000)
by Monfreid's daughter, Gisèle
Mes secrets de la Mer rouge, 1982, Editions France-Empire
Monfreid was famous for his travels in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa coast from Tanzania to Aden, Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula and Suez, that he sailed in his various expeditions as adventurer, smuggler and gunrunner (during which he said he more than once escaped the Royal Navy coast-guards cutters).
Monfreid is probably best known in the English-speaking world for the following two books:
Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale and
Secrets of the Red Sea, a book about gunrunning.
His books include
Les secrets de la mer Rouge (1931)
Aventures de mer (Grasset, 1932)
La croisière du hachich (Grasset, 1933)
Vers les terres hostiles de l'Éthiopie (Grasset, 1933)
La poursuite du Kaïpan (Grasset, 1934)
Le naufrage de la Marietta (Grasset, 1934)
Le drame éthiopien (Grasset, 1935)
Le lépreux (Grasset, 1935)
Les derniers jours de l'Arabie Heureuse (N.R.F, 1935)
Les guerriers de l'Ogaden (N.R.F, 1936)
Le masque d'or (Grasset, 1936)
L'avion noir (Grasset, 1936)
Le Roi des abeilles (Gallimard)
Le Trésor du pélerin (Gallimard, 1938)
Charras (Editions du Pavois, 1947)
Du Harrar au Kenya (Grasset, 1949)
L'homme sorti de la mer (Grasset, 1951)
Ménélik tel qu’il fut (Grasset, 1954)
Sous le masque Mau-Mau (Grasset, 1956)
Mon aventure à l'île des Forbans (Grasset, 1958)
Le Radeau de la Méduse : comment fut sauvé Djibouti, (Grasset, 1958)
Les Lionnes d'or d'Ethiopie (Laffont, 1964)
Le Feu de Saint-Elme (Laffont, 1973)
Journal de bord (Arthaud, 1984)
Lettres d'Abyssinie (Flammarion, 1999)
Lettres de la mer Rouge (Flammarion, 2000)
by Monfreid's daughter, Gisèle
Mes secrets de la Mer rouge, 1982, Editions France-Empire
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 4, 2017
This book kicked some serious keister. Why haven't I ever heard of this guy? He has joined my list of personal heros. There needs to be a movie made about Henri De Monfried. The young Matt Skeens of the world need to know! If I had read this book in high school I would probably be rotting in a foreign jail right now.
I picked this book up blindly while browsing the travelogues section of the main Denver library when I happened upon the title. No pictures, just a plain blue binding, obviously an older acuesition, copy-righted 1930.
What this innocuous blue cover contained was a forgotten world of arms running, drug smuggling, coast guard evading and pirating on the high seas; a world where lateen sailed dhows raced steamers in and out of hidden coves; a world where Somali slave caravans, Greek hash sindicates, Arab pearl merchants and colonial customs agents battled it out for gold and glory. Into this world, insert one Henri de Monfried, a French national, stationed in Djibuti, converted to Islam. Know by the British as the sea-wolf, he earned a reputation for always sailing under ballast when ever the authorities descended. He spent some time in jail. He built ships only to see them sink beneath his feat in a vicious gale. He sailed to India to import charas to Egypt and ran the blockade during WWI ferrying pilgrims to Mecca. Out for his own fortune, he comes off as the honorable criminal, one step ahead of the law, and always thinking ahead to the next scheme. A true story that is better than most fiction.
I picked this book up blindly while browsing the travelogues section of the main Denver library when I happened upon the title. No pictures, just a plain blue binding, obviously an older acuesition, copy-righted 1930.
What this innocuous blue cover contained was a forgotten world of arms running, drug smuggling, coast guard evading and pirating on the high seas; a world where lateen sailed dhows raced steamers in and out of hidden coves; a world where Somali slave caravans, Greek hash sindicates, Arab pearl merchants and colonial customs agents battled it out for gold and glory. Into this world, insert one Henri de Monfried, a French national, stationed in Djibuti, converted to Islam. Know by the British as the sea-wolf, he earned a reputation for always sailing under ballast when ever the authorities descended. He spent some time in jail. He built ships only to see them sink beneath his feat in a vicious gale. He sailed to India to import charas to Egypt and ran the blockade during WWI ferrying pilgrims to Mecca. Out for his own fortune, he comes off as the honorable criminal, one step ahead of the law, and always thinking ahead to the next scheme. A true story that is better than most fiction.
September 25, 2017
The Smuggler's Blues:
This world loves a rogue. It seems that men who smuggle drugs and run arms have a special place in the pantheon of anti-heroes. Hollywood regularly celebrates them on large and small screens, and we sit there, unsure of whether to love or hate them. If they're likeable, erudite or earthy, we seem to find something admirable about them, and we inevitably ask ourselves, "Are they really that bad?" and continue watching on the edge of our seats, cheering them on. (Did you secretly hope for a minute that Walter White would get away with it? Did you immediately buy into Han Solo because he was initially outside of both moral forces?)
Henry de Monfreid - who will feature in the new installment of Canales and Pellejero's version of Corto Maltese (who was inspired by de Monfreid to an extent) - was one of these men. (Author Ida Treat, also appears in the new Corto installment, "Equatoria".) Disenchanted with the prospects of his middle class life, he strikes out for the searing Horn of Africa and its tempestuous mate, the Red Sea. He tries his hand at land borne schemes and fails, and is soon tempted out to sea - an element of which he'd been enamored since childhood.
He starts by cultivating and smuggling pearls, slides into gun running, dabbles with the slave trade, and eventually starts smuggling hashish. The world in which he operates has stark contrasts. It is partially governed by modern empires (of which de Monfreid bears considerable contempt), but its indigenous denizens (whom he loves and embraces) seem to be living as they had before the arrival en masse of the Europeans, in a rough, untamed and unforgiving land. de Monfreid experiences as many successes as he does failures, and always seems to be fighting against overwhelming or underground institutions and chafing at their bureaucracies and laws.
Keep in mind though, that this book is not written by de Monfreid. This is not "Hashish" (authored solely by de Monfreid, and currently in print with Penguin Classics), though many of the incidents related in this book, occur in de Monfreid's own. Ida Treat seems to be the principle author, and this book is based on a series of conversations she had with de Monfreid. She is a clean and concise author. Her prose escapes the overwrought nature of many of her contemporaries. I would be very interested to know what the full nature of her relationship with de Monfreid was, as she seems to be somewhat of a kindred spirit.
...of special interest to Lawrence scholars, de Monfreid makes note of an English officer stirring up the tribes of the Arabian peninsula and competing with his gun running trade...could it have been...?
In sum, this is a wild, heady book of vanished world. If you enjoy maritime writing and are familiar with sailing terminology, you'll find this book thoroughly enjoyable. As with most maritime literature, his battles with the sea, rivals his challenges with human opponents.
I didn't want this one to end. Fortunately, I can finally re-read a clean copy of "Hashish".
This world loves a rogue. It seems that men who smuggle drugs and run arms have a special place in the pantheon of anti-heroes. Hollywood regularly celebrates them on large and small screens, and we sit there, unsure of whether to love or hate them. If they're likeable, erudite or earthy, we seem to find something admirable about them, and we inevitably ask ourselves, "Are they really that bad?" and continue watching on the edge of our seats, cheering them on. (Did you secretly hope for a minute that Walter White would get away with it? Did you immediately buy into Han Solo because he was initially outside of both moral forces?)
Henry de Monfreid - who will feature in the new installment of Canales and Pellejero's version of Corto Maltese (who was inspired by de Monfreid to an extent) - was one of these men. (Author Ida Treat, also appears in the new Corto installment, "Equatoria".) Disenchanted with the prospects of his middle class life, he strikes out for the searing Horn of Africa and its tempestuous mate, the Red Sea. He tries his hand at land borne schemes and fails, and is soon tempted out to sea - an element of which he'd been enamored since childhood.
He starts by cultivating and smuggling pearls, slides into gun running, dabbles with the slave trade, and eventually starts smuggling hashish. The world in which he operates has stark contrasts. It is partially governed by modern empires (of which de Monfreid bears considerable contempt), but its indigenous denizens (whom he loves and embraces) seem to be living as they had before the arrival en masse of the Europeans, in a rough, untamed and unforgiving land. de Monfreid experiences as many successes as he does failures, and always seems to be fighting against overwhelming or underground institutions and chafing at their bureaucracies and laws.
Keep in mind though, that this book is not written by de Monfreid. This is not "Hashish" (authored solely by de Monfreid, and currently in print with Penguin Classics), though many of the incidents related in this book, occur in de Monfreid's own. Ida Treat seems to be the principle author, and this book is based on a series of conversations she had with de Monfreid. She is a clean and concise author. Her prose escapes the overwrought nature of many of her contemporaries. I would be very interested to know what the full nature of her relationship with de Monfreid was, as she seems to be somewhat of a kindred spirit.
...of special interest to Lawrence scholars, de Monfreid makes note of an English officer stirring up the tribes of the Arabian peninsula and competing with his gun running trade...could it have been...?
In sum, this is a wild, heady book of vanished world. If you enjoy maritime writing and are familiar with sailing terminology, you'll find this book thoroughly enjoyable. As with most maritime literature, his battles with the sea, rivals his challenges with human opponents.
I didn't want this one to end. Fortunately, I can finally re-read a clean copy of "Hashish".
June 7, 2023
This is one of those rare books that you’d like to read and re-read every once in a while. Fabulous.
Probably the last free man alive who lived according to his own will. The price of freedom and being different was always high, it seems.
I had a hard time reading descriptions of a hunt at the onset. Animal cruelty in any form is disturbing and unbecoming of any intelligent being.
However, protagonists are equally cruel to both animals and humans. In that I felt there was some fairness.
Soothing to read even this translated version because of almost lyrical English. I can only imagine the original French version must be even better.
Amazing read.
Probably the last free man alive who lived according to his own will. The price of freedom and being different was always high, it seems.
I had a hard time reading descriptions of a hunt at the onset. Animal cruelty in any form is disturbing and unbecoming of any intelligent being.
However, protagonists are equally cruel to both animals and humans. In that I felt there was some fairness.
Soothing to read even this translated version because of almost lyrical English. I can only imagine the original French version must be even better.
Amazing read.
May 25, 2024
adventure
Like a Tintin, or Indiana Jones, of days long lost Henri de Monfreid is a traveler through time and space. Our existence, the madness of it all. These escapades resemble the wild stories of my youth when I enjoyed getting on any train leading away. Not anywhere in particular, just away. Towards adventure, uncertain tomorrows. To whichever passage was not yet written. Long before the dreary present nothingness had ensued. Read it to escape to a reality worth living.
Like a Tintin, or Indiana Jones, of days long lost Henri de Monfreid is a traveler through time and space. Our existence, the madness of it all. These escapades resemble the wild stories of my youth when I enjoyed getting on any train leading away. Not anywhere in particular, just away. Towards adventure, uncertain tomorrows. To whichever passage was not yet written. Long before the dreary present nothingness had ensued. Read it to escape to a reality worth living.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews