Free Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale by Henry de Monfreid

company’s offices, and after much argument and a delay of twenty minutes, we were allowed to go on.
    When we reached the Piraeus, the
kirios
Caravan was waiting on the platform, thinner than ever. I gave him the
fortatiki
, the receipt for my eight cases, and he disappeared into the crowd. We went out into the station yard to await events. Two barrows had been left just opposite the door of the Rapid Transport, and ten minutes later, porters werepiling the cases on to them. Off they went to the quay, which was barely fifty yards away. A boat was right in under the wall, and with a silent rapidity eloquent of long practice, the cases were lowered into it, and with a few strokes of the oars the boat vanished behind an adjacent steamer.
    All this had occupied exactly enough time to allow the officer to stroll to the other end of the quay. He had stopped a hundred yards farther up, and, his back still turned to us, was chatting to some of the men I had seen in the café during our first interview with Caravan. When he turned round, everything was over.
    I had no doubt that this accommodating customs officer knew on which side his bread was buttered.
    At nine o’clock that evening, I had in my pocket the bill of lading for my goods shipped on board the
Aris
, bound for Marseilles, and an insurance policy into the bargain. The manifest bore the description ‘hemp flowers’. After all, that was a good enough definition and the customs at Marseilles knew perfectly well that it meant hashish. The shipping of drugs was authorized at Marseilles and at Djibouti, so there was no need to dissimulate the nature of the merchandise. But this euphemism had been tacitly adopted, so as not to attract the attention of people stupidly hampered by prejudices, and who might interfere with this profitable trafficking. This designation had been in use for a long time. Probably when they started, certain Nosey Parkers had got themselves into trouble by being over-zealous in verifying the nature of the goods. Those who succeeded them, realizing that any attacks of conscience would only result in their losing their jobs, passed the ‘hemp flowers’ as such, without any further investigation, and this commerce became an accepted routine.
    I took a passage on board
Le Calédonien
on which I had come. I expected to be at Marseilles before the
Aris
, which had to call in at several ports on the way. The head steward in the third-class once more gave me a job. Papamanoli came on board with me, and before leaving gave me the address of a friend at Port Said. He insisted on the importance of seeing him and arranging with him for the disposal of my hashish in Egypt. I got the impression that there were grave reasons for this insistence, but that the priest felt it was not for him to explain. I felt strongly tempted to tell him the story of the blotting-paper, and ask him straightout the meaning of all these telegrams, but I checked the impulse. All the same, I continued to believe in his integrity. I felt that there was a mystery into which he could not, would not, or dared not initiate me, but I felt just as strongly that it was impossible for these people who had received me so frankly and kindly to have arranged to play me some dirty trick.
    Two days after the ship left harbour, when the passengers began to make tentative efforts at conversation with each other, I got to know a Greek who spoke French fluently. I copied out the words which were printed backwards on the blotting-paper, and asked him to translate them for me. This did not give me the key to the mystery as I had hoped, except that I learned that the message was addressed to Cairo. Here is the translation:
    ‘… Cairo’
    Deal concluded… Caravan… shipping Marseilles… by… maritime… we do not know…’

TWELVE
My First Contact with Egypt
     
    As I landed at Marseilles I had the pleasure of seeing the
Arts
come into port. I immediately concluded the necessary formalities for the