About THIS sea, and the power to cross it. The thought I had just had that Uncle Walter might have crossed the Mediterranean several times as a stoker on cargo ships, and already visited Istanbul before. But he had already been lost to view down the sidestreet where he had disappeared, so there was no chance of asking him myself.
– In those conditions what provided you with the power to go on? I wanted to ask him. About making the crossings of THIS sea: or "a Mediterranean… phemonenon" as I had heard it called by Abdallah Laroui [Pp244, The History of the Mahgrib: an Interpretive Essay, Princeton NJ, 1977]. Abdallah Laroui had said that captive-taking and slave-making was universal, "a Mediterranean… phenomenon", and not just the well-known activity of the Sultans of Istanbul. All the nations of the Sea had engaged in slave-making, those of the West, those of the North, and those of the East, and the many islands contained within the Sea, as well as the corsairs and ships operating out of the Muslim countries of North Africa; and the visitors from beyond had engaged in it too, Norman Dukes, Knights of St John, the ships of the Dutch Republic, and those of the British crown; even the Americans during later times.
About THIS Sea: leaving Istanbul two days later, I was to have the opportunity of crossing the Mediterranean myself and experiencing the characteristic of the waves; of the waves that built the great African city of Leptis Magna for the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus; of the waves that built the great Palace of Diocletian at Split on the Adriatic coast; of the universal waves that constructed the protecting walls of Constantinople and Aghia Sophia, and the waves that had come before and the waves that came after when it became Istanbul; the uneasy phenomenon of the waves, and the power that made slaves.
Uncle Walter of course had made his Mediterranean crossings as a free man, shoveling coal by his own free will, not as a slave. But as a stoker he knew how to measure the power of human muscle to drive a ship accross these waves, an intimate knowledge of the pains of it. And when his nephew ak posted about his ‘shame’ in the recent CONFIDENTIAL file, I thought of slavery and slaves and similar muscular pains nonetheless.
And that we needed to find Uncle Walter again.
mmj