Henry de Monfreid certainly doesn't fit everyone's idea of a typical smuggler, but he managed to make up in daring and initiative everything that he lacked in experience. Here, with engaging humour, he tells what happened when he set out in search of adventure and quick money, as a hashish smuggler in the 1920s.

His book is crammed with all sorts of intriguing information -- on fail-safe hiding places for contraband, on how to catch a water turtle, on the aphrodisiac properties of sharks' meat -- and is alive with the people he encountered en route from Piraeus to Suez: paunchy customs officials, Bedouin camel-drivers, a marooned Dankali fisherman, a jovial Greek undertaker . . . Unforgettable characters, all of them, in an extraordinary adventure told with wit and enormous charm.