<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></SPAN>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
<h4>MERBAT AND AL HAFA</h4>
<p>After returning from our expedition to the Hadhramout
in 1894 we determined the next winter to attempt the ambitious
adventure of making a journey overland right across
Southern Arabia from Maskat to Aden. On our way we
hoped to revisit the Hadhramout, to explore those portions
which we had been compelled to leave unvisited the former
winter, and so to fill up the large blank space which still
exists on the map of this country. Experience taught us
that our plan was impracticable; the only possible way of
making explorations in Arabia is to take it piecemeal, to
investigate each district separately, and by degrees to make
a complete map by patching together the results of a
number of isolated expeditions. Indeed, this is the only
satisfactory way of seeing any country, for on a great
through journey the traveller generally loses the most
interesting details.</p>
<p>My husband again, to our great satisfaction, had Imam
Sharif, Khan Bahadur, placed at his disposal; and, as the
longest way round was the quickest and best, we determined
to make our final preparations in India, and meet him and
his men at Karachi.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/228.png">228</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p>We left England at the beginning of November 1894,
and at Aden, where we were obliged to tranship, we picked
up our camp furniture, which we had deposited there on
our return from Wadi Hadhramout.</p>
<p>Imam Sharif came on board to meet us at Karachi, and
we also received a letter inviting us to stay at Government
House, where we were most kindly entertained by Mrs.
Pottinger, in the absence of her brother, Mr. James, the
Commissioner in Scinde. This was very delightful to us, as
we had already stayed in Reynolds's Hotel when on our way
to Persia.</p>
<p>Matthaios had absolutely refused to come with us for
fear we should carry out our great wish of going to Bir
Borhut, and indeed the very name of '<i>Aravia</i>' was odious
to him. Of course, being in India, we had to take two men
in his place, and accordingly engaged two Goanese, half
Portuguese: one Diego S. Anna Lobo, a little old man, as
butler, and the other, Domingo de Silva, as cook. The
former could speak English and Portuguese; the latter
neither, only Hindustani. We took them back to India
with us the following spring, keeping Lobo as our servant
during the time of our stay there.</p>
<p>We had a calm and pleasant voyage of three days to
Maskat with Captain Whitehead on the B.I.S.N. steamer
<i>Chanda</i>, arriving just in time to escape a violent storm,
which lasted for days, and in its commencement prevented
our landing at the usual place. We had to go round a little
promontory. There was also a good deal of rain, which
cooled the air considerably.</p>
<p>We were the guests of Colonel Hayes Sadler, in his
hospitable Residency, and he interested himself kindly in
our affairs, giving us all the help he could in our arrangements,
as did also Dr. Jayaker, the Indian doctor.</p>
<p>We intended first of all to penetrate into the regions of the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/229.png">229</SPAN>]</span>
Jebel Akhdar, and then to pass through the territory of the
Jenefa tribe to Ghubbet el Hashish, which takes its name
not from land grass, but from seaweed. There a boat was
to meet us and take us westward; in this way we should
avoid a stretch of desert which the Bedouin themselves
shrink from, and which is impassable to Europeans. We
could not procure any information about our journey to the
Jebel Akhdar, as it does not appear to be the fashion at
Maskat to go inland. However, both our old friend the
Sultan Feysul and Colonel Sadler took infinite trouble to
arrange for our journey; camels were hired and a horse for
me, and the sheikhs of the tribes through whose country we
should have to pass were summoned to escort us.</p>
<p>Owing, however, to the illness of some of our party, we
were at the last moment obliged to defer the expedition;
though we had made all the preparations we could for the
great cold we should have to encounter, the change of
climate would have been injurious to Imam Sharif and two
of his men. As events proved it was fortunate we did so,
for the insurrection (which I have already mentioned) broke
out almost immediately afterwards, and in all probability
we should not have returned alive to relate our experiences.</p>
<p>We next determined to go by sea to Merbat, and thence
explore the Dhofar and Gara mountains. The sultan
offered us the use of his <i>batil</i>, which was preparing to go to
Zenghiber, as they call Zanzibar. We found on inspection
that it was a small decked boat, with a very light upper deck
at the stern, supported by posts. They were busy smearing
the ship with fish oil. We were told it might be ready in
three days, and we might take seven days or more over the
voyage. However, we were delivered from this long voyage,
for, unexpectedly, a steamer arrived most opportunely for us.</p>
<p>As it was not the pilgrim season, and as there was no
cholera about, we ventured on this steamer, which is one of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/230.png">230</SPAN>]</span>
those that ply under the Turkish flag between the Persian
Gulf and Jedda. The captain was an Armenian: in fact,
all the steamers belonging to Turkey are run by Armenian
companies and manned by Armenian sailors. The captain
of the <i>Hodeida</i> was not too exorbitant in his demand of
500 rupees to drop our party at Merbat. The steward
could fortunately speak Greek.</p>
<p>We left Maskat on Monday, December 17, and had a
very calm voyage, but this being our fifth steamer since we
left home, we were anxious for a little dry land journeying.</p>
<p>We saw the high mountains all Tuesday, but nothing on
Wednesday after early morning. The coast recedes and
becomes low where the desert comes down to the sea. We
passed the Kouria Mouria Islands in the night. They are
inhabited by the Jenefa tribe, who pursue sharks, swimming
on inflated skins. On Thursday we passed very curious
scenery, a high akaba, just like the Hadhramout, in the
background, and for about a mile between this and the sea
a volcanic mass of rocks and peaks and crags of many hues.
After passing this we were at our destination, and at three
o'clock in the afternoon we left the steamer to land at Merbat.
We were conveyed to the shore in three boats, one of which
was called 'el liebot.' It is only fair that the English who
have borrowed so many nautical terms from the Orientals,
should now in their turn provide the Arabian name for a
boat. Cutters and jolly-boats have taken their names from
'kattira' and 'jahlibot.'</p>
<p>Merbat, which is sixty-four miles from Maskat, is the
first point of the Dhofar district after the long stretch of
desert has been passed. It is a wretched little spot consisting
of some fifty houses and a few Bedou huts, with about
two hundred inhabitants. It is built on a tongue of land,
which affords shelter for Arab dhows during the north-east
monsoon. The water supply is from a pool of brackish water.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/231.png">231</SPAN>]</span></p>
<p>The excitement caused by the first arrival of a steamer
was intense, and tiny craft with naked Bedouin soon
crowded round us; after entrusting us to their tender
mercies our Armenian captain steamed away, and it was not
without secret misgivings that we landed amongst the wild-looking
inhabitants who lined the shore.</p>
<p>We imagined we were being very kindly received when
they pointed out the largest building in the place as our
habitation, and my husband, Imam Sharif, our interpreter
Hassan, and I joyfully hastened thither.</p>
<p>Unfortunately we had no recommendation to the head-man
of this place, and he evidently distrusted us, for after
taking us to a fort built of mud bricks, which offered ample
accommodation for our party, he flatly refused to allow us
to have our baggage or our servants therein.</p>
<p>After entering a kind of guard-room, we had to plunge
to the right into pitchy darkness and stumble along, stretching
out our hands like blind men, each taken by the shoulders
and pushed and shoved by a roundabout way to a dark inner
staircase, where we emerged into the light on some roofs.</p>
<p>They wanted us to stay where we were, but not wishing
to remain without conveniences, we succeeded in getting
between them and the door, and then found our way out of
the building and rejoined our servants and our baggage on
the beach. We flourished our letter to Wali Suleiman in
his face; we expostulated, threatened, and cajoled, and passed
a whole miserable hour by the shore, seated on our belongings
under the blazing afternoon sun, watching our steamer
gradually disappearing in the distance. Hemmed in by
Bedouin, who stared at us as if we had come from the moon,
exceedingly hot, hungry, and uncomfortable, we passed a very
evil time indeed, speculating as to what would be the result
of the conclave of the old head-men; but at last they
approached us in a more friendly spirit, begged our pardon,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/232.png">232</SPAN>]</span>
and reinstated us in the fort with our bag and baggage, and
were as civil as they could be. To our dying day we shall
never know what caused us this dilemma. Did they really
think we had come to seize their fort (which we afterwards
heard was the case), and interfere with their frankincense
monopoly? Or did they think we had come to look into
the question of a large Arab dhow, which was flying the
French flag, and was beached on the shore, and which we
had reason to believe was conveying a cargo of slaves to
one of the neighbouring markets for disposal? Personally,
I suspect the latter was the true reason of their aversion to
our presence, for the coast from here to Maskat has a bad
reputation in this respect, and just lately Arab slave-dhows
have been carrying on their trade under cover of protection
obtained from France at Obok and Zanzibar. The inhabitants
have plaited hair and knobkerries. I believe they
belong to the Jenefa tribe.</p>
<p>Finding Merbat so uncongenial an abode, with no points
of interest, and with a malarious-looking swamp in its vicinity,
and not being able to obtain camels or escort for a journey
inland, we determined only to pass one night there, and after
wandering about in search of interests which did not exist,
we came to terms with the captain of a most filthy baggala
to take us along the coast to Al Hafa, the residence of Wali
Suleiman, without whose direct assistance we plainly saw
that nothing could be done about extending our expedition
into the interior. It was only forty miles to Al Hafa, but,
owing to adverse winds, it took us exactly two days to
perform this voyage, and our boat was one of the dirtiest of
the kind we have ever travelled on. In our little cabin in
the stern the smell of bilge-water was almost overpowering,
and every silver thing we had about us turned black with
the sulphureous vapours. These pungent odours were relieved
from time to time by burning huge chafing dishes of frank<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/233.png">233</SPAN>]</span>incense,
a large cargo of which was aboard for transport to
Bombay after we had been deposited at Al Hafa. One of the
many songs our sailors sang when changing the flapping
sails was about frankincense, so we tried to imagine that
we were having a pleasant experience of the country we
were about to visit; and even in its dirt and squalor an Arab
dhow is a picturesque abode, with its pretty carvings and
odd-shaped bulwarks. We were twenty-five souls on board,
and our captain and his crew being devout Mohammedans,
we had plenty of time and opportunity for studying their
numerous prayers and ablutions.</p>
<p>The plain of Dhofar, along which we were now coasting,
is quite an abnormal feature in this arid coast. It is the
only fertile stretch between Aden and Maskat. It is formed
of alluvial soil washed down from the Gara mountains; there
is abundance of water very near the surface, and frequent
streams make their way down to the sea, so that it is green.
The great drawback to the country is the want of harbours;
during the north-east monsoons dhows can find shelter at
Merbat, and during the south-west monsoons at Risout, but
the rest of the coast is provided with nothing but open
roadsteads, with the surf always rolling in from the Indian
Ocean.</p>
<p>The plain is never more than nine miles wide, and at the
eastern end, where the mountains were nearer to the sea,
it is reduced to a very narrow strip, a grand exception to
the long line of barren waste which forms the Arabian
frontage to the Indian Ocean, and which gets narrower and
narrower as the mountains approach the sea at Saihut. Tall
cocoanut palms adorn it in clusters, and long stretches of
bright green fields refresh the eye; and, at frequent intervals,
we saw flourishing villages by the coast. Tobacco, cotton,
Indian corn, and various species of grain grow here in great
abundance, and in the gardens we find many of the products<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/234.png">234</SPAN>]</span>
of India flourishing, viz. the plantain, the papya, mulberries,
melons, chillis, brinjols, and fruits and vegetables of various
descriptions. We anchored for some hours off one of these
villages, and paid our toll of dates to the Bedouin who came
off to claim them, as is customary all along this coast, every
dhow paying this toll in return for the privilege of obtaining
water when they want it.</p>
<p>The Gara mountains are now one of the wildest spots in
wild Arabia; owing to the disastrous blood feuds amongst
the tribe and the insecurity of travel, they had never previously
been penetrated by Europeans: all that was known of the
district was the actual coast-line. Exciting rumours had
reached the ears of Colonel Miles, a former political agent
at Maskat, concerning lakes and streams, and fertility
unwonted for Arabia, which existed in these mountains,
and our appetites were consequently whetted for their
discovery.</p>
<p>In ancient times this was one of the chief sources of the
time-honoured frankincense trade, which still maintains itself
here even more than in the Hadhramout. It is carried
on by the Bedouin of the Gara tribe, who bring down the
odoriferous gum from the mountains on camels. About
9,000 cwt. of it is exported to Bombay annually. Down by
the coast at Al Hafa there is a square enclosure or bazaar
where piles of frankincense may still be seen ready for
exportation, miniature successors of those piles of the tears
of gum from the tree-trunks which are depicted on the old
Egyptian temple at Deir al Bahari as one of the proceeds of
Queen Hatasou's expeditions to the land of Punt.</p>
<p>The actual libaniferous country is, perhaps, now not
much bigger than the Isle of Wight, and in its physical
appearance not unlike it, cut off from the rest of the world
by a desert behind and an ocean in front. Probably in
ancient days the frankincense-bearing area was not much<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/235.png">235</SPAN>]</span>
more extensive. Claudius Ptolemy, the anonymous author
of the 'Periplus,' Pliny, Theophrastus, and a little later on
the Arabian geographers, speak of it, and from their descriptions
there is no difficulty in fixing the limits of it, and its
ruined towns are still easily identified.</p>
<p>After much tacking and flapping of sails we at last
reached Al Hafa, where Wali Suleiman had his castle, only
a stone's throw from the beach. Our landing was performed
in small, hide-covered boats specially constructed for riding
over the surf, and was not completed without a considerable
wetting to ourselves and baggage. After so many preliminary
discomforts a cordial welcome from the wali was doubly
agreeable. He placed a room on the roof, spread with
carpets, at our disposal, and he furnished our larder with a
whole cow, and every delicacy at his command. The cow's
flesh was cut into strips and festooned about in every direction,
to dry it for our journey. Our room was, for Arabia,
deliciously cool and airy, being approached by a ladder, and
from our roof we enjoyed pleasant views over the fertile
plain and the Gara mountains, into which we had now
every hope of penetrating. We looked down into his courtyard
below and saw there many interesting phases of
Arab life.</p>
<p>Al Hafa is 640 miles from Maskat in one direction and
800 from Aden in the other; it is, therefore, about as far as
possible from any civilised place. Nominally it is under the
sultan of Oman, and I may here emphatically state that the
southern coast of Arabia has absolutely nothing to do with
Turkey—from Maskat to Aden there is not a single tribe
paying tribute to, or having any communication with, the
Ottoman Porte. Really Al Hafa and the Dhofar were ruled
over autocratically by Wali Suleiman, who was sent out
there about eighteen years before as governor, at the request
of the feud-torn inhabitants, by Sultan Tourki of Maskat.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/236.png">236</SPAN>]</span>
In his small way Wali Suleiman was a man of great capacity;
a man who has made history, and could have made more
if his sphere had been larger. In his youth he was instrumental
in placing Tourki on the throne of Oman, and
after a few years of stern application to business he brought
the bellicose families of the Gara tribe under his power;
and his influence was felt far into the interior, even into the
confines of Nejd. With a handful of Arabs and a badly
armed regiment of slave origin he had contrived to establish
peace and comparative safety throughout the Gara mountains
and, thanks to him, we were able to penetrate their fastnesses.
Wali Suleiman was a stern, uncompromising ruler, feared
and respected, rather than loved.</p>
<p>The wali kept all his prisoners in the courtyard. When
we were there he had twelve, all manacled, and reposing on
grass mats at night. These were wicked Bedouin from the
mountains, prisoners taken in a recent war he had had with
the Mahri tribe, the <i>casus belli</i> being a find of ambergris
which the Mahri had appropriated, though it had been
washed up on the Dhofar coast. One prisoner, a murderer,
whose imprisonment was for two years, was chained to a
log of wood, and he laid his mat bed in a large stone sarcophagus,
brought from the neighbouring ruins of the ancient
capital of the frankincense country, and really intended for
a trough. Another, convicted of stealing his master's sword
and selling it to the captain of a dhow, had his feet attached
to an iron bar, which made his locomotion exceedingly
painful. A mollah prisoner was, owing to the sanctity of
his calling, unfettered, and he led the evening prayers, and on
most nights—for want of something better to do, I suppose—these
prisoners of Wali Suleiman prayed and sang into the
small hours of the morning. Day by day we watched these
unfortunate men from the roof, and thought we had never
seen so unholy a set of men, according to what we heard;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/237.png">237</SPAN>]</span>
they did not look so. Some were morose, and chewed the
cud of their discontent in corners; the younger and better-looking
ones were gallant, and flirted with the slave girls,
helping them to draw up buckets from the well in the centre
of the courtyard; the active-minded cut wood for the household,
and walked about doing odd jobs, holding up the iron
bar which separated their feet with a rope as they shuffled
along, or played with the wali's little boy, five years of age,
who rambled about among them.</p>
<p>Goats, kids, cocks, and hens, also occupied this courtyard,
and the big, white she-ass, the only representative of
the equine race as far as we could see in Dhofar, on which
Wali Suleiman makes his state journeys to the various
villages in his dominions along the coast, and which he
kindly lent to me once when we went to visit the ruins.</p>
<p>The ladies of the wali's harem paid me frequent visits,
and brought me presents of fruit and embarrassing plates of
food, and substances to dye my teeth red (tamboul leaves
and lime), but they were uninteresting ladies, and their conversational
powers limited to the discussion of the texture of
dresses and the merits of European underclothing. On the
very first morning they appeared before I was up—that is
about sunrise. As I had put them off the evening before, I
dared not do so again. My husband sprang out of his bed
and got out of their way. I managed to put on a jacket
sitting up in bed, and then, finding time allowed, a skirt, and
had just got my hair combed down when in they trooped.
I knew my shoes and stockings would never be missed, so I
felt quite ready for the visit. They wore <i>bourkos</i> on their
faces, and had on a great deal of coarse jewellery with mock
pearls and bad turquoises. Whenever they chose to come
my husband had to depart, and I do not think he liked these
interruptions.</p>
<p>We were much interested in the male members of the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/238.png">238</SPAN>]</span>
wali's family. His eldest son was paralysed and bedridden,
and he had adopted as heir to his position in Dhofar a
nephew, who lived in a separate wing of the castle, and had
his separate harem establishment. Besides these the wali
had two dear little boys, one of twelve and the other of
eight, who constantly paid us visits, and with whom we
established a close friendship. Salem, the elder, was a fair,
delicate-looking boy, the son of a Georgian slave who was
given to Wali Suleiman by Sultan Tourki of Oman. Some
years ago she ran away with her boy to Bombay, but was
restored to her husband, and now has been sent as a punishment
to Zanzibar; she is a servant in the house of one
of the princesses there. Salem would often tell us that his
mother was coming back to him in a year or two, but we
thought differently.</p>
<p>The tragedy connected with little Muoffok, the younger
boy, a bright, dear little fellow, very much darker than
his brother, in fact nearly black, is far more heartrending.
About two years before, his mother, also a slave, an African,
was convicted of misconduct, and on her was visited the
extremest penalty with which the Arab law can punish a
faithless wife. In the presence of a large assemblage, the
unfortunate woman was buried up to the waist in the sand
and stoned to death.</p>
<p>The poor little motherless fellows were constantly on the
go, rushing hither and thither, playing with and petted by
all; at one time they amused themselves with the prisoners
in the courtyard, at another time they teased the Gara
sheikhs who sat in the long entrance corridor, and then they
came to torment us, until we gave then some trifle, which
they forthwith carried off in triumph to show it to everybody.
Both the little boys wore the large silver and gold
daggers of Oman round their waists, and powder-flasks
similarly decorated hung on their backs; and when dressed<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/239.png">239</SPAN>]</span>
in their best silk robes on Friday, they were the most
fantastic little fellows one could wish to see.</p>
<p>Wali Suleiman was, as I have said, an austere and
unlovable man, but he was the man for his position:
taciturn and of few words, but these always to the point.
Before he would permit us to go forth and penetrate into
the recesses of the Gara mountains, he summoned the heads
of all the different families into which the tribe is divided
to Al Hafa, and gave us into their charge, we agreeing to pay
for their escort, their protection, and the use of their camels
a fixed sum <i>per diem</i> in Maria Theresa dollars, the only coin
recognised in the country.</p>
<p>Such palavering there was over this stupendous piece of
diplomacy! Wali Suleiman and the Gara sheikhs sat for
hours in solemn conclave in a palm-thatched barn about
fifty yards distant from the castle, which takes the place of
a parliament house in the kingdom of Dhofar. The wali,
his nephew, and Arab councillors smoked their <i>narghilehs</i>
complacently, whilst the Gara Bedouin took whiffs at their
little pipes, which they cut out of soft limestone that
hardens in the air, and all drank endless cups of coffee
served by slaves in huge coffee-pots with long, bird-like
beaks, and we looked on at this conference, which was to
decide our fate, from our roof, with no small amount of
impatience.</p>
<p>Before starting for the mountains we wandered hither
and thither over the plain of Dhofar for some days, visiting
sites of ruins, and other places of interest, and greatly
admired the rich cultivation we saw around us, and the
capacity of this plain for producing cotton, indigo, tobacco,
and cereals. Water is on the surface in stagnant pools, or
easily obtainable everywhere by digging shallow wells which
are worked by camels, sometimes three together, and so well
trained, that at the end of the walk they turn by themselves<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/240.png">240</SPAN>]</span>
as soon as they hear the splash of the water into the
irrigation channel, and then they walk back to fill the skin
bucket again. The cocoanut-palm grows admirably here, and
we had many refreshing draughts of the water contained in
the nuts during our hot rides; and in pools beneath the trees
the fibre of the nuts is placed to rot for making ropes, giving
out an odour very similar to that of the flax-pits in the north
of Ireland.</p>
<p>Between Capes Risout and Merbat we found the sites of
ruined towns of considerable extent in no less than seven
different points, though at the two capes where now is the
only anchorage, there are no ruins to be seen, proving, as
we afterwards verified for ourselves, that anchorage of a
superior nature existed in the neighbourhood in antiquity,
which has since become silted up, but which anciently must
have afforded ample protection for the boats which came for
the frankincense trade. At Takha, as we shall presently see,
there was a very extensive and deep harbour, running a
considerable distance inland, which with a little outlay of
capital could easily be restored.</p>
<p>After a close examination of these ruined sites, there
can be no doubt that those at spots called now Al Balad and
Robat, about two miles east of the wali's residence, formed
the ancient capital of this district. We visited them on
Christmas Day, and were much struck with their extent.
The chief ruins, those of Al Balad, are by the sea, around
an acropolis some 100 feet in height. This part of the town
was encircled by a moat still full of water, and in the centre,
still connected with the sea, but almost silted up, is a
tiny harbour. The ground is covered with the remains of
Mohammedan mosques, and still more ancient Sabæan
temples, the architecture of which—namely, the square
columns with flutings at the four corners, and the step-like
capitals—at once connects them architecturally with the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/241.png">241</SPAN>]</span>
columns at Adulis on the Red Sea, those of Koloe and
Aksum in Abyssinia, and those described by M. Arnaud at
Mariaba in Yemen.</p>
<p>In some cases these are decorated with intricate patterns,
one of which is formed by the old Sabæan letters [Symbol: See page image] and X,
which may possibly have some religious import. After
seeing the ruins of Adulis and Koloe and the numerous
temples or tombs with four isolated columns, no doubt can
be entertained that the same people built them.</p>
<p>As at Adulis and Koloe there were no inscriptions which
could materially assist us; this may be partly accounted
for by the subsequent Mohammedan occupation, when the
temples were converted into mosques, but besides this the
nature of the stone employed at all these places would make
it very difficult to use it for inscribing letters: it is very
coarse, and full of enormous fossils.</p>
<p>This town of Al Balad by the sea is connected by a
series of ruins with another town two miles inland, now
called Robat, where the ground for many acres is covered
with ancient remains; big cisterns and water-courses are
here cut in the rock, and standing columns of the same
architectural features are seen in every direction.</p>
<p>With the aid of Sprenger's 'Alte Geographie Arabiens,'
the best guide-book the traveller can take into this country,
there is no difficulty in identifying this ancient capital of the
frankincense country as the <ins title="Greek: Manteion Artemidos">Μαντειον Ἀρτἑμιδος</ins> of Claudius
Ptolemy. This name is obviously a Greek translation of
the Sabæan for some well-known oracle which anciently
existed here, not far, as Ptolemy himself tells us, from Cape
Risout. This name eventually became Zufar, from which
the modern name of Dhofar is derived. In <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 618 the
town was destroyed and Mansura built, under which name
the capital was known in early Mohammedan times.
Various Arab geographers also assist us in this identification.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/242.png">242</SPAN>]</span>
Yakut, for example, tells us how the Prince of Zufar had
the monopoly of the frankincense trade, and punished with
death any infringement of it. Ibn Batuta says that 'half a
day's journey east of Mensura is Alakhaf, the abode of the
Addites,' probably referring to the site of the oracle and the
last stronghold of the ancient cult.</p>
<p>Sprenger sums up the evidence of old writers by saying
that the town of Zufar and the later Mansura must undoubtedly
be the ruins of Al Balad. Thus, having assured
ourselves of the locality of the ancient capital of the frankincense
country—for no other site along the plain has ruins
which will at all compare in extent and appearance with those
of Al Balad—we shall, as we proceed on our journey, find that
other sites fall easily into their proper places, and an
important verification of ancient geography and an old-world
centre of commerce has been obtained.</p>
<p>The ruins at Al Balad and Robat were last inhabited
during the Persian occupation, about the time of the
Crusades, 500 of the Hejira. They utilised the old Himyaritic
columns to build their mosques. Some of the tombs
have beautiful carving on them.</p>
<p>In the ruins of one temple the columns were elaborately
carved with a kind of <i>fleur-de-lis</i> pattern, and the bases
decorated with a floral design, artistically interwoven.</p>
<p>I had dreadful difficulty with a photograph which I took
of these columns. I developed it at night, tormented by
mosquitoes, and in the morning it was all cracked and dried
off its celluloid foundation. I put it in alum, and it floated
off half an inch too large in both directions. If I had had a
larger plate on which to mount it, it would have been an
easy enough job, but I had not, so I was obliged to work it
down on to the original plate with my thumbs. It took
me seven solid hours, and I had to be fed with two meals,
for I could never move my thumbs nor eyes off my work.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/243.png">243</SPAN>]</span>
I felt very proud that the cracks did not show when a
magic-lantern slide was made from it.</p>
<p>There was a great deal of vegetation among the ruins.
Specially beautiful was a very luxuriant creeper called by
the inhabitants <i>asaleb</i>. It has a luscious, large, pear-shaped
red fruit with seeds which, when bitten, are like pepper. It
has large flowers, which are white at first, and then turn
pink.</p>
<p>On our way home from Al Balad we stopped to rest
under some cocoa-palms, and stones and other missiles were
flung up by our guides, so the cocoanuts came showering
down in rather a terrifying way. The men then stuck their
<i>ghatrifs</i> in the ground and banged the nuts on them, and
thus skinned them. Then they hacked at them with their
swords till they cut off the tops like eggs, and we enjoyed a
good drink of the water.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></SPAN>[<SPAN href="./images/244.png">244</SPAN>]</span></p>
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