Page 217 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

178 TRAVELS IN OMAN. [ch.

to appearance, dying, in a vessel alongside of
that in which I was. Unwilling, however, to

forego the chance which still remained of his
recovery by change of air, I hired a boat to

convey him to Sib, a situation possessing a
more salubrious atmosphere than Maskat, and

gave those to whose care he was entrusted a
few dollars to defray his expenses in case he

survived, or inter him should he not. When
this circumstance was mentioned to the
*
Prince, he struck the crooked staff (which
he carries, in common with all other Arabs,)
forcibly on the ground, and said, with much

energy, “ That's a man.”
When we reflect that the custom of giving

presents, so general throughout the East, is in
most cases directed by ostentatious rather

than generous motives, and that his High­
ness was not ignorant of the national enmity
existing between France and England, it re­

quired (at least in Asia) that nicety of feeling
with which he is so eminently gifted to have

enabled him to appreciate the motives in
which, according to his judgment, the mere

act of humanity I have briefly alluded to must

* This custom appears to be of great antiquity.—See Herodotus.