Page 220 - Neglected Arabia Vol 2

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NUCUiCTlil) ARAM A

flowing robes of immemorial pattern and design, or dozed their siestas in
the cool shade of.the city gate, while an occasional woman, drab and dirty
in domestic drudgery, busied herself with her timeless tasks.
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It is Saturday. After an indecisive forenoon, word has come that the
boat, a small wooden craft called a “beden” carrying a twenty-five foot
mast, a ludicrously high stern, and the beam one-third her total length,
rides at anchor in Muttreh’s harbor, and will be ready to sail in an hour.
The Doctor and his stall with the Rev. G. D. VanPeursem are en route
to Sohar, one hundred and thirty miles up the Battineh coast, where the j
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former proposes to open a temporary clinic. The carriers and crew are i
already streaming down the shore with impedimenta,—cases of drugs,
boxes of instruments, bags of linen and bandages, ointments, lotions, books i
and tracts, clothes, typewriter,—material for every anticipated want cov-

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HARBOR OF MUSCAT
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ering a two-month-tour. The black backs of Baluchi and Negro-Arab i \
1 bend double beneath the weight of the loads which they-deliver without : «
mishap, wading waist-high through the thundering surf to reach the boat.
The luggage is strewn in disorder behind the mast, while we, the three
Europeans of the nineteen souls aboard, settle ourselves upon the high
stern as comfortably as our crowded quarters will allow. Another hour
of indifferent chatter and delay before the tardy captain, a half naked
Arab of perhaps five and thirty, about whose head, pitted with pox marks,
is twisted a ragged turban, clambers on board. Into his hands we commit
our all and put to sea,—twenty souls in a hull five and thirty feet by
twelve,—and a tiny leak!
Five miles out we are doing three knots before an indifferent breeze, i
when the sun sinks distorted and lurid behind a bank of low-lying clouds. i
The coast, mostly cliff and precipice with here and there a cluster of fisher­
men's homes of mud and thatch nestling upon some sand strip under a 4:
clump of palms, slips slowly by. And within the craft, with an instinct
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