Page 141 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

European Accounts of Muscat 131
reprinted London, 1929, 245-56. Plentiful com and wine,
spices, myrrh, incense, cassia, manna, dates, gold and pearls.
Flourishing valleys green with vegetables. Cattle are fed with
fish which is put in a hole to rot, then boiled with water until
it becomes soup: it does not affect the taste of the meat.
People are lean, manly, expert with weapons, courteous to
foreigners who can sleep in the open with their money as they
never robbed. Heads of houses are very kind to servants and
children, and ‘known for temperance and Justice’. They will
not touch tea, coffee or tobacco. In ‘perfect indignation’ they
destroyed the house of a Jew for making spirits. Murderers
are immured and left to starve. Ovington in fact never visited
Muscat but obtained all his information at Surat.
1698 JAMESON, J. F., Privateering and Piracy, New York, 1923,
175. Evidence at the trial for piracy of Henry Every showed
that he had captured a Muscat ship in Rajpur. He took dates
and rice and killed some of the 12 men on board, before
sending her with a prize crew to Madagascar.
1705 Annals, iii, 557. London says that when the war (Spanish
Succession) is over, it hoped to send troops ‘to root out that
nest of pirates, the Muscat Arabs’.
1706 LE BRUYN, Cornelius, Travels into Muscovy, Persia and
Parts of the East-Indies, London, 1737, ii, 130. Sailed past,
making an unclear drawing of the Gray Rock outside the Bay.
1715(7) HAMILTON, Captain Alexander, A New Account of the
East Indies, Edinburgh, 1727, 43-9. A renegado, reputed 100
years old, told him the story of the capture of Muscat by the
Arabs which he had witnessed 65 years before. The city is
very strong and the wall that faces the harbour has 60 large
cannon while eight or ten small forts guard all avenues into
the town. There are no trees except for some date-palms in a
valley at the back. The king lives for a month or so each year
in the old Cathedral which is still quite grand but spends the
rest of the time at Nazawa or Reystock. He has about 100
slaves armed with matchlocks and short broad swords. He
dresses very plainly and cats with his companions, sitting on
the same mat with their buttocks on their heels. The right
hand is used for a spoon except for soup for which they have
large wooden spoons. The cattle look very thin but when
killed are fat and afford much tallow. Coffee and pipes are
passed round and when the party is due to end rose-water and
incense are brought. From May to September it is so hot that
no one is on the streets between 10 am and 3 pm. He saw
slaves roasting fish on the rocks and the cattle come to eat
them. He saw a man and two boys ‘catching or rather
conjuring fish’—a ton in an hour. The man stands on a rock
and shouts ‘Tall, Tall’ for a minute or so. Then the boys come
in a little boat and shut them in with a net 20-30 yards long.