Page 142 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

132 Arabian Studies IV
When people want to buy, the man puts in a scoop-net and
serves what they want. At the end of the day he releases the
rest of the fish.
The city is not grand because the people scorn luxury and
ostentation. They are remarkable for their Humility and
Urbanity: the Governor stood aside to let the writer pass in a
narrow street. A man may whip his wife but not kill her. If a
woman complains that a man has molested her, he gets 100
bastinadoes on the foot without any proof or may be put in a
small dungeon for three days. The Mullahs often preach
themselves into a violent passion and then take burning coals
out of a fire and ‘seem to eat them with as good an Appetite
as a Schoolboy can eat a Bergamy pear’.
Muscat exports horses, coffee (not good), fine Brimstone,
ruinos, which is the root of a small shrub which dyes crimson,
and coarse cloth. Hamilton saw a pearl, as big as a hazel nut,
valued at £3,000. Divers bring out oysters, extract the pearls
and put them back. They then bring them up again and sell
them to visitors: Hamilton bought more than 100 without
getting anything except one small pearl.
1716 CORNWALL, Capt. Henry, Observations upon several
voyages to India out and homey London, 1720. Large plan
which under Jalali shows ‘the landing place of allfartigo’ and
then ‘The Mould’, then the Muttron fishing village with what
looks like English Cottages. Much of the text is based on
Fryer, including the story of the immense wealth of the Imam,
based upon his ownership of the Prophet’s Tomb: ‘He rolls in
wealth, amidst a barren and unfruitful soil.’ ‘Their Pilots are
the ablest Indian Seamen I have met with, generally Blacks.’
They export drugs, allom, brimstone, carpets and horses in
exchange for guns, piece goods, pepper and rice and re-export
ivory from Mozambique whither they send an annual fleet.
However Cornwall did not like cither the people who are
‘little better than Pirates, fiery and treacherous, making more
advantage by fraud, cheating and pilfering, than by fair
trading, which makes this Port very dangerous and incon­
venient for Strangers, and I would advise every trader that
comes hither to have all his Eye-Teeth about-him*, or the
place for ‘The Air here is very hot, unwholesome, and
unpleasant, the Water but indifferent, and all Provisions
except Filth, dear and scarce.’
1758 IVES, Edward, A Voyage from England to India, London,
1773, 197. The people are civilised and pro-British as a result
of trading with Bombay.
1765 NIEBUHR, Carsten, Travels through Arabia, Edinburgh,
1792, ii, 113-25. Gives a hearsay and inaccurate history. The
revenue is about 100,000 rupees, it could be very prosperous
with an enlightened government. The Omanis are the best