Page 147 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

European Accounts of Muscat 137
Stayed 10 days without landing. He asked for a house but the
Sultan was away and .Cavaignac was told that no one else
could authorize this. The British had overwhelming influence
through their Surgeon-Consul and all the merchants
supported them. The Sultan was reputed to be able to raise
80,000 men but Cavaignac considered Muscat too disor­
ganized to be a useful ally.
There are further particulars of Cavaignac’s visit in Prcn-
tout, Henri, L’Isle dc France sous Decacn, Paris, 1901, 337.
There was a resident French renegade, Jussan, a bad
character from Bordeaux. The Governor, Sayf Muhammad
was mean, cunning and pro-British. There was also a man
named Shaykh Ah who was descended from Daher (sic),
Pasha of Acre who had been expelled by the notorious Jazzar,
and who had commanded Tippu Sahib’s cavalry against the
English. Cavaignac had reported that the Sultan was a minor
Bcduin chief and that it would be beneath the dignity of
France to send a more important envoy than the meanest
type of merchant.
1804 HULOT, quoted in Prentout, op.cit., 447-8. Left after two
days as the castles looked as if they were getting prepared to
fight him. He was given some water and some very poor rice
for which the people refused payment.
1809-11 SHAIK MANSUR, History of Seyd Said, London, 1819,
passim. ‘Shaik Mansur’ was an Italian, Vincenzo Maurizi. The
population was about 60,000 including 4,000 Banians, and a
few Jews but no Europeans. The Arabs make money by
bringing live fish to the Banians and get paid for throwing
them back in the sea. There are numerous merchants some
possessing millions of dollars. Most people keep their rags
together by wearing a leather belt which is often so tight that I
it causes a scar and is used for holding paper, inkstand and
knife. Even chiefs do not change their clothes more than once
a week, or to sleep: the rich have no sheets but lie on straw
mats. They amuse themselves by beating a drum, playing a
two-stringed guitar and blowing bagpipes. The Arabs are a
sober race, never fat and are not lazy but can be very good at i
monotonous jobs like boring pearls. Maurizi described a meal
with two stuffed lambs baked whole, 50 fowls and dolma
wrapped in beet leaf. After a meal they play rather childish
games. The Arabs are very hospitable and do not refuse to eat
with Christians but when the author had a black slave girl, he
had to dismiss her because she was always terrified that he
was going to eat her. There was a great fear of magicians who !
could turn a man into a goat and Maurizi’s servant was
addressed in Arabic by a goat in the suq. It might be possible
to go over-land to Jedda but the people believe that there are
cannibals on the other side of the mountains. Sayyid Said