Page 161 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

European Accounts of Muscat 151
ladies in his harem, always sent boat-loads of fruit to British
ships.
1856 GOBINEAU, Comte A., Trois ans cn Asie, Paris, 1905,
83-102. The mountains look like the interior of a giant’s
sponge. The suq has French cloth as well as English and
jewels and amulets are made. The Jews have difficulty in
competing with the Banyans who seem absolutely at home:
on the main square by the palace they have their Bourse and
their sacred cows wander freely, their horns gilded, and
finding fodder put out for them at street corners. So as not to
offend them, the French had to embark a cow by night.
French five-franc coins circulate.
SHEPHERD, William Ashton, From Bombay to Bushire and
Bussora, London, 1857, 39-65. In the harbour he saw Muscat
Tom, a grampus who was believed to keep away sharks. Boats
came alongside offering fish for pennies. Halwah is made of
almonds, barley-sugar, butter and rose water boiled in a large
copper cauldron stirred by a slave. The officers were enter­
tained by Mahmud b. Coniise in a house decorated with
colour prints of race-horses and ballet girls, containing a large
libarary in English and French. He asked for alcohol and
announced that he was the official interpreter and had been
sent to London to congratulate Queen Victoria upon her
accession. (He was therefore the first Arabian Ambassador to
London, and his portrait was painted by Stephen Pearce and
exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1841. I have
attempted to trace this portrait, so far without success. R.B.)
1859 STIFFE, Lieut. Arthur, ‘A visit to the hot springs of Bosher’,
Journal of the Geog. Soc. of Bombay, XV, 1860, 123-7.
Visited in December. He put the population of Muttrah at
30,000 with an ex-slave as Governor. He reached it in a canoe
3 feet wide and 35 feet long, made from a single tree from
Malabar. Some hold 30 people. Bayt al-Falaj castle looks
impressive with a huge flag-pole but it is dilapidated and its
cannon unbelievably rusty. There are good wells at Rui, 50
feet deep with the top 20 lined with stone. Watair has a fine
building in Eastern style with stained glass windows and a
carved trellis which is the summer residence of the Sultan.
1861 BADGER, Rev. George Percy, History of the Imams and
Sayyids of Oman, Hakluyt Series, London, 1871, 7In. The
town is surrounded by a wall with two fortified gates and
eight towers mounting artillery. An inlet is about a mile long
and a quarter of a mile wide, defended towards the mouth by
a half-moon battery. There is a corresponding work on the
other side, a little lower down the creek. The forts are strongly
built and tolerably well-armed. Some of the guns are
Portuguese, and the writer saw one dated 1625.