Page 166 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

156 Arabian Studies IV
in Birks (see above). He quoted Miles as estimating the
population of Oman as 1 or U million, with 20,000 in Muscat
and 30,000 in Muttrah. Omani fishermen go as far as
Comorin and Mauritius. There arc about 6,000 boats working
in the Gulf, catching 160,000 tons anually. The local Arabs
are better looking than the Adenis, frank and tolerant, and
might well listen to the Gospel.
1889 BENT, Theodore, Southern Arabia, London, 1900, 45-70,
and Geog. J.t VIII, 1896, Aug., 110-13 and Contemporary
Review, XVIII, 1895, Dec., 871-83, which adds nothing. He
was received by the Sultan who wore a turban like a
housemaid’s duster and a faded cloak. The palace had a
formidable door with spikes of brass and inside were two
cages, one containing a lion and one containing a prisoner.
He had to climb to a gallery where the Sultan had a red chair
which served as a throne and some cane-bottomed chairs
around the wall. The room, overlooking the sea, was
decorated with grotesque pictures of Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert that could have been bought for a penny. The
Sultan threw criminals to the lion while others were cut up
and thrown into the sea. Sultan Turki had recently been
rebuked by the Resident for sewing up a woman in a sack.
Fifty years ago the population was three times greater, but the
coming of steamers has reduced Muscat to its natural level as
a date-exporting harbour. There are few architectural
attractions and ‘its aspect is one of squalor and dirt; few more
unhealthy places could be found in the world’. There are a
few fine carved doors and mosques are recognizable by
having a bell-shaped cone about four feet high instead of a
minaret. Much of the town is in ruins and three walls of the
old cathedral still stand, with the interior used as a stable. The
Sultan distributes two meals a day to the poor. The harbour is
full of brightly coloured canoes and fishermen on planks. In
the northern comer there are large dhows. The shore stinks
horribly, and at low tide is covered with refuse and offal from
which the fish feed at high tide while the beach is white with
gulls feeding upon them. The Sultan had created an ice
factory but this was now closed. He had recently struck
J-annas with pictures of the forts but had been discouraged
from having his own stamps. Tobacco and coffee were freely
used and the people were very lax ‘in striking contrast to the
bigotry of the Hadhramaut’. The suq sold handsome daggers
with filigree silver, unusual iron locks with huge iron keys
often a foot in length, shark-skin and wooden shields. Some
women’s masks had been brought from Germany but rejected
as unorthodox. The suburbs were interesting with a bamboo
fish market which smelled vilely because of a stagnant pool
into which offal was thrown. The cove of Shaykh Jabar