Page 29 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

But news of the insult reached the army, and the Imam’s wife,
who was in her tent. Enraged by so gross an affront, she swore
by her ancestor the Prophet Mohammed that she would not set
foot outside her tent till Muscat was taken. She chided her hus­
band for taking the insult so calmly and urged him to action.
The army then threatened to mutiny unless they were allowed to
take their revenge, so the Imam gave way and ordered an attack
on the town. Muscat was besieged, the Omanis broke through
the defences, and great loss of life on both sides ensued: the small
forts were attacked and finally surrendered. Another writer sug­
gests that the Arabs were enabled to make an entry owing to the
treachery of an Indian merchant, whose daughter had been carried
off by the Portuguese. The big fort on the cliffs above the town,
into which the Governor had retired, held out for some months.
The Portuguese would have surrendered, but they could not
agree to the terms offered by the Arabs. The Governor, when
the situation became desperate, rather than fall into the hands of
the enemy, hurled himself down from the fortress on to the rocks
below, after which the garrison capitulated.
At the time of his visit, Hamilton says that the cathedral which
the Portuguese had built ‘still retains some marks of ancient
grandeur’ although it had been converted into a palace which the
Imam occupied for two or three months every year, spending the
rest of the year in the more salubrious parts of his territory. This
is still the custom of the Sultans of Muscat.
In 1652, a strong Portuguese fleet from Goa arrived off Muscat,
but retired without a fight in the face of a large Arab fleet. One
or two more ineffective attempts were made to retake Muscat,
but most of the Portuguese activities at sea consisted of piratical
attacks on vessels. A French Abbe describes how, on one occa­
sion, the Viceroy sent a fleet from Goa up the Gulf with strict
orders to the captain of the fleet that he should on no account
return unless he had retaken Muscat, an enterprise for which his
fleet was totally inadequate. He knew that the Viceroy was
jealous of him, and had, therefore, despatched him on a hopeless
mission. After the loss of Muscat, the only place held by the
Portuguese on the Persian coast was Kung. The Imam, not con­
tent with taking Muscat and encouraged by the apparent pusil­
lanimity of the Portuguese, followed up his victory by attacking
the Portuguese at Diu and Daman on the coast of India, carrying
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