Page 78 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

CHAPTER VI

*’Tis moonlight over Oman’s sea: her banks of pearls and palmy isles
Bask in the night beam bcautiously, and her blue waters sleep in smiles,
! All’s hushed, there’s not a breeze in motion: the shore is silent as the ocean.
If zephyrs come, so light they come, nor leaf is stirred, nor wave is driven,
The wind tower on the Emir’s dome can scarcely win a breath from Heaven.’
LaUali Rookli: Thomas Moore - 1779-1852

‘At night we saw Muscat whose vast and horrid
mountains no shade but Heaven doth hide,
though they cover the city with a horrid one,
reflecting thence the heat, scorching 11s at sun
setting aboard the ship.’
A New Account of East-India and Persia: J. Fryer - 1698
T was New Year’s Eve, 1818, when the Eden witli her prizes
in tow, cast anchor in Muscat Cove in 9J fathoms of water,
which was so clear that the sea bottom could easily be seen.
‘A salute of 13 guns was fired, and returned from the forts, with
as great precision as any salute would have been fired in Europe.
The report of the guns reverberated from rock to rock in such a
manner that it might have been supposed that a gun was fired
I from every rock. The sound died away as the echoes receded
among the mountains.’
The view of Muscat town, as seen from the harbour, has hardly
changed since Loch first saw it from the deck of the Eden nearly
a century and a half ago. In Muscat there arc no large modern
buildings or blocks of European style flats like those which have
sprung up along the sea fronts of the oil-rich towns, completely
changing the appearance of the skylines. Loch’s description of
the dramatically arresting view from the harbour could be used
today without any alteration.
‘On first observing land, enormous black serrated mountains
present themselves to view. On nearing them, you perceive
smaller hills, thrown up in all possible shapes, as black as coal.
Drawing still nearer, you observe a number of islands, not far
from the beach. Continuing to sail along, close to the shore,
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