Page 83 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

stature about five feet ten inches in height. He is well made and
well proportioned, with the most agreeable and polite manner of
any Arabian or Persian 1 have ever met with. His dress was a
white turban, plain, without ornament, a white camel hair robe,
not open in front, made in the form of a long shift. The robe
was bound round the waist with a sash of fine white muslin, in
which was stuck his yatagan (dagger), with a silver sheath and a
handle mounted with precious stones. His large, wide, white
trousers were of the same stuff. He had no covering on his feet
or ankles, but his toes were stuffed into a slight pair of brown
slippers.’ Said at this time was about twenty-seven years old,
and had been ruler for eleven or twelve years.
When Loch and his officers entered the room, ‘the Imam ad­
vanced a few steps, touching the points of the fingers of his right
hand with those of his left, raising his hand to his head, then
placing it on his left breast, stooping forward and uttering the
usual greeting: “salaam alcikum” and other salutations. After
some conversation concerning the pirates captured by the Eden,
he agreed to take charge of the prisoners, and to send them to
Bombay on board one of his ships. Just as we were about to
depart, a quantity of fruits, sweetmeats and sherbets were placed
on the table, and we were invited to partake. The grapes and
melons were most delicious, as excellent as those of Smyrna, the
pomegranates, like those of the Mediterranean, were hard, dry
and tasteless. Of the preserved fruits, the dates were the best, the
sherbets were delightfully cool and refreshing in that more than
oppressively hot place.’
After the visit, Loch and his party, escorted by a member of
the Sultan’s bodyguard, made a tour of the town and the bazaars
and looked at the ships in the bay. The Sultan’s navy, together
with the ships of his merchants, numbered between four and five
hundred vessels, ranging from ioo to 300 tons burden. He had
‘three remarkably fine frigates, and seven other armed ships’.
These, too, were used for trading on the infrequent occasions
when Muscat was not engaged in war. Much of Muscat’s trade
was with Mozambique and Zanzibar, whence her ships brought
slaves, ivory, gold dust and ambergris, which was exported to
Persia, to be mixed with tobacco as an aphrodisiac. Very occa­
sionally, ambergris was found off the coast of Muscat. Smaller
ships carried slaves, opium and cowry shells, which were re-
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