Page 485 - Travels in Arabia (Vol 2)_Neat

m
I
453 m
452 SOUTHERN ARABIA.
SOUTHERN ARABIA. xMv0
[on. &•:
y.--
..jdJle of May. The weather is usually hazy, :?;•
applied to the eye, the pain is almost i i
mto- but neither heat nor cold so great as within
lerable. Several stems branch forth ->■
frora i
,l,e Arabian and Persian Gulfs. With the same I
the same family of roots, and they mostly BPS
the shores of Hindustan, and
divide at a short distance from the ground local features as
ft
into several branches. From the striking with the monsoon blowing also directly on it, #
- . . O it is singular the plains of one country should
disparity which exists between their height
be deluged with rain, while those of the other I
and diameter, and the scantiness of their
a cloudless sky, and suffer from •: •
foliage, when compared with their bulk, they experience
present the most singular and grotesque ap­ parching heat.
It remains to notice Dofar, Morebdt, and
pearance ; since many, not more than five
on
Kissin, rather because they have figured
feet high, cover at their base a greater extent
our maps as large towns, than any other claim
in diameter. I was not sufficiently fortunate
such miserable villages have in reality to
to see these trees in blossom, nor can I find
any mention of them in works within my reach. notice. Dofar is situated beneath a lofty
mountain; the country around is well culti-
The aloe grows on every part of the coast,
and although I do not perceive it differs from vated, and supplies of cattle and poultry may
that of Socotra, the Arabs rarely take the be obtained there. Morebat possesses a good

trouble to collect its juices. harbour, but the inhabitants in its neighbour­
hood are
Our own experience merely enables us to wild and inhospitable: a few years
speak of the climate of Southern Arabia, in ago they slew the celebrated Pirate Sayid

the north-east monsoon, which commences in Mohammed Akil, who had constructed a fort
the month of October, at first gently, and then and taken up his residence here, The few I
until the
increasing in strength by degrees remaining houses at Kissin are half buried in
be con- sand driven
middle of December, when it may there by winds from the desert,
sidered at its height. Afterwards its fo«e visited its Sheikh, Omar Ibn Tuari, styled
by
Gradually decreasing, takes off a ou nncient writers “ King of Furtak,” in
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