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SOUTHERN ARABIA
[Illustration: Lafayette, photo.
Walker & Boutall ph. sc.
[Signature: Theodore Bent]
London. Published by Smith, Elder & Co. 15, Waterloo Place.]
SOUTHERN ARABIA
BY
THEODORE BENT, F.R.G.S., F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF
'THE RUINED CITIES OF MASHONALAND' 'THE SACRED CITY OF THE ETHIOPIANS'
'THE CYCLADES, OR LIFE AMONG THE INSULAR GREEKS' ETC.
AND
MRS THEODORE BENT
_WITH A PORTRAIT, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATION_
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1900
[All rights reserved]
PREFACE
If my fellow-traveller had lived, he intended to have put together in
book form such information as we had gathered about Southern Arabia. Now,
as he died four days after our return from our last journey there, I have
had to undertake the task myself. It has been very sad to me, but I have
been helped by knowing that, however imperfect this book may be, what is
written here will surely be a help to those who, by following in our
footsteps, will be able to get beyond them, and to whom I so heartily
wish success and a Happy Home-coming, the best wish a traveller may have.
It is for their information that I have included so many things about the
price of camels, the payment of soldiers and so forth, and yet even
casual readers may care to know these details of explorers' daily lives.
Much that is set down here has been published before, but a good deal is
new.
My husband had written several articles in the _Nineteenth Century_, and
by the kindness of the editor I have been able to make use of these; also
I have incorporated the lectures he had given before the Royal
Geographical Society and the British Association. The rest is from his
note-books and from the 'Chronicles' that I always wrote during our
journeys.
I thought at first of trying to keep our several writings apart; but, to
avoid confusion of inverted commas, I decided, acting on advice, just to
put the whole thing into as consecutive a form as possible, only saying
that the least part of the writing is mine.
The bibliography is far from complete, as I can name only a few of the
many books that my husband consulted on all the districts round those
which we were going to penetrate.
As to the spelling of the Arabic, it must be remembered that it is a very
widely spread language, and there are naturally many different forms of
the same word--_e.g. ibn_, _ben_, _bin_--and such very various ways of
pronouncing the name of the Moslem prophet, that I have heard it
pronounced Memet, Mamad and Mad.
I must give hearty thanks in both our names to all who helped us on in
these journeys, and especially to Mr. Headlam, who has given me much
assistance by going through the proofs of this book. Mr. W. C. Irvine has
kindly provided the column of literary Arabic for the vocabulary.
MABEL VIRGINIA ANNA BENT.
13 Great Cumberland Place, W:
_October 13, 1899_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Bibliography ix
SOUTHERN ARABIA
chapter
I. Manamah and Moharek 1
II. The Mounds of Ali 16
III. Our Visit to Rufa'a 30
MASKAT
IV. Some Historical Facts about Oman 45
V. Maskat and the Outskirts 63
THE HADHRAMOUT
VI. Makalla 71
VII. Our Departure into the Interior 81
VIII. The Akaba 88
IX. Through Wadi Kasr 98
X. Our Sojourn at Koton 111
XI. The Wadi Ser and Kabr Saleh 126
XII. The City of Shibahm 142
XIII. Farewell to the Sultan of Shibahm 162
XIV. Harassed by our Guides 177
XV. Retribution for our Foes 199
XVI. Coasting Eastward by Land 210
XVII. Coasting Westward by Sea 220
DHOFAR AND THE GARA MOUNTAINS
XVIII. Merbat and Al Hafa 227
XIX. The Gara Tribe 244
XX. The Gara Mountains 256
XXI. The Identification of Abyssapolis 268
XXII. Sailing from Kosseir to Aden 277
AN AFRICAN INTERLUDE: THE EASTERN SOUDAN
XXIII. Coasting along the Red Sea 287
XXIV. Halaib and Sawakin Kadim 298
XXV. Inland from Mersa Halaib 303
XXVI. Mohammed Gol 309
XXVII. 'Dancing on Tom Tiddler's Ground, Picking up Gold' 313
XXVIII. Behind the Jebel Erba 327
THE MAHRI ISLAND OF SOKOTRA
XXIX. Kalenzia 343
XXX. Eriosh and Kadhoup 353
XXXI. Tamarida or Hadibo 361
XXXII. We Depart for the Land's End, _i.e._ Ras Momi 371
XXXIII. Mount Haghier and Fereghet 378
XXXIV. Back to the Ocean 390
BELED FADHLI AND BELED YAFEI
XXXV. Experiences with the Yafei Sultan 399
XXXVI. Among the Fadhli 412
XXXVII. From the Plain of Mis'hal to the Sea 421
Appendices 431
Index 451
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abu'lfida Ismael ibn Ali Imad ed din, Prince or King of
Hamar.--_Géographie d'Aboulfida_, traduite de l'Arabe et accompagnée de
notes et d'éclaircissements par M. Reinaud, par M. S. Guyard. Paris,
1848-83.
Baros, João de.--_Dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram_. 1778-80.
Binning, Robert.--_A Journal of Two Years' Travel in Persia, Ceylon, &c._
1857.
Bunbury, Sir E. H.--_Ancient Geography among the Greeks and Romans_.
1879.
Cartas de Alfonzo de Albuquerque.--_Commentaries of Albuquerque_, Hakluyt
Society, translated by W. de G. Birch. 1875.
Carter, Dr.--_Paper in the Journal of the Asiatic Society_. Bombay
branch.
Chabas, Joseph.--_Les Inscriptions des Mines d'or_. 1862.
Correa, Gaspar.--_Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama_. Hakluyt Society, 1869.
Fernan Lopes de la Castanbeda.--_Historia do descubrimento e conquista da
India pe los Portugueses_. Lisbon, 1833.
Glaser, Eduard.--_Skizze der Geschichte der Geographie Süd-Arabiens_.
Berlin, 1890.
Goeje, J. de.--_Bibliotheca geographicorum Arabicorum_. 1870-85.
_Mémoires d'histoire et de géographie orientales_. 2nd edition, 1886.
_Helps to the Study of the Bible_.
Hommel, Fritz--_Süd-Arabische Chrestomathie und Minæo-Sabäischen
Grammatik_. München, 1893.
_India Directory_, Part I. 1874.
Miles, Colonel.--_Report of the Administration of the Persian Gulf
Residency_, 1884-88. _Journey through Oman and Dhakrireh_. Blue Book,
ccxx.
Muhamad ibn Muhamad, _Geographie d'Edrisi_.--Traduite de l'Arabe. Paris,
1836-40.
Muhammad ibn Abdallah, called Ibn Batuta.
Muhammad ibn Muhammad.--_Geographia Nubiensis_, 1619, 4º.
Müller, D. H.--_Epigraphische Denkmäler aus Arabien_ (Denkschriften der
K.K. Ak. der Wissenschaften Wien). _Phil. Hist._ Cl. 37, 1894.
_Himyarische Studien_ (Z. D. M., § 30). 1870.
Palgrave, W. G.--_Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central Eastern
Arabia_. 1865.
Pollak, Dr. J. E.--_Das Land und seine Bewohner_. 1865.
Sprenger Aloys.--_Bürger und Schlösser Süd-Arabiens. Die Alte Geographie
Arabiens_.
Vincent, W.--_The Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian
Ocean_. 1886.
Wellsted, Lieut.--_Visit to Dhofar in the 'Philomel.'_ 1883. _Rough notes
of a visit to Nakhl and Jebel Akhdar_.
Ali Ibn al Husain, El Masudi, Abu al Hasan, Diodoros, Marco Polo, Sir
John Maundeville, Pliny, the _Periplus_, Strabo, Ebn Said, Ptolemy, and
others; but, as many of these names have been copied by me from rough
notes of my husband's, I cannot be certain about the editions. I hope the
imperfections of this bibliography will be excused.
ILLUSTRATIONS
A Mosque at Manamah, Bahrein _to face p._ 3
Theodore Bent Receiving Visitors at the Mounds, Bahrein 24
The Interior of Sheikh Saba's House at Rufa'a, Bahrein 34
The Castle of the Sultan of Shibahm at Al Koton 110
The Castle of the Sultan of Makalla at Shibahm 125
A Sabæan Altar 145
A Gara Forge 247
The Abyss of Abyssapolis, Dhofar 271
Elba Mountains From Shellal 304
Flute-Players in the Wadi Koukout, Soudan 337
The Plain of Eriosh, Sokotra 354
Theodore Bent making the Vocabulary at Fereghet 365
Vegetation in Sokotra 379
The Breakwater at Fereghet 383
Dragon's-Blood Trees at Yehazahaz 387
The Haghier Mountains from Suk 394
Castle at Kanfar 402
Dirgheg 408
Old Na'ab 413
Fadhli at Shariah, Wadi Reban, with Curious Sandal 418
Village of Mis'hal 421
Plain of Mis'hal and Aòdeli Tribe 425
Fragment of Alabasteroid Limestone 435
Sabæan Antiquities 436
MAPS
Arabia, showing the Routes of Mr. J. Theodore Bent _to face p._ xii
Hadramut 70
Dhofar and the Gara-Range 226
Mount Erba and Surrounding Country 286
Sokotra 342
The Fadhli Country, South Arabia 400
[Illustration: Map of ARABIA
showing the routes of
M^r. J. THEODORE BENT.
Stanford's Geog.^l Estab.^t, London
London: Smith, Elder & Co.]
SOUTHERN ARABIA
CHAPTER I
MANAMAH AND MOHAREK
The first Arabian journey that we undertook was in 1889, when we visited
the Islands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf; we were attracted by stories
of mysterious mounds, and we proposed to see what we could find inside
them, hoping, as turned out to be the fact, that we should discover
traces of Phoenician remains.
The search for traces of an old world takes an excavator now and again
into strange corners of the new. Out of the ground he may extract
treasures, or he may not--that is not our point here--out of the
inhabitants and their strange ways he is sure, whether he likes it or
not, to extract a great deal, and it is with this branch of an
excavator's life we are now going to deal.
We thought we were on the track of Phoenician remains and our interest
in our work was like the fingers of an aneroid, subject to sudden
changes, but at the same time we had perpetually around us a quaint,
unknown world of the present, more pleasing to most people than anything
pertaining to the past.
The group of islands known as Bahrein (dual form of Bahr, _i.e._ two
seas) lies in a bay of the same name in the Persian Gulf, about twenty
miles off the coast of El Hasa in Arabia.
Bahrein is really the name of the largest of the islands, which is
twenty-seven miles long by ten wide. The second in point of size is
Moharek, which lies north of Bahrein, and is separated from it by a
strait of horse-shoe form, five miles in length, and in a few places as
much as a mile wide, but for the greater part half a mile.
The rest of the group are mere rocks: Sitrah, four miles long, with a
village on it of the same name; Nebi Saleh, Sayeh, Khaseifa, and, to the
east of Moharek, Arad, with a palm-grove and a large double Portuguese
fort, an island or a peninsula according to the state of the tide.
It was no use embarking on a steamer which would take us direct from
England to our destination, owing to the complete uncertainty of the time
when we should arrive, so we planned out our way _viâ_ Karachi and
Maskat; then we had to go right up to Bushire, and again change steamers
there, for the boats going up the Gulf would not touch at Bahrein. At
Bushire we engaged five Persians to act as servants, interpreter, and
overseers over the workmen whom we should employ in excavating.
We had as our personal servant and interpreter combined a very dirty
Hadji Abdullah, half Persian, half Arab. He was the best to be obtained,
and his English was decidedly faulty. He always said _mules_ for meals,
_foals_ for fowls, and any one who heard him say 'What time you eat your
mules to-day, Sahib?' 'I have boiled two foals for dinner,' or 'Mem
Sahib, now I go in bazaar to buy our perwisions of grub,' or 'What place
I give you your grub, Mem Sahib?' would have been surprised.
He had been a great deal on our men-of-war; he also took a present of
horses from the Sultan of Maskat to the Queen, so that he could boast 'I
been to Home,' and alluded to his stay in England as 'when I was in
Home.'
Abdullah always says _chuck_ and never _throw_; and people unused to
him would not take in that 'Those peacock no good, carboys much better,'
referred to pickaxes and crowbars.
[Illustration: A MOSQUE AT MANAMAH, BAHREIN]
He used to come to the diggings and say: 'A couble of Sheikhs come here
in camp, Sahib. I am standing them some coffee; shall I stand them some
mixed biscuits, too?'
I must say I pity foreigners who have to trust to interpreters whose only
European language is such English as this.
With the whole of our party we embarked on the steamer which took us to
Bahrein, or rather as close as it could approach; for, owing to the
shallowness of the sea, while still far from shore we were placed in a
baggala in which we sailed for about twenty minutes. Then when a smaller
boat had conveyed us as near to the dry land as possible, we were in
mid-ocean transferred, bag and baggage, to asses, those lovely white
asses of Bahrein with tails and manes dyed yellow with henna, and
grotesque patterns illuminating their flanks; we had no reins or
stirrups, and as the asses, though more intelligent than our own, will
not unfrequently show obstinacy in the water, the rider, firmly grasping
his pommel, reaches with thankfulness the slimy, oozy beach of Bahrein.
Manamah is the name of the town at which you land; it is the commercial
capital of the islands--just a streak of white houses and bamboo huts,
extending about a mile and a half along the shore. A few mosques with low
minarets may be seen, having stone steps up one side, by which the priest
ascends for the call to prayer. These mosques and the towers of the
richer pearl merchants show some decided architectural features, having
arches of the Saracenic order, with fretwork of plaster and quaint stucco
patterns.
On landing we were at once surrounded by a jabbering crowd of negro
slaves, and stately Arabs with long, flowing robes and twisted
camel-hair cords (akkal) around their heads.
Our home while in the town was one of the best of the battlemented
towers, and consisted of a room sixteen feet square, on a stone platform.
It had twenty-six windows with no glass in them, but pretty lattice of
plaster. Our wooden lock was highly decorated, and we had a wooden key to
close our door, which pleased us much. Even though we were close upon the
tropics we found our abode chilly enough after sunset; and our nights
were rendered hideous--firstly, by the barking of dogs; secondly, by
cocks which crowed at an inordinately early hour; and, thirdly, by pious
Mussulmans hard at work praying before the sun rose.
From our elevated position we could look down into a sea of bamboo huts,
the habitations of the pearl-fishers: neat enough abodes, with courtyards
paved with helix shells. In these courtyards stood quaint, large
water-jars, which women filled from goat-skins carried on their shoulders
from the wells, wobbling when full like live headless animals; and
cradles, like hencoops, for their babies. They were a merry idle lot of
folk just then, for it was not their season of work: perpetually playing
games (of which tip-jack and top-spinning appeared the favourite for both
young and old) seemed to be their chief occupation. Staid Arabs, with
turbans and long, flowing robes, spinning tops, formed a sight of which
we never tired. The spinning-tops are made out of whelk-shells, which I
really believe must have been the original pattern from which our
domestic toy was made. The door-posts of their huts are often made of
whales' jaws; a great traffic is done in sharks; the cases for their
swords and daggers are all of shagreen. The gulf well deserves the name
given to it by Ptolemy of the _Ichthyophagorum sinus_.
Walking through the bazaars one is much struck by the quaint, huge iron
locks, some of them with keys nearly two feet long, and ingeniously
opened by pressure of a spring. In the commoner houses the locks and keys
are all of wood. In the bazaars, too, you may find that queer El Hasa
money called Tawilah, or 'long bits,' short bars of copper doubled back
and compressed together, with a few characters indicating the prince who
struck them.
The coffee-pots of Bahrein are quite a specialty, also coming from El
Hasa, which appears to be the centre of art in this part of Arabia. With
their long beak-like spouts and concentric circles with patterns on them,
these coffee-pots are a distinct feature. In the bazaars of Manamah and
Moharek coffee-vendors sit at every corner with some huge pots of a
similar shape simmering on the embers; in the lid are introduced stones
to make a noise and attract the attention of the passers-by. Coffee-shops
take the place of spirit and wine shops, which in the strict Wahabi
country would not be, for a moment, tolerated. In private houses it is
thought well to have four or five coffee-pots standing round the fire, to
give an appearance of riches.
Besides the coffee-pots, other objects of El Hasa workmanship may be seen
in Bahrein. Every household of respectability has its wooden bowl with
which to offer visitors a drink of water or sour milk; these are
beautifully inlaid with silver in very elaborate patterns. The guns used
by Bahreini sportsmen are similarly inlaid, and the camel saddles of the
sheikhs are most beautifully decorated on the pommels in the same style.
The anvils, at which the blacksmiths in the bazaars were squatting, were
like large nails with heads about six inches square, driven into the
ground and about a foot high.
The old weapons of the Bedouin Arabs are still in use in Bahrein: the
long lance which is put up before the tent of the chief when he goes
about, the shield of camel-skin decorated with gold paint and brass
knobs, the coat of mail, and other objects of warfare used in an age long
gone by. Every other stall has dates to sell in thick masses, the chief
food of the islanders. Then you may see locusts pressed and pickled in
barrels; the poorer inhabitants are very fond of this diet, and have
converted the curse of the cultivator into a favourite delicacy. As for
weights, the stall-holders would appear to have none but stones, whelk
shells, and potsherds, which must be hard to regulate.
An ancient Arab author states that in Oman 'men obtain fire from a spark,
by rolling the tinder in dry Arab grass and swinging it round till it
bursts into flame.' We often saw this process and bought one of the
little cages, hanging to a long chain, which they use in Bahrein.
Of course pearl-fishing is the great occupation of the islands, and
Manamah is inhabited chiefly by pearl merchants and divers. Bahrein has
in fact been celebrated for its pearl-fishing ever since the days of the
Periplus of Nearchus, in the time of Alexander the Great.
Albuquerque, in his commentaries,[1] thus speaks of Bahrein pearl-fishing
in 1510:--'Bahrein is noted for its large breeding of horses, its barley
crops, and the variety of its fruits; and all around it are the fishing
grounds of seed pearls, and of pearls which are sent to these realms of
Portugal, for they are better and more lasting than any that are found in
any other of these parts.' This is also the verdict of the modern pearl
merchants, who value Bahrein pearls, as more lasting and harder than
those even of Ceylon. Evidently Albuquerque got an order from his
sovereign for pearls, for he writes,[2] in 1515, that he is getting the
pearls which the king had ordered for 'the pontifical of our lady.' To
this day in their dealings the pearl merchants of Bahrein still make use
of the old Portuguese weights and names.
The pearl oyster is found in all the waters from Ras Mussendom to the
head of the Gulf, but on the Persian side there are no known banks of
value. They vary in distance from one to ninety miles from the low-lying
shore of 'Araby the Blest,' but the deep sea banks are not so much fished
till the 'Shemal' or nor'westers of June have spent their force. The
three seasons for fishing are known as 'the spring fishing' in the
shallow water, 'the summer fishing' in the deep waters, and 'the winter
fishing' conducted principally by wading in the shoals. The pearls of
these seas are still celebrated for their firmness, and do not peel. They
are commonly reported to lose one per cent. annually for fifty years in
colour and water, but after that they remain the same. They have seven
skins, whereas the Cingalese pearls have only six. The merchants
generally buy them wholesale by the old Portuguese weight of the _chao_.
They divide them into different sizes with sieves and sell them in India,
so that, as is usually the case with specialties, it is impossible to buy
a good pearl on Bahrein.
Diving here is exceedingly primitive; all the necessary paraphernalia
consists of a loop of rope and a stone to go down with, a curious horn
thing to hold the nose, and oil for the orifice of the ears. Once a
merchant brought with him a diving apparatus, but the divers were highly
indignant, and leaguing against him refused to show the best banks. In
this way the fisheries suffer, for the best pearls are in the deeper
waters, which can only be visited late in the season. The divers are
mostly negro slaves from Africa; they do not live long, poor creatures,
developing awful sores and weak eyes, and they live and die entirely
without medical aid.
At present the pearl-fisheries employ about four hundred boats of from
eight to twenty men each. Each boat pays a tax to the sheikh. The fishing
season lasts from April to October.
Very curious boats ply in the waters between Manamah and Moharek; the
huge ungainly baggalas can only sail in the deeper channels. The Bahrein
boats have very long-pointed prows, elegantly carved and decorated with
shells; when the wind is contrary they are propelled by poles or paddles,
consisting of boards of any shape tied to the end of the poles with
twine, and the oarsman always seats himself on the gunwale.
Perhaps the way these boats are tied and sewn together may have given
rise to the legend alluded to by Sir John Maundeville when he saw them at
the Isle of Hormuz. 'Near that isle there are ships without nails of iron
or bonds, on account of the rocks of adamants (loadstones), for they are
all abundant there in that sea that it is marvellous to speak of, and if
a ship passed there that had iron bonds or iron nails it would perish,
for the adamant, by its nature, draws iron to it, and so it would draw
the ship that it should never depart from it.'
Many of the boats have curious-shaped stone anchors, and water casks of
uniform and doubtless old-world shape. The sheikh has some fine war
vessels, called _batils_, which did good execution about fifty years ago,
when the Sultan of Oman and the rulers of El Hasa tried to seize Bahrein,
and a naval battle took place in the shallow sea off the coast in which
the Bahreini were victorious. Now that the Gulf is practically English
and piracy at an end, these vessels are more ornamental than useful. His
large baggala, which mounted ten tiny guns and was named the _Dunijah_,
is now employed in trade.
Then there are the bamboo skiffs with decks almost flush with the side,
requiring great skill in working. Boats are really of but little use
immediately around the islands. You see men walking in the sea quite a
mile out, collecting shellfish and seaweeds, which form a staple diet for
both man and beast on Bahrein.
The shallowness of the sea between Bahrein and the mainland has
contributed considerably to the geographical and mercantile importance of
the Bahrein. No big vessels can approach the opposite coast of Arabia;
hence, in olden days, when the caravan trade passed this way, all goods
must have been transhipped to smaller boats at Bahrein.
Sir M. Durant, in a consular report, states it as his opinion that,
'under a settled government, Bahrein could be the trading place of the
Persian Gulf for Persia and Arabia, and an excellent harbour near the
warehouses could be formed.'
If the Euphrates Valley Railway had ever been opened, if the terminus of
this railway had been at Koweit, as it was proposed by the party of
survey under the command of Admiral Charlewood and General Chesney, the
Bahrein group would at once have sprung into importance as offering a
safe emporium in the immediate vicinity of this terminus. Bahrein is the
Cyprus of the Persian Gulf, in fact. This day is, however, postponed
indefinitely until such times as England, Turkey, and Russia shall see
fit to settle their differences; and with a better understanding between
these Powers, and the development of railways in the East, the Persian
Gulf may yet once more become a high road of commerce, and the Bahrein
Islands may again come into notice.
The Portuguese, who were the first Europeans after the time of Alexander
to visit the Gulf, recognised the importance of Bahrein. Up to their time
the Gulf had been a closed Mohammedan lake. The history of their rule in
that part has yet to be written, but it will disclose a tale of great
interest, and be a record of marvellous commercial enterprise. It was
Albuquerque who first reopened the Gulf to Europeans.
Early in the sixteenth century (1504), he urged the occupation of the
Gulf. In 1506 three fleets went to the East under the command of Tristan
d'Acunha, with Albuquerque as second in command. Tristan soon took his
departure further afield, and left Albuquerque in command. This admiral
first attacked and took Hormuz, then governed by a king of Persian
origin. Here, and at Maskat, he thoroughly established the Portuguese
power, thereby commanding the entrance into the Gulf. From de Barros'
account it would appear that the king of Bahrein was a tributary of the
king of Hormuz, paying annually 40,000 _pardaos_, and from Albuquerque's
letters we read that the occupation of Bahrein formed part of his scheme.
'With Hormuz and Bahrein in their hand the whole Gulf would be under
their control,' he wrote. In fact, Albuquerque's scheme at that time
would appear to have been exceedingly vast and rather chimerical--namely,
to divert the Nile from its course and let it flow into the Red Sea, ruin
Egypt, and bring the India trade _viâ_ the Persian Gulf to Europe. Of
this scheme we have only the outline, but, beyond establishing fortresses
in the Gulf, it fell through, for Albuquerque died, and with him his
gigantic projects.
The exact date of the occupation of Bahrein by the Portuguese I have as
yet been unable to discover; but in 1521 we read of an Arab insurrection
in Bahrein against the Persians and Portuguese, in which the Portuguese
factor, Ruy Bale, was tortured and crucified.
Sheikh Hussein bin Said, of the Arabian tribe of Ben Zabia, was the
instigator of this revolt. In the following year the Portuguese governor,
Dom Luis de Menezes, came to terms with him, and appointed him
Portuguese representative in the island.
A few years later, one Ras Bardadim, _guazil_, or governor of Bahrein,
made himself objectionable, and against him Simeon d'Acunha was sent. He
and many of his men died of fever in the expedition, but the Portuguese
power was again restored.
Towards the close of the sixteenth century the Portuguese came under the
rule of Spain, and from that date their power in the Persian Gulf began
to wane. Their soldiers were drafted off to the wars in Flanders instead
of going to the East to protect the colonies; and the final blow came in
1622, when Shah Abbas of Persia, assisted by an English fleet, took
Hormuz, and then Bahrein. Twenty years later a company of Portuguese
merchants, eager for the pearls of these islands, organised an expedition
from Goa to recover the Bahrein, but the ships were taken and plundered
by the Arabs before ever they entered the Gulf.
Thus fell the great Portuguese power in the Gulf, the sole traces of
which now are the numerous fortresses, such as the one on Bahrein.
From 1622 to the present time the control over Bahrein has been contested
between the Persians and Arabs, and as the Persian power has been on the
wane, the Arabian star has been in the ascendent. In 1711 the Sultan bin
Seif wrested Bahrein from Persia; in 1784 the Uttubbi of El Hasa
conquered it. They have held it ever since, despite the attempts of Seyid
Said of Oman, of the Turks and Persians, to take it from them. The Turks
have, however, succeeded in driving them out of their original kingdom of
El Hasa, on the mainland of Arabia opposite, and now the Bahrein is all
that remains to them of their former extensive territories.
The royal family is a numerous one, being a branch of the El Khalifa
tribe. They are the chiefs of the Uttubbi tribe of Arabs.
Most of them, if not actually belonging to that strict sect of Arabians
known as Wahabi, have strong puritanical proclivities. Our teetotalers
are nothing to them in bigotry. If a vendor of intoxicating liquor
started a shop on Bahrein, they would burn his house down, so that the
wicked who want to drink any intoxicating liquor have to buy the material
secretly from ships in the harbour. Many think it wrong to smoke, and
spend their lives in prayer and fasting. Church decoration is an
abomination to the Wahabi; therefore, in Bahrein the mosques are little
better than barns with low minarets, for the very tall ones of other
Mohammedan sects are forbidden. The Wahabi are fanatics of the deepest
dye; 'there is one God, and Mohammed is his prophet,' they say with the
rest of the Mohammedan world, but the followers of Abdul Wahab add, 'and
in no case must Mohammed and the Imams be worshipped lest glory be
detracted from God.' All titles to them are odious; no grand tombs are to
be erected over their dead, no mourning is allowed; hence the cemetery at
Manamah is but a pitiful place--a vast collection of circles set with
rough stones, each with a small uninscribed headpiece, and the surface
sprinkled with helix shells.
The Wahabi would wage, if they dared, perpetual war not only against the
infidel, but against such perverted individuals as those who go to
worship at Mecca and other sacred shrines. The founder of this revival is
reported to have beaten his sons to death for drinking wine, and to have
made his daughters support themselves by spinning, but at the same time
he felt himself entitled to give to a fanatical follower, who courted
death for his sake, an order for an emerald palace and a large number of
female slaves in the world to come.
In 1867 the Shah of Persia aimed at acquiring Bahrein, though his only
claim to it was based on the fact that Bahrein had been an appanage of
the Persian crown under the Suffavian kings. He instituted a revolt on
the island; adopted a claimant to the sheikhdom, and got him to hoist the
Persian flag. Our ships blockaded Bahrein, intercepted letters, and
obliged the rebel sheikh to quit. Then it was that we took the islands
under our protection. In 1875 the Turks caused trouble, and the
occupation of Bahrein formed part of their great scheme of conquest in
Arabia. Our ship the _Osprey_ appeared on the scene, drove back the
Turks, transported to India several sheikhs who were hostile to the
English rule, and placed Sheikh Isa (or Esau) on the throne under British
protection, under which he rules happily to this day.
We went to see him at Moharek, where he holds his court in the
winter-time. We crossed over in a small baggala, and had to be poled for
a great distance with our keel perpetually grating on the bottom. It was
like driving in a carriage on a jolting road; the donkeys trotted
independently across, their legs quite covered with water. We were glad
when they came alongside, and we completed our journey on their backs.
The courtyard of the palace, which somewhat recalls the Alhambra in its
architecture, was, when we arrived, crowded with Arab chiefs in all
manner of quaint costumes. His majesty's dress was exceedingly fine. He
and his family are entitled to wear their camel-hair bands bound round
with gold thread. These looked very regal over the red turban, and his
long black coat, with his silver-studded sword by his side, made him look
every inch a king.
He is most submissive to British interests, inasmuch as his immediate
predecessors who did not love England were shipped off to India, and
still languish there in exile; as he owes his throne entirely to British
protection, he and his family will probably continue to reign as long as
the English are virtual owners of the Gulf, if they are willing to submit
to the English protectorate.
We got a photograph of a group of them resting on their guns, and with
their kanjars or sickle-shaped daggers at their waists. We took Prince
Mohamed, the heir-apparent, and the stout Seid bin Omar, the prime
minister of Bahrein. But Sheikh Esau refused to place his august person
within reach of our camera.
During our visit we were seated on high arm-chairs of the kind so much
used in India, and the only kind used here. They were white and hoary
with old age and long estrangement from furniture polish. For our sins we
had to drink the bitterest black coffee imaginable, which tasted like
varnish from the bitter seeds infused in it; this was followed by cups of
sweet syrup flavoured with cinnamon, a disagreeable custom to those
accustomed to take their coffee and sugar together.
Moharek is aristocratic, being the seat of government; Manamah is
essentially commercial, and between them in the sea is a huge dismantled
Portuguese fort, now used as Sheikh Esau's stables.
The town of Moharek gets its water supply from a curious source,
springing up from under the sea. At high tide there is about a fathom of
salt water over the spring, and water is brought up either by divers who
go down with skins, or by pushing a hollow bamboo down into it. At low
tide there is very little water over it, and women with large amphora and
goat-skins wade out and fetch what water they require; they tell me that
the spring comes up with such force that it drives back the salt water
and never gets impregnated. All I can answer for is that the water is
excellent to drink.
This source is called Bir Mahab, and there are several of a similar
nature on the coast around: the Kaseifah spring and others. There is such
a spring in the harbour of Syracuse, about twenty feet under the sea.
The legend is that in the time of Merwan, a chief, Ibn Hakim, from Katif,
wished to marry the lovely daughter of a Bahrein chief. His suit was not
acceptable, so he made war on the islands and captured all the wells
which supplied the towns on the bigger island; but the guardian deity of
the Bahreini caused this spring to break out in the sea just before
Moharek, and the invader was thus in time repulsed. It is a curious fact
that Arados or Arvad, the Phoenician town on the Mediterranean, was
supplied by a similar submarine source.
Sheikh Esau's representative at Manamah--his prime minister or viceroy,
we should call him, though he is usually known there by the
humble-sounding title of the 'bazaar master,' by name Seid bin Omar, is a
very stout and nearly black individual, with a European cast of
countenance. He looked exceedingly grand when he came to see us, in his
under-robe of scarlet cloth, with a cloak of rustling and stiff white
wool with a little red woven in it. Over his head floated a white
cashmere shawl, with the usual camel-hair rings to keep it on, and
sandals on his bare feet. He was deputed by his sovereign to look after
us, and during the fortnight we were on the island he never left us for a
single day. Though outwardly very strict in his asceticism, and
constantly apt to say his prayers with his nose in the dust at
inconvenient moments, we found him by no means averse to a cigarette in
the strictest privacy, and we learnt that his private life would not bear
European investigation. He is constantly getting married. Though sixty
years of age he had a young bride of a few weeks' standing. I was assured
that he would soon tire of her and put her away. Even in polygamous
Arabia he is looked upon as a much-married man.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: P. 164.]
[Footnote 2: P. 328.]