MERBAT AND AL HAFA
After returning from our expedition to the Hadhramout in 1894 we
determined the next winter to attempt the ambitious adventure of making a
journey overland right across Southern Arabia from Maskat to Aden. On our
way we hoped to revisit the Hadhramout, to explore those portions which
we had been compelled to leave unvisited the former winter, and so to
fill up the large blank space which still exists on the map of this
country. Experience taught us that our plan was impracticable; the only
possible way of making explorations in Arabia is to take it piecemeal, to
investigate each district separately, and by degrees to make a complete
map by patching together the results of a number of isolated expeditions.
Indeed, this is the only satisfactory way of seeing any country, for on a
great through journey the traveller generally loses the most interesting
details.
My husband again, to our great satisfaction, had Imam Sharif, Khan
Bahadur, placed at his disposal; and, as the longest way round was the
quickest and best, we determined to make our final preparations in India,
and meet him and his men at Karachi.
We left England at the beginning of November 1894, and at Aden, where we
were obliged to tranship, we picked up our camp furniture, which we had
deposited there on our return from Wadi Hadhramout.
Imam Sharif came on board to meet us at Karachi, and we also received a
letter inviting us to stay at Government House, where we were most kindly
entertained by Mrs. Pottinger, in the absence of her brother, Mr. James,
the Commissioner in Scinde. This was very delightful to us, as we had
already stayed in Reynolds's Hotel when on our way to Persia.
Matthaios had absolutely refused to come with us for fear we should carry
out our great wish of going to Bir Borhut, and indeed the very name of
'_Aravia_' was odious to him. Of course, being in India, we had to take
two men in his place, and accordingly engaged two Goanese, half
Portuguese: one Diego S. Anna Lobo, a little old man, as butler, and the
other, Domingo de Silva, as cook. The former could speak English and
Portuguese; the latter neither, only Hindustani. We took them back to
India with us the following spring, keeping Lobo as our servant during
the time of our stay there.
We had a calm and pleasant voyage of three days to Maskat with Captain
Whitehead on the B.I.S.N. steamer _Chanda_, arriving just in time to
escape a violent storm, which lasted for days, and in its commencement
prevented our landing at the usual place. We had to go round a little
promontory. There was also a good deal of rain, which cooled the air
considerably.
We were the guests of Colonel Hayes Sadler, in his hospitable Residency,
and he interested himself kindly in our affairs, giving us all the help
he could in our arrangements, as did also Dr. Jayaker, the Indian doctor.
We intended first of all to penetrate into the regions of the Jebel
Akhdar, and then to pass through the territory of the Jenefa tribe to
Ghubbet el Hashish, which takes its name not from land grass, but from
seaweed. There a boat was to meet us and take us westward; in this way we
should avoid a stretch of desert which the Bedouin themselves shrink
from, and which is impassable to Europeans. We could not procure any
information about our journey to the Jebel Akhdar, as it does not appear
to be the fashion at Maskat to go inland. However, both our old friend
the Sultan Feysul and Colonel Sadler took infinite trouble to arrange for
our journey; camels were hired and a horse for me, and the sheikhs of the
tribes through whose country we should have to pass were summoned to
escort us.
Owing, however, to the illness of some of our party, we were at the last
moment obliged to defer the expedition; though we had made all the
preparations we could for the great cold we should have to encounter, the
change of climate would have been injurious to Imam Sharif and two of his
men. As events proved it was fortunate we did so, for the insurrection
(which I have already mentioned) broke out almost immediately afterwards,
and in all probability we should not have returned alive to relate our
experiences.
We next determined to go by sea to Merbat, and thence explore the Dhofar
and Gara mountains. The sultan offered us the use of his _batil_, which
was preparing to go to Zenghiber, as they call Zanzibar. We found on
inspection that it was a small decked boat, with a very light upper deck
at the stern, supported by posts. They were busy smearing the ship with
fish oil. We were told it might be ready in three days, and we might take
seven days or more over the voyage. However, we were delivered from this
long voyage, for, unexpectedly, a steamer arrived most opportunely for
us.
As it was not the pilgrim season, and as there was no cholera about, we
ventured on this steamer, which is one of those that ply under the
Turkish flag between the Persian Gulf and Jedda. The captain was an
Armenian: in fact, all the steamers belonging to Turkey are run by
Armenian companies and manned by Armenian sailors. The captain of the
_Hodeida_ was not too exorbitant in his demand of 500 rupees to drop our
party at Merbat. The steward could fortunately speak Greek.
We left Maskat on Monday, December 17, and had a very calm voyage, but
this being our fifth steamer since we left home, we were anxious for a
little dry land journeying.
We saw the high mountains all Tuesday, but nothing on Wednesday after
early morning. The coast recedes and becomes low where the desert comes
down to the sea. We passed the Kouria Mouria Islands in the night. They
are inhabited by the Jenefa tribe, who pursue sharks, swimming on
inflated skins. On Thursday we passed very curious scenery, a high akaba,
just like the Hadhramout, in the background, and for about a mile between
this and the sea a volcanic mass of rocks and peaks and crags of many
hues. After passing this we were at our destination, and at three o'clock
in the afternoon we left the steamer to land at Merbat. We were conveyed
to the shore in three boats, one of which was called 'el liebot.' It is
only fair that the English who have borrowed so many nautical terms from
the Orientals, should now in their turn provide the Arabian name for a
boat. Cutters and jolly-boats have taken their names from 'kattira' and
'jahlibot.'
Merbat, which is sixty-four miles from Maskat, is the first point of the
Dhofar district after the long stretch of desert has been passed. It is a
wretched little spot consisting of some fifty houses and a few Bedou
huts, with about two hundred inhabitants. It is built on a tongue of
land, which affords shelter for Arab dhows during the north-east monsoon.
The water supply is from a pool of brackish water.
The excitement caused by the first arrival of a steamer was intense, and
tiny craft with naked Bedouin soon crowded round us; after entrusting us
to their tender mercies our Armenian captain steamed away, and it was not
without secret misgivings that we landed amongst the wild-looking
inhabitants who lined the shore.
We imagined we were being very kindly received when they pointed out the
largest building in the place as our habitation, and my husband, Imam
Sharif, our interpreter Hassan, and I joyfully hastened thither.
Unfortunately we had no recommendation to the head-man of this place, and
he evidently distrusted us, for after taking us to a fort built of mud
bricks, which offered ample accommodation for our party, he flatly
refused to allow us to have our baggage or our servants therein.
After entering a kind of guard-room, we had to plunge to the right into
pitchy darkness and stumble along, stretching out our hands like blind
men, each taken by the shoulders and pushed and shoved by a roundabout
way to a dark inner staircase, where we emerged into the light on some
roofs.
They wanted us to stay where we were, but not wishing to remain without
conveniences, we succeeded in getting between them and the door, and then
found our way out of the building and rejoined our servants and our
baggage on the beach. We flourished our letter to Wali Suleiman in his
face; we expostulated, threatened, and cajoled, and passed a whole
miserable hour by the shore, seated on our belongings under the blazing
afternoon sun, watching our steamer gradually disappearing in the
distance. Hemmed in by Bedouin, who stared at us as if we had come from
the moon, exceedingly hot, hungry, and uncomfortable, we passed a very
evil time indeed, speculating as to what would be the result of the
conclave of the old head-men; but at last they approached us in a more
friendly spirit, begged our pardon, and reinstated us in the fort with
our bag and baggage, and were as civil as they could be. To our dying day
we shall never know what caused us this dilemma. Did they really think we
had come to seize their fort (which we afterwards heard was the case),
and interfere with their frankincense monopoly? Or did they think we had
come to look into the question of a large Arab dhow, which was flying the
French flag, and was beached on the shore, and which we had reason to
believe was conveying a cargo of slaves to one of the neighbouring
markets for disposal? Personally, I suspect the latter was the true
reason of their aversion to our presence, for the coast from here to
Maskat has a bad reputation in this respect, and just lately Arab
slave-dhows have been carrying on their trade under cover of protection
obtained from France at Obok and Zanzibar. The inhabitants have plaited
hair and knobkerries. I believe they belong to the Jenefa tribe.
Finding Merbat so uncongenial an abode, with no points of interest, and
with a malarious-looking swamp in its vicinity, and not being able to
obtain camels or escort for a journey inland, we determined only to pass
one night there, and after wandering about in search of interests which
did not exist, we came to terms with the captain of a most filthy baggala
to take us along the coast to Al Hafa, the residence of Wali Suleiman,
without whose direct assistance we plainly saw that nothing could be done
about extending our expedition into the interior. It was only forty miles
to Al Hafa, but, owing to adverse winds, it took us exactly two days to
perform this voyage, and our boat was one of the dirtiest of the kind we
have ever travelled on. In our little cabin in the stern the smell of
bilge-water was almost overpowering, and every silver thing we had about
us turned black with the sulphureous vapours. These pungent odours were
relieved from time to time by burning huge chafing dishes of
frankincense, a large cargo of which was aboard for transport to Bombay
after we had been deposited at Al Hafa. One of the many songs our sailors
sang when changing the flapping sails was about frankincense, so we tried
to imagine that we were having a pleasant experience of the country we
were about to visit; and even in its dirt and squalor an Arab dhow is a
picturesque abode, with its pretty carvings and odd-shaped bulwarks. We
were twenty-five souls on board, and our captain and his crew being
devout Mohammedans, we had plenty of time and opportunity for studying
their numerous prayers and ablutions.
The plain of Dhofar, along which we were now coasting, is quite an
abnormal feature in this arid coast. It is the only fertile stretch
between Aden and Maskat. It is formed of alluvial soil washed down from
the Gara mountains; there is abundance of water very near the surface,
and frequent streams make their way down to the sea, so that it is green.
The great drawback to the country is the want of harbours; during the
north-east monsoons dhows can find shelter at Merbat, and during the
south-west monsoons at Risout, but the rest of the coast is provided with
nothing but open roadsteads, with the surf always rolling in from the
Indian Ocean.
The plain is never more than nine miles wide, and at the eastern end,
where the mountains were nearer to the sea, it is reduced to a very
narrow strip, a grand exception to the long line of barren waste which
forms the Arabian frontage to the Indian Ocean, and which gets narrower
and narrower as the mountains approach the sea at Saihut. Tall cocoanut
palms adorn it in clusters, and long stretches of bright green fields
refresh the eye; and, at frequent intervals, we saw flourishing villages
by the coast. Tobacco, cotton, Indian corn, and various species of grain
grow here in great abundance, and in the gardens we find many of the
products of India flourishing, viz. the plantain, the papya, mulberries,
melons, chillis, brinjols, and fruits and vegetables of various
descriptions. We anchored for some hours off one of these villages, and
paid our toll of dates to the Bedouin who came off to claim them, as is
customary all along this coast, every dhow paying this toll in return for
the privilege of obtaining water when they want it.
The Gara mountains are now one of the wildest spots in wild Arabia; owing
to the disastrous blood feuds amongst the tribe and the insecurity of
travel, they had never previously been penetrated by Europeans: all that
was known of the district was the actual coast-line. Exciting rumours had
reached the ears of Colonel Miles, a former political agent at Maskat,
concerning lakes and streams, and fertility unwonted for Arabia, which
existed in these mountains, and our appetites were consequently whetted
for their discovery.
In ancient times this was one of the chief sources of the time-honoured
frankincense trade, which still maintains itself here even more than in
the Hadhramout. It is carried on by the Bedouin of the Gara tribe, who
bring down the odoriferous gum from the mountains on camels. About 9,000
cwt. of it is exported to Bombay annually. Down by the coast at Al Hafa
there is a square enclosure or bazaar where piles of frankincense may
still be seen ready for exportation, miniature successors of those piles
of the tears of gum from the tree-trunks which are depicted on the old
Egyptian temple at Deir al Bahari as one of the proceeds of Queen
Hatasou's expeditions to the land of Punt.
The actual libaniferous country is, perhaps, now not much bigger than the
Isle of Wight, and in its physical appearance not unlike it, cut off from
the rest of the world by a desert behind and an ocean in front. Probably
in ancient days the frankincense-bearing area was not much more
extensive. Claudius Ptolemy, the anonymous author of the 'Periplus,'
Pliny, Theophrastus, and a little later on the Arabian geographers, speak
of it, and from their descriptions there is no difficulty in fixing the
limits of it, and its ruined towns are still easily identified.
After much tacking and flapping of sails we at last reached Al Hafa,
where Wali Suleiman had his castle, only a stone's throw from the beach.
Our landing was performed in small, hide-covered boats specially
constructed for riding over the surf, and was not completed without a
considerable wetting to ourselves and baggage. After so many preliminary
discomforts a cordial welcome from the wali was doubly agreeable. He
placed a room on the roof, spread with carpets, at our disposal, and he
furnished our larder with a whole cow, and every delicacy at his command.
The cow's flesh was cut into strips and festooned about in every
direction, to dry it for our journey. Our room was, for Arabia,
deliciously cool and airy, being approached by a ladder, and from our
roof we enjoyed pleasant views over the fertile plain and the Gara
mountains, into which we had now every hope of penetrating. We looked
down into his courtyard below and saw there many interesting phases of
Arab life.
Al Hafa is 640 miles from Maskat in one direction and 800 from Aden in
the other; it is, therefore, about as far as possible from any civilised
place. Nominally it is under the sultan of Oman, and I may here
emphatically state that the southern coast of Arabia has absolutely
nothing to do with Turkey--from Maskat to Aden there is not a single
tribe paying tribute to, or having any communication with, the Ottoman
Porte. Really Al Hafa and the Dhofar were ruled over autocratically by
Wali Suleiman, who was sent out there about eighteen years before as
governor, at the request of the feud-torn inhabitants, by Sultan Tourki
of Maskat. In his small way Wali Suleiman was a man of great capacity; a
man who has made history, and could have made more if his sphere had been
larger. In his youth he was instrumental in placing Tourki on the throne
of Oman, and after a few years of stern application to business he
brought the bellicose families of the Gara tribe under his power; and his
influence was felt far into the interior, even into the confines of Nejd.
With a handful of Arabs and a badly armed regiment of slave origin he had
contrived to establish peace and comparative safety throughout the Gara
mountains and, thanks to him, we were able to penetrate their fastnesses.
Wali Suleiman was a stern, uncompromising ruler, feared and respected,
rather than loved.
The wali kept all his prisoners in the courtyard. When we were there he
had twelve, all manacled, and reposing on grass mats at night. These were
wicked Bedouin from the mountains, prisoners taken in a recent war he had
had with the Mahri tribe, the _casus belli_ being a find of ambergris
which the Mahri had appropriated, though it had been washed up on the
Dhofar coast. One prisoner, a murderer, whose imprisonment was for two
years, was chained to a log of wood, and he laid his mat bed in a large
stone sarcophagus, brought from the neighbouring ruins of the ancient
capital of the frankincense country, and really intended for a trough.
Another, convicted of stealing his master's sword and selling it to the
captain of a dhow, had his feet attached to an iron bar, which made his
locomotion exceedingly painful. A mollah prisoner was, owing to the
sanctity of his calling, unfettered, and he led the evening prayers, and
on most nights--for want of something better to do, I suppose--these
prisoners of Wali Suleiman prayed and sang into the small hours of the
morning. Day by day we watched these unfortunate men from the roof, and
thought we had never seen so unholy a set of men, according to what we
heard; they did not look so. Some were morose, and chewed the cud of
their discontent in corners; the younger and better-looking ones were
gallant, and flirted with the slave girls, helping them to draw up
buckets from the well in the centre of the courtyard; the active-minded
cut wood for the household, and walked about doing odd jobs, holding up
the iron bar which separated their feet with a rope as they shuffled
along, or played with the wali's little boy, five years of age, who
rambled about among them.
Goats, kids, cocks, and hens, also occupied this courtyard, and the big,
white she-ass, the only representative of the equine race as far as we
could see in Dhofar, on which Wali Suleiman makes his state journeys to
the various villages in his dominions along the coast, and which he
kindly lent to me once when we went to visit the ruins.
The ladies of the wali's harem paid me frequent visits, and brought me
presents of fruit and embarrassing plates of food, and substances to dye
my teeth red (tamboul leaves and lime), but they were uninteresting
ladies, and their conversational powers limited to the discussion of the
texture of dresses and the merits of European underclothing. On the very
first morning they appeared before I was up--that is about sunrise. As I
had put them off the evening before, I dared not do so again. My husband
sprang out of his bed and got out of their way. I managed to put on a
jacket sitting up in bed, and then, finding time allowed, a skirt, and
had just got my hair combed down when in they trooped. I knew my shoes
and stockings would never be missed, so I felt quite ready for the visit.
They wore _bourkos_ on their faces, and had on a great deal of coarse
jewellery with mock pearls and bad turquoises. Whenever they chose to
come my husband had to depart, and I do not think he liked these
interruptions.
We were much interested in the male members of the wali's family. His
eldest son was paralysed and bedridden, and he had adopted as heir to his
position in Dhofar a nephew, who lived in a separate wing of the castle,
and had his separate harem establishment. Besides these the wali had two
dear little boys, one of twelve and the other of eight, who constantly
paid us visits, and with whom we established a close friendship. Salem,
the elder, was a fair, delicate-looking boy, the son of a Georgian slave
who was given to Wali Suleiman by Sultan Tourki of Oman. Some years ago
she ran away with her boy to Bombay, but was restored to her husband, and
now has been sent as a punishment to Zanzibar; she is a servant in the
house of one of the princesses there. Salem would often tell us that his
mother was coming back to him in a year or two, but we thought
differently.
The tragedy connected with little Muoffok, the younger boy, a bright,
dear little fellow, very much darker than his brother, in fact nearly
black, is far more heartrending. About two years before, his mother, also
a slave, an African, was convicted of misconduct, and on her was visited
the extremest penalty with which the Arab law can punish a faithless
wife. In the presence of a large assemblage, the unfortunate woman was
buried up to the waist in the sand and stoned to death.
The poor little motherless fellows were constantly on the go, rushing
hither and thither, playing with and petted by all; at one time they
amused themselves with the prisoners in the courtyard, at another time
they teased the Gara sheikhs who sat in the long entrance corridor, and
then they came to torment us, until we gave then some trifle, which they
forthwith carried off in triumph to show it to everybody. Both the little
boys wore the large silver and gold daggers of Oman round their waists,
and powder-flasks similarly decorated hung on their backs; and when
dressed in their best silk robes on Friday, they were the most fantastic
little fellows one could wish to see.
Wali Suleiman was, as I have said, an austere and unlovable man, but he
was the man for his position: taciturn and of few words, but these always
to the point. Before he would permit us to go forth and penetrate into
the recesses of the Gara mountains, he summoned the heads of all the
different families into which the tribe is divided to Al Hafa, and gave
us into their charge, we agreeing to pay for their escort, their
protection, and the use of their camels a fixed sum _per diem_ in Maria
Theresa dollars, the only coin recognised in the country.
Such palavering there was over this stupendous piece of diplomacy! Wali
Suleiman and the Gara sheikhs sat for hours in solemn conclave in a
palm-thatched barn about fifty yards distant from the castle, which takes
the place of a parliament house in the kingdom of Dhofar. The wali, his
nephew, and Arab councillors smoked their _narghilehs_ complacently,
whilst the Gara Bedouin took whiffs at their little pipes, which they cut
out of soft limestone that hardens in the air, and all drank endless cups
of coffee served by slaves in huge coffee-pots with long, bird-like
beaks, and we looked on at this conference, which was to decide our fate,
from our roof, with no small amount of impatience.
Before starting for the mountains we wandered hither and thither over the
plain of Dhofar for some days, visiting sites of ruins, and other places
of interest, and greatly admired the rich cultivation we saw around us,
and the capacity of this plain for producing cotton, indigo, tobacco, and
cereals. Water is on the surface in stagnant pools, or easily obtainable
everywhere by digging shallow wells which are worked by camels, sometimes
three together, and so well trained, that at the end of the walk they
turn by themselves as soon as they hear the splash of the water into the
irrigation channel, and then they walk back to fill the skin bucket
again. The cocoanut-palm grows admirably here, and we had many refreshing
draughts of the water contained in the nuts during our hot rides; and in
pools beneath the trees the fibre of the nuts is placed to rot for making
ropes, giving out an odour very similar to that of the flax-pits in the
north of Ireland.
Between Capes Risout and Merbat we found the sites of ruined towns of
considerable extent in no less than seven different points, though at the
two capes where now is the only anchorage, there are no ruins to be seen,
proving, as we afterwards verified for ourselves, that anchorage of a
superior nature existed in the neighbourhood in antiquity, which has
since become silted up, but which anciently must have afforded ample
protection for the boats which came for the frankincense trade. At Takha,
as we shall presently see, there was a very extensive and deep harbour,
running a considerable distance inland, which with a little outlay of
capital could easily be restored.
After a close examination of these ruined sites, there can be no doubt
that those at spots called now Al Balad and Robat, about two miles east
of the wali's residence, formed the ancient capital of this district. We
visited them on Christmas Day, and were much struck with their extent.
The chief ruins, those of Al Balad, are by the sea, around an acropolis
some 100 feet in height. This part of the town was encircled by a moat
still full of water, and in the centre, still connected with the sea, but
almost silted up, is a tiny harbour. The ground is covered with the
remains of Mohammedan mosques, and still more ancient Sabæan temples, the
architecture of which--namely, the square columns with flutings at the
four corners, and the step-like capitals--at once connects them
architecturally with the columns at Adulis on the Red Sea, those of
Koloe and Aksum in Abyssinia, and those described by M. Arnaud at Mariaba
in Yemen.
In some cases these are decorated with intricate patterns, one of which
is formed by the old Sabæan letters [Symbol: circle with dot in middle]
and X, which may possibly have some religious import. After seeing the
ruins of Adulis and Koloe and the numerous temples or tombs with four
isolated columns, no doubt can be entertained that the same people built
them.
As at Adulis and Koloe there were no inscriptions which could materially
assist us; this may be partly accounted for by the subsequent Mohammedan
occupation, when the temples were converted into mosques, but besides
this the nature of the stone employed at all these places would make it
very difficult to use it for inscribing letters: it is very coarse, and
full of enormous fossils.
This town of Al Balad by the sea is connected by a series of ruins with
another town two miles inland, now called Robat, where the ground for
many acres is covered with ancient remains; big cisterns and
water-courses are here cut in the rock, and standing columns of the same
architectural features are seen in every direction.
With the aid of Sprenger's 'Alte Geographie Arabiens,' the best
guide-book the traveller can take into this country, there is no
difficulty in identifying this ancient capital of the frankincense
country as the Manteion Artemidos of Claudius Ptolemy. This name
is obviously a Greek translation of the Sabæan for some well-known oracle
which anciently existed here, not far, as Ptolemy himself tells us, from
Cape Risout. This name eventually became Zufar, from which the modern
name of Dhofar is derived. In a.d. 618 the town was destroyed and Mansura
built, under which name the capital was known in early Mohammedan times.
Various Arab geographers also assist us in this identification. Yakut,
for example, tells us how the Prince of Zufar had the monopoly of the
frankincense trade, and punished with death any infringement of it. Ibn
Batuta says that 'half a day's journey east of Mensura is Alakhaf, the
abode of the Addites,' probably referring to the site of the oracle and
the last stronghold of the ancient cult.
Sprenger sums up the evidence of old writers by saying that the town of
Zufar and the later Mansura must undoubtedly be the ruins of Al Balad.
Thus, having assured ourselves of the locality of the ancient capital of
the frankincense country--for no other site along the plain has ruins
which will at all compare in extent and appearance with those of Al
Balad--we shall, as we proceed on our journey, find that other sites fall
easily into their proper places, and an important verification of ancient
geography and an old-world centre of commerce has been obtained.
The ruins at Al Balad and Robat were last inhabited during the Persian
occupation, about the time of the Crusades, 500 of the Hejira. They
utilised the old Himyaritic columns to build their mosques. Some of the
tombs have beautiful carving on them.
In the ruins of one temple the columns were elaborately carved with a
kind of _fleur-de-lis_ pattern, and the bases decorated with a floral
design, artistically interwoven.
I had dreadful difficulty with a photograph which I took of these
columns. I developed it at night, tormented by mosquitoes, and in the
morning it was all cracked and dried off its celluloid foundation. I put
it in alum, and it floated off half an inch too large in both directions.
If I had had a larger plate on which to mount it, it would have been an
easy enough job, but I had not, so I was obliged to work it down on to
the original plate with my thumbs. It took me seven solid hours, and I
had to be fed with two meals, for I could never move my thumbs nor eyes
off my work. I felt very proud that the cracks did not show when a
magic-lantern slide was made from it.
There was a great deal of vegetation among the ruins. Specially beautiful
was a very luxuriant creeper called by the inhabitants _asaleb_. It has a
luscious, large, pear-shaped red fruit with seeds which, when bitten, are
like pepper. It has large flowers, which are white at first, and then
turn pink.
On our way home from Al Balad we stopped to rest under some cocoa-palms,
and stones and other missiles were flung up by our guides, so the
cocoanuts came showering down in rather a terrifying way. The men then
stuck their _ghatrifs_ in the ground and banged the nuts on them, and
thus skinned them. Then they hacked at them with their swords till they
cut off the tops like eggs, and we enjoyed a good drink of the water.