ERIOSH AND KADHOUP
After four days waiting for camels, and the usual wrangling over the
price and casting lots for us, which here they do with stones instead of
wood as in Arabia, we started late on Christmas Day, going of course only
a short way. As all were mounted on the baggage we could trot all the
way; the camels were not tied in strings. The first night we stopped at
Isèleh, an interesting place at the entrance of Wadi Gàhai below Mount
Lèhe Diftom, about two hours from Kalenzia, whence at night we could see
the numerous fires of troglodytes high up on the sides of the mountains;
and were able next day to ride nearly all the way, except over a pass to
Lim Ditarr, a depression in the hills sometimes filled with water, though
there was none for us. A little was fetched, but we had to keep the water
from our evening wash to serve next morning. This depression had in
former times been used as a reservoir, for we could detect the remains of
a stone embankment, a good deal despoiled for Moslem tombs.
Our onward journey took us past a lovely creek, called Khor Haghia,
running two miles inland, with silted mouth and overhanging yellow and
white rocks. The bright blue water and green mangroves made a brilliant
picture.
About a quarter of a mile inland there is a deep pot of salt water,
evidently left behind by the ocean when it receded from the shores of
Sokotra; it is about 200 feet across, and has its little beach and
seaweeds all complete, with its trees and bushes in its cliffs.
We lunched at the brackish well of Dia, and at sunset reached the hideous
plain of Eriosh, or Eriush, which has a flat surface of rock, about a
quarter of a mile in extent and partly covered with dried mud, and of
such soft stone that we could easily cut into it with pebbles. It is
covered with purely Ethiopic graffiti, almost exactly similar to those we
saw on the steps of the church and on the hillsides around Aksum in
Abyssinia--long serpent-like trails of Ethiopic words, with rude drawings
interspersed of camels, snakes, and so forth. Riebeck, who went inland
from Itur, says these are Greek. Conspicuous amongst them are the
numerous representations of two feet side by side, frequently with a
cross inserted in one of them; there are many separate crosses, too, on
this flat surface--crosses in circles, exactly like what one gets on
Ethiopic coins. We met with another inscribed stone to the east of the
island, bearing similar lettering.
Hard by this flat, inscribed surface are many tombs of an ancient date.
These tombs, which are found dotted over the island, bear a remarkable
resemblance to the tombs of the Bedja race, once dwelling on the shores
of the Red Sea to the north of Sawakin, and subject to the Ethiopian
emperor; they consist of enormous blocks of unhewn stone, inserted in the
ground to encircle and cover the tombs, and this forms another link
connecting the remains on the island with Abyssinia.
[Illustration: THE PLAIN OF ERIOSH, SOKOTRA.]
When the Abyssinian Christian monarchs conquered Arabia in the early
centuries of our era, and Christianised a large portion of that country,
they probably did the same by Sokotra, and, inasmuch as this island was
far removed from any political centre, Christianity probably existed here
to a much later period than it did in Arabia. Marco Polo touched here,
and alludes to the Christians of the island.
In speaking of two isles near Greater India, inhabited respectively by
men and women, he adds: 'They are Christians, and have their bishop,
subject to the Bishop of Socotora. Socotora hath an archbishop not
subject to the Pope, but to one Zatuli, who resides at Baldach, who
chooseth him.'
F. Xavier said among other things 'that each village had a priest called
_kashi_. No man could read. The _kashis_ repeated prayers in a forgotten
tongue, frequently scattering incense. A word like Alleluia often
occurred. For bells they used wooden rattles. They assembled in their
churches four times a day, and held St. Thomas in great veneration. The
_kashis_ married, but were very abstemious. They had two Lents, and
fasted from meat, milk, and fish.'
When Padre Vincenzo the Carmelite visited the island in the seventeenth
century he found the last traces of Christianity. 'The people still
retained a perfect jumble of rites and ceremonies, sacrificing to the
moon, circumcising, and abominating wine and pork. They had churches
called _moquame_, dark and dirty, and they daily anointed with butter an
altar. They had a cross, which they carried in procession, and a candle.
They assembled three times a day and three times a night; the priests
were called _odambo_. Each family had a cave where they deposited their
dead. If rain failed they selected a victim by lot and prayed round him
to the moon, and if this failed they cut off his hands. All the women
were called Maria.' Of this there is now no trace. Both Sacraments had
died out.
This debased form of Christianity existed as late as the seventeenth
century. The island was one of the places visited by Sir Thomas Roe in
1615.
It is needless to say that all ostensible traces of our cult have long
ago been obliterated, and the only Sokoteri religious term which differs
in any way from the usual Mohammedan nomenclature is the name for the
Devil; but we found, as I have already said, the carved crosses on the
flat surface at Eriosh, and we found a rock at the top of a hill to the
east of the island which had been covered with rude representations of
the Ethiopic cross. Scattered all over the island are deserted ruined
villages, differing but little from those of to-day, except that the
inhabitants call them all Frankish work, and admit that once Franks dwelt
in them of the cursed sect of the Nazarenes. We felt little hesitation in
saying that a branch of the Abyssinian Church once existed in Sokotra,
and that its destruction is of comparatively recent date.
If we consider that the ordinary village churches in Abyssinia are of the
flimsiest character--a thatched roof resting on a low round wall--we can
easily understand how the churches of Sokotra have disappeared. In most
of these ruined villages round enclosures are to be found, some with
apsidal constructions, which are very probably all that is left of the
churches.
Near Ras Momi, to the east of the island, we discovered a curious form of
ancient sepulture. Caves in the limestone rocks have been filled with
human bones from which the flesh had previously decayed. These caves were
then walled up and left as charnel-houses, after the fashion still
observed in the Eastern Christian Church. Amongst the bones we found
carved wooden objects which looked as if they had originally served as
crosses to mark the tombs, in which the corpses had been permitted to
decay prior to their removal to the charnel-house, or koimêthêria, as the
modern Greeks call them.
We stayed two days at Eriosh to study the _graffiti_ and tombs.
Water had to be fetched from Diahàmm, which we afterwards passed. It was
brackish. I have heard _riho_ said for water, but _diho_ was mostly used,
and certainly the names of many water-places began with Di. I remember my
husband answering the question where we should camp by calling out in
Arabic 'Near the water.' This was echoed in Sokoteri, '_Lal diho_.'
We took five days in getting from Kalenzia to Tamarida, and found the
water question on this route rather a serious one until we reached Mori
and Kadhoup, where the streams from the high mountains began. Mori is a
charming little spot by the sea, with a fine stream and a lagoon, and
palms and bright yellow houses as a foreground to the dark-blue
mountains.
Kadhoup is another fishing village built by the edge of the sea, with a
marshy waste of sand separating it from the hills; it possesses a
considerable number of surf-boats and canoes, and catamarans, on which
the fishermen ply their trade. Just outside the town women were busy
baking large pots for the export of butter, placing large fires around
them for this purpose. The Sokotrans are very crude in their ceramic
productions, and seem to have not the faintest inclination to decorate
their jars in any way. There were quantities of flamingoes on the beach.
We encamped at the foot of the hills, with a watery and sandy waste
between us and the village.
There are the foundations of some curious unfinished houses near Kadhoup,
also assigned to the Portuguese; but there appears to me to be no reason
whatsoever for ascribing these miserable remains to the builders of the
fine forts at Maskat, the founders of Ormuz and Goa, and the lords of the
East up to the seventeenth century.
The mountains here jut right out into the sea, forming a bold and rugged
coast line, and the path which connects the two places is as fine a one
to look upon as I have ever seen.
We had read a very awe-inspiring account of this path by Lieutenant
Wellsted, and so were quite disposed to believe all our camel-drivers
told us of the awful dangers to be encountered. They had formed a plan
whereby their Kadhoup friends might come in for some of our rupees. We
were not only to pay for camels, but also for a boat. Some, at least, of
the camels were sure, they said, to fall into the sea from the cliffs,
and our possessions, if not our lives themselves, might be lost. They
said that we ought to send our baggage by boat, even if we risked the
mountain path ourselves.
We assured them that we had landed in Sokotra (which they pronounce
Sakoutra) to see the island, and not to circumnavigate it. Others could
pass, so we could.
Their last hope was in my hoped-for faintheartedness. They watched till I
was alone in the tent, and, having recounted all the perils over again,
said:
'Let the men go over the mountain, but you, O Bibi! will go in a boat,
safely. You cannot climb, you cannot ride the camel, no one can hold you;
the path is too narrow, and you will be afraid.'
That being no good, old Sheikh Ali came. He was anxious, poor old man, to
be spared the exertion, and eventually rode all the way, except when
there was no room. He said I should go in a boat with him; he would take
care of me and give me musk (which he called misk) when we reached
Hadibo. He often promised misk, but I never got any; and here I may
remark that I have frequently heard Maskàt pronounced Mìskit in Arabia
amongst the Bedouin of the East.
We really did feel very adventurous indeed when we started. I rode my
camel a quarter of a mile to the foot of the ascent. No one else thought
it worth while to mount, but I was comfortably carried over a muddy
creek.
The Kadhoupers did get some rupees, for we were attended by twelve men
carrying bamboo poles 10 or 12 feet long.
It really was a stiff climb, but we had a good deal of shade, and when we
reached our highest point there was a pretty flat bit with scattered
trees and grass, about half a mile, I think. The twelve men had to carry
the baggage slung on the poles for a quarter of a mile or so, where the
overhanging rocks made the path too narrow for loaded camels. It was
quite high enough for their heads, and we had plenty of room. It was
marvellous to see the camels struggling along this road, and awful to
hear their groans and the shouts of the camel-men as they struggled up
and down and in and out of the rocks; and the hubbub and yelling over a
fallen one was simply diabolical.
We had the most tremendous clambering down soon after that, the baggage
being again slung on the poles, and the camels came clattering down, with
many stones, and looking as if they would rush over straight into the
sea.
When we got near the sea, say about 50 feet above it, we, on foot,
diverged from the camel-track, which goes more inland, and followed a
very, very narrow, washed-away path. This I think must have been the one
described by Wellsted, for we were never, till we reached this part, near
the sea, though possibly had we fallen we might have rolled over down a
slope.
The views inland up the rugged yellow crags, covered with verdure and
studded with the quaint gouty trees, are weird and extraordinary, and
below at our feet the waves dashed up in clouds of white spray. Though we
had heard much of the difficulties of this road and the dangers for foot
passengers, and we were told of the bleaching bones of the camels which
had fallen into the abyss below, we experienced none of these hardships.
We certainly saw the bones of one camel below us, but none of ours
followed its example; and we revelled in the beauty of our surroundings,
which made us think nothing of the toilsome scramble up and down the
rocks.
As we left the mountain side and approached the plain of Tamarida, we
passed close by what would seem to have been an ancient ruined fort on
the cliff above the sea, evidently intended to guard this path.