Part 6

The plateau or table-land between Sana’a and Banàn is a pasture country. The Bedouins live in the stone-built villages and herd their immense flocks on the plain; camels, cows and sheep were grazing by the hundreds and thousands. After Banàn begins the difficult descent to the coast down breakneck mountain _stairways_ rather than roadways, over broken bridges, and through natural arches. Fertile, cultivated mountain slopes were on every side, reminding one of the valleys of Switzerland. In one district near Suk-el-Khamis the whole mountain-side for a height of 6,000 feet was terraced from top to bottom. General Haig wrote of these terraces: “One can hardly realize the enormous amount of labor, toil and perseverance which these represent. The terraced walls are usually from five to eight feet in height, but toward the top of the mountain they are sometimes as much as fifteen or eighteen feet. They are built entirely of rough stone, laid without mortar. I reckon on an average that each wall retains a terrace not more than twice its own height in width, and I do not think I saw a single breach in one of them unrepaired.”[24]

In Yemen there are two rainy seasons, in spring and in autumn, so that there is generally an abundance of water in the numerous reservoirs stored for irrigation. Yet, despite the extraordinary fertility of the soil and the surprising industry of the inhabitants, the bulk of the people are miserably poor, ill-fed and rudely clothed, because they are crushed down by a heartless system of taxation. Every agricultural product, implement and process is under the heavy hand of an oppressive administration and a military occupation that knows no law. The peasantry are robbed by the soldiers on their way to market, by the custom-collector at the gate of each city, and by the tax-gatherer in addition. On the way to Sana my soldier-companion stopped a poor peasant who was urging on a little donkey loaded with two large baskets of grapes; he emptied the best of the grapes into his saddle-bags, and then beat the man and cursed him because some of the grapes were unripe! No wonder we read of rebellions in Yemen, and no wonder that intense hatred lives in every Arab against the very name of Turk.

From Suk-el-Khamis, a dirty mountain village,[25] with an elevation of over 9,500 feet, the road leads by Mefak and Wady Zaun to the peculiarly located village of Menakha. At an altitude of 7,600 feet above sea-level, it is perched on a narrow ridge between two mountain ranges. On either side of the one street that forms the backbone of the summit are precipices 2,000 feet deep. So narrow is the town that there are places where one can stand and gaze down both sides of the abyss at the same time. To reach it from the west there is only one path zigzagging up the mountain-side, and from the east it can only be approached by a narrow track cut in the face of the precipice and winding up for an ascent of 2,500 feet. Menakha is the centre of the coffee trade; it has a population of 10,000 or more, one-third of which are Jews. There are four Greek merchants, the Turks had 2,000 troops garrisoned in the town, and the bazaars were equal to those of Taiz. Its exact elevation is given by Defler, after eighteen observations, as 7,616 feet above sea-level.

From Menakha to the coast is only two long days’ journey; three by camel. The first stage is to Hejjeila, at the foot of the high ranges, thence to Bajil, a village of 2,000 people, and along the barren, hot plain to Hodeidah. At Bajil the people are nearly all shepherds, and the main industry is dyeing cloth and weaving straw. Here one sees the curious Yemen straw hats worn by the women, and here also the peasant-maidens wear no veils. Yet they are of purer heart and life than the black-clouted and covered women of the Turkish towns.

Hodeidah by the sea is very like Jiddah in its general appearance. The streets are narrow, crooked and indescribably filthy. The “Casino” is a sort of Greek hotel for strangers, and the finest house in the city is that of Sidi Aaron, near the sea, with its fine front and marble courtyard. The population is of a very mixed character; east of the city in a separate quarter live the _Akhdam_ Arabs, whose origin is uncertain, but who are considered outcasts by all the other Arabs. They are not allowed to carry arms and no Arab tribe intermarries with them.

From Hodeidah there is a regular line of small steamers to Aden, and the Egyptian Red Sea coasting steamers also call here fortnightly. The trade of Hodeidah was once flourishing, but here too Turkish misrule has brought deadness and dullness into business, and taxation has crushed industrial enterprise.

[Illustration: AN ARABIAN COMPASS.]

VII

THE UNEXPLORED REGIONS OF HADRAMAUT

“As when to them who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow Sabean odors from the spicy shore Of Araby the blest.”—_Milton._

We must take at least a glimpse of the almost unknown region called Hadramaut.[26] This is a strip of territory stretching between the great desert and the sea from Aden eastward to Oman. Our knowledge of the interior of this region was almost a perfect blank until some light was thrown on it by the enterprising traveller A. Von Wrede in 1843. The coast is comparatively well known, at least as far as Makalla and Shehr. The land rises from the coast in a series of terraces to Jebel Hamra (5,284 feet), which is connected on the northeast with Jebel Dahura, over 8,000 feet high.

Adolph Von Wrede sailed from Aden to Makalla and thence penetrated inland as far as Wady Doan the most fertile spot of all South Arabia. This wady flows northward through the land of the Bni Yssa and the district is bordered on the west by Belad-el-Hasan and on the east by Belad-el-Hamum. But how far this region extends northward and whether the sandy desert of El Ahkaf (quicksands) really begins with the Wady Rakhia, a branch of the Doan are points on which Von Wrede throws no light and which are still uncertain. In 1870 the French Jew, Joseph Halévy, made a bold attempt to penetrate into Hadramaut from Yemen. Since then little was added to our knowledge of Hadramaut until 1893 when Shibam, the residence of the most powerful Sultan of Hadramaut was visited by Theodore Bent and his wife. In 1897 they made a second journey into the same region which cost Mr. Bent his health and afterward his life. From the account of these journeys we quote a few paragraphs which set forth clearly the interesting character of this almost unknown country.[27]

“Immediately behind Makalla rise grim arid mountains of a reddish hue, and the town is plastered against this rich-tinged background. By the shore, like a lighthouse, stands the white minaret of the Mosque, the walls and pinnacles of which are covered with dense masses of seabirds and pigeons; not far from this the huge palace where the Sultan dwells reminds one of a whitewashed mill with a lace-like parapet; white, red and brown are the dominant colors of the town, and in the harbor the Arab dhows with fantastic sterns rock to and fro in the unsteady sea, forming altogether a picturesque and unusual scene.

“Nominally Makalla is ruled over by a Sultan of the Al Kaiti family, whose connection with India has made them very English in their sympathies, and his Majesty’s general appearance, with his velvet coat and jewelled daggers, is far more Indian than Arabian. Really the most influential people in the town are the money-grubbing Parsees from Bombay, and it is essentially one of those commercial centres where Hindustani is spoken nearly as much as Arabian. We were lodged in a so-called palace hard by the bazaar, which reeked with mysterious smells and was alive with flies; so we worked hard to get our preparations made and to make our sojourn in this uncongenial burning spot as short as possible....

“Leaving these villages behind us, we climbed rapidly higher and higher, until, at an elevation of over 5,000 feet, we found ourselves at last on a broad level plateau, stretching as far as the eye could reach in every direction, and shutting off the Hadramaut from the coast. This is the ‘mons excelsus’ of Pliny; here we have the vast area where once flourished the frankincense and the myrrh. Of the latter shrub there is plenty left, and it is still tapped for its odoriferous sap; but of the former we only saw one specimen on the plateau, for in the lapse of ages the wealth of this country has steadily disappeared; further east, however, in the Mahra country, there is, I understand, a considerable quantity left.

“Near Hajarein are many traces of the olden days when the frankincense trade flourished, and when the town of Doani, which name is still retained in the Wady Doan, was a great emporium for this trade. Acres and acres of ruins, dating from the centuries immediately before our era, lie stretched along the valley here, just showing their heads above the weight of superincumbent sand which has invaded and overwhelmed the past glories of this district. The ground lies strewn with fragments of Himyaritic inscriptions, pottery, and other indications of a rich harvest for the excavator, but the hostility of the Nahad tribe prevented us from paying these ruins more than a cursory visit, and even to secure this we had to pay the Sheikh of the place nineteen dollars; and his greeting was ominous as he angrily muttered, ‘Salaam to all who believe Mohammed is the true prophet.’

“At Assab they would not allow us to dip our vessels in their well, nor take our repast under the shadow of their Mosque: even the women of this village ventured to insult us, peeping into our tent at night, and tumbling over the guys in a manner most aggravating to the weary occupants.

“Our troubles on this score were happily terminated at Haura, where a huge castle belonging to the Al Kaiti family dominates a humble village surrounded by palm groves. Without photographs to bear out my statement, I should hardly dare to describe the magnificence of these castles in the Hadramaut. That at Haura is seven stories high, and covers fully an acre of ground beneath the beetling cliff, with battlements, towers, and machicolations bearing a striking likeness to Holyrood. But Holyrood is built of stone, and Haura, save for the first story, is built of sun-dried bricks; and if Haura stood where Holyrood does, or in any other country save dry, arid Arabia, it would long ago have melted away....

“One of the most striking features of these Arabian palaces is the wood-carving. The doors are exquisitely decorated with intricate patterns, and with a text out of the Koran carved on the lintel; the locks and keys are all of wood, and form a study for the carver’s art, as do the cupboards, the niches, the supporting beams and the windows, which are adorned with fretwork instead of glass. The dwelling-rooms are above, the ground floor being exclusively used for merchandise, and the first floor for the domestics.”

Concerning the chief town of the interior of Hadramaut Mr. Bent writes as follows:

“Then he sent us to reside for five more days in his capital of Shibam, which is twelve miles distant from Al Katan, and is one of the principal towns in the Hadramaut valley. It is built on rising ground in the centre of the narrowest point of the valley, so that no one can pass between it and the cliffs of the valley out of gunshot of the walls. This rising ground has doubtless been produced by many generations of towns built of sun-dried bricks, for it is the best strategical point in the neighborhood. Early Arab writers tell us that the Himyarite population of this district came here when they abandoned their capital at Sabota, or Shabwa, further up the valley, early in our era, but we found evident traces of an earlier occupation than this—an inscription and a seal with the name ‘Shibam’ engraved on it, which cannot be later than the third century, B.C. And as a point for making up the caravans which started from the frankincense-growing district, Shibam must always have been very important.

“The town of Shibam offers a curious appearance as you approach; above its mud-brick walls with bastions and watch towers appear the tall whitewashed houses of the wealthy, which make it look like a large round cake with sugar on it. Outside the walls several industries are carried on, the chief of which is the manufacture of indigo dye. The small leaves are dried in the sun and powdered and then put into huge jars—which reminded us of the Forty Thieves—filled with water. Next morning these are stirred with long poles, producing a dark blue frothy mixture; this is left to settle, and then the indigo is taken from the bottom and spread out on cloths to drain; the substance thus procured is taken home and mixed with dates and saltpetre. Four pounds of this indigo to a gallon of water makes the requisite and universally used dye for garments, the better class of which are calendered by beating them with wooden hammers on stones.”

Of the coast town of Shehr and its ruler Mr. Bent says:

“Shehr is a detestable place by the sea, set in a wilderness of sand. Once it was the chief commercial port of the Hadramaut valley, but now Makalla has quite superseded it, for Shehr is nothing but an open roadstead and its buildings are now falling into ruins. Ghalib, the eldest son and heir of the chief of the Al Kaiti family, rules here as the viceregent of his father, who is in India as jemadar or general of the Arab troops, chiefly all Hadrami, in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Ghalib is quite an Oriental dandy, who lived a life of some rapidity when in India, so that his father thought it as well to send him to rule in Shehr, where the capabilities for mischief are not so many as at Bombay. He dresses very well in various damask silk coats and faultless trousers; his swords and daggers sparkle with jewels; in his hand he flourishes a golden-headed cane; and, as the water is hard at Shehr, he sends his dirty linen in dhows to Bombay to be washed.”

The Arabs of Hadramaut have been still more in contact with Java than with India. Large colonies of Hadramis emigrated to the Dutch Archipelago more than a century ago; intermarriage between the Javanese and the Arabs is very common; and the Mohammedanism of the Dutch East Indies is entirely of the Hadramaut type. These interesting facts were first bought to light by Van den Berg, a Dutch scholar in his elaborate work on this province of Arabia and the Arab colonies in Java.[28] His account of Hadramaut is a compilation from the lips of the Arab immigrants, but the description of the manners and customs of the people and their religious peculiarities is from personal observation. Altogether, in spite of minor geographical inaccuracies, the book is the best single volume on Southern Arabia and tells the story of Islam in the Dutch Archipelago as it is to-day. The Arabs have always been a strong race at colonizing but it is well to note that the influence of Hadramaut on Java and Sumatra to-day is not less than that of Oman on Zanzibar and East Africa in the last century. Even Hadramaut will not always remain undiscovered and unremembered. The incense-country of antiquity has a future before it even as it has had a glorious past.

[Illustration: A CASTLE IN HADRAMAUT]

VIII

MUSCAT AND THE COASTLANDS OF OMAN

“Oman is separated from the rest of Arabia by a sandy desert. It is, in fact, as far as communication with the rest of the world is concerned, an island with the sea on one side and the desert on the other. Hence its people are even more primitive, simple and unchanged in their habits than the Arabs generally. Along the coast, however, especially at Muscat they are more in contact with the outer world.”—_General Haig._

In Arab nomenclature Oman applies only to a small district in the vicinity of Muscat, but the name is generally given to the entire southeastern section of the Arabian peninsula, including everything east of a line drawn from the Kuria-Muria islands to the peninsula of Katar, anciently called Bahrein. Thus defined it is the largest province of Arabia and in some respects the most interesting. Historically, politically and geographically Oman has always been isolated from the other provinces. Turkish rule never extended this far nor did the later caliphs long exercise their authority here. The whole country has for centuries been under independent rulers called Imams or Seyyids. The population, which is wholly Arab and Mohammedan, (save in the coast towns) was derived originally from two different stocks known to the Arabs as Kahtani and Adnani or the Yemeni and Muadi. These names have changed since the beginning of the eighteenth century to Hinani and Ghaffiri. The Yemen tribes came first and are most numerous. The two rival races have been in open and continuous feud and antagonism and have kept the country in perpetual turmoil. They even inhabit separate quarters in some of the towns, according to Colonel Miles. In Somail, about fifty miles inland from Muscat a broad road marks the division between the two clans. These two parent stocks are subdivided into some 200 different tribes and these again into sub-tribes or “houses.” Each family-group has its own Sheikh, a hereditary position assumed by the eldest male in the family.

Very few of the tribes of Oman are nomadic; the greater part live in towns and villages along the wady-beds. With the exception of fruits of which there is a great variety and abundance, dates are the sole food product and the chief export of the province. Rice is imported from India. The total population of Oman is estimated by Colonel Miles not to exceed 1,500,000. There are numerous towns of 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants; Muscat and Mattra are the chief towns on the coast, and are practically united as they are only two miles apart. The climate of Oman on the coast is excessively hot and moist during a large part of the year, although the rainfall here is only six to ten inches annually; in the interior the heat is greatly tempered by the elevation, the rainfall is much greater and the climate as pleasant as in the highlands of Yemen.

The Omanese state was at its greatest height of power at the beginning of the present century. Then the Sultans of Muscat exercised rule as far as Bahrein to the northwest, had possession of Bunder Abbas and Linga in Persia, and called Socotra and Zanzibar their own. At this time the Oman Arabs began their extensive journeys in Africa and, urged by the enormous profits of the slave-trade, explored every corner of the great interior of the Dark Continent. At present the authority of the Sultan at Muscat, Seyyid Feysul bin Turki, does not extend far beyond the capital and its suburbs.

In the early years of the Oman Sultanate, Nizwa was the capital, afterward Rastak became the seat of government, but since 1779, Muscat has been at once the capital and the key, the gateway and the citadel of the whole country. On approaching Muscat in a British India steamer, the land is first sighted, looming up in one mass of dark mountain ranges; closer, one portion of this mass directly over the town of Muscat is seen to be of a dark brown color, crag on crag, serrated and torn in a fantastic manner and giving the harbor a most picturesque appearance. The town itself shows white against the dark massive rocks, on the summits of which are perched numerous castles and towers. But, though presenting a pleasing prospect from a distance, a nearer view reveals the usual features of large Oriental towns,—narrow, dirty streets, unattractive buildings, and masses of crumbling walls under the torrid heat of a burning sun and amid all the sweltering surroundings of a damp climate.

The heat of Muscat is proverbial. John Struys, the Dutchman, who visited this town in 1672, wrote that it was “so incredibly hot and scorching that strangers are as if they were in boiling cauldrons or sweating tubs.” A Persian, named Abder-Razak, being a Persian, was able to surpass all others in exaggerated description and wrote of Muscat in 1442, “The heat was so intense that it burned the marrow in the bones, the sword in its scabbard melted like wax, and the gems that adorned the handle of the dagger were reduced to coal. In the plains the chase became a matter of perfect ease, for the desert was filled with roasted gazelles!” It is said that a black bulb thermometer has registered 189° F. in the sun at Muscat and 107° even at night, is not unusual during the hottest part of the year. The bare rocks form a parabolic mirror to the sun’s rays from the south and west; add to this the facts that the hills shut off the breezes and that Muscat lies on the Tropic of Cancer in the zone of greatest heat. According to the witness of a resident, “the climate of Muscat is bad beyond all description. For about three months in the year, from December to March, it is tolerably cool at night but after the latter month the heat becomes intense and makes Muscat rank but little after the Infernal Regions. There is a short break in the hot weather about the middle of July which generally lasts a month.”

[Illustration: THE HARBOR AND CASTLE AT MUSCAT]

[Illustration: READY FOR A CAMEL RIDE IN THE DESERT]

The most conspicuous buildings of Muscat are the two forts, the relics of the Portuguese dominion, which stand out boldly on each side of the town about 100 feet above the sea. They command not only the sea-approach, but the town itself and are only accessible by a fine stairway cut out of the natural rock. The guns that bristle from the forts are nearly all old and comparatively harmless. Several of them are of brass and bear the royal arms of Spain; one is dated 1606. In the fort to the right of the harbor, one can still see the ruins of a Portuguese chapel. When Pelly visited it in 1865 the following inscription was legible.

AVE MAR. GRASA P._EA ☐s TECUM Etc....

Its translation given by him reads: “Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Don Phillip III., King of Spain, Don Juan de Acuna of his council of war and his captain-general of the artillery in the year 1605, in the eighth year of his reign in the crown of Portugal, ordered through Don Quarte Menezes, his commissioner of India, that this fortress should be built.”