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The Bedou houses are round, and surrounded by a round wall in which the flocks are penned at night; flat-roofed and covered with soil, and inside they are as destitute of interest as it is possible to conceive a few mats on which the family sleep, a few jars in which they store their butter, and a skin churn in which they make the same.
All our baggage was on five camels and the old sultan of the Hamoumi on the sixth, so we really need not have had the seventh. That dirty old Bedou owns many houses in Ghail Babwazir and other places. The governor was a very thin old man very like Don Quixote, his scanty hair and beard dyed red with henna.
The inhabitants of this wild range are chiefly Bedou and pastoral, and it is from this quarter that the troubles which beset the poor sultan, Feysul, generally emanate. The harbour of Maskat is full of life.
He was a huge giant, they said, the father of the prophet Houd, or Eber; he created camels out of the rock, and hence is especially dear to the wandering Bedou; and he still works miracles, for if even unwittingly anyone removes a stone from this grave, it exhibits symptoms of life, and gives the possessor much discomfort until it is returned.
Hard by is a small house where the pilgrims take their coffee, and the house of the Bedou mollah, who looks after the tomb, is about a quarter of a mile off. Beyond this there is no habitation in sight. A more desolate spot could hardly be found.
These are protected or indicated by a pair of walls built opposite one another, and banked up on the outer side with earth and stones, like shooting butts. The Akaba is exclusively Bedou property, and wherever a little herbage is to be found, there the nomads drive their flocks and young camels.
On the second day we began again to descend a hideously steep path, and a drop of about 1,500 feet brought us to a remarkable cave just above the plain, and only about ten or twelve miles from Al Hafa. This cave burrows far into the mountain side, and is curiously hung with stalactites, and contains the deserted huts of a Bedou village, only inhabited during the rains.
The greetings of the Bedou always amuse us; they first put cheek to cheek and then rub noses in the most matter-of-fact way, so we may infer that this mode of salutation is in vogue in the Mahra country. It was pleasant to be among such friendly people, who had no horror of us and did not even seem much surprised at seeing us there, and to be able to go off quite alone for a scramble so safely.
Young camels are reared here. We were so lucky as to discover a scorpion that had travelled in our tent from Dis, before it could do us harm. That day one of the Bedou soldiers came to me and asked me in a confidential sort of whisper, 'Are you a man or a woman?
'Oh! said Saleh, 'I only read them something from the preface of the Koran! We are not bound at all. If I had to swear falsely on the Koran, I should have to be given a great many guineas! We never knew the name of the place where we slept that night. Talib came in the morning and said he could not persuade the Bedou Hamoumi to go to Ghail Babwazir.
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