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The closest intimacy exists between a Bedou and his goats and his cows; the animals understand and obey certain calls with absolute accuracy, and you generally see a Sokotran shepherdess walking before her flock, and not after it. The owners stroke and caress their little cows until they are as tame as dogs.
They had heard how a Sokotran man had turned a woman of Maskat into a seal and forced her to swim over to Sokotra in that shape. We were told that this story is perfectly true! This evil reputation of the islanders is very persistent.
It is undoubtedly a providential thing for the Sokotran that his island is harbourless, that his mountains are not auriferous, and that the modern world is not so keen about dragon's-blood, which is still called 'the blood of two brothers, frankincense and myrrh, as the ancients were.
Ibn Batuta gives an account of a certain Sheikh Said of Maskat being seized by Sokotran pirates, who sent him off empty-handed to Aden. Marco Polo describes the catching of whales for ambergris.
Furthermore, the mode of life is the same dwelling in caves when necessary, but having permanent abodes on the lower lands; and they have several other striking points in common. Greetings take place between the Arabian Bedouin and the Sokotran Bedouin in similar fashion, by touching each cheek and then rubbing the nose.
There is certainly nothing African about the Sokotran Bedouin; therefore I am inclined to consider them as a branch of that aboriginal race which inhabited Arabia, with a language of its own; and when Arabia is philologically understood and its various races investigated, I expect we shall hear of several new languages spoken by different branches of this aboriginal race, and then, perhaps, a parallel will be found to the proudly isolated tongue of this remote island.
The teherane would seem to be the favourite and only Sokotran instrument of music if we except flutes made of the leg-bones of birds common on the opposite coast, and probably introduced thence and finds favour alike with Arab, Bedou, and Negro. The people here did not torment us by staring at and crowding round us.
The Bedouin would bring us aloes both in leaf and in solution, in hopes that we might take a fancy to this venerable Sokotran production.
A Sokotran camel-man is a most dexterous packer. He must first obliterate his camel's hump by placing against it three or four thick felt mats or nummuds, and on this raised surface he builds all his luggage, carefully secured in his baskets, with the result that we never, during any of our expeditions with camels, had so little damage done to our property, even though the roads were so mountainous and the box-bushes were constantly rubbing against the loads.
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