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They were all amazed when I appeared and gave orders to the division under my command. They looked very questioningly indeed, but, as the Persians had learnt to respect me, the Bahreini became quite amenable. The dimensions of the mound on which we began our labours were as follows: 35 feet in height, 76 feet in diameter, and 152 paces in circumference.
Every household of respectability has its wooden bowl with which to offer visitors a drink of water or sour milk; these are beautifully inlaid with silver in very elaborate patterns. The guns used by Bahreini sportsmen are similarly inlaid, and the camel saddles of the sheikhs are most beautifully decorated on the pommels in the same style.
Just as we were there they were very busy with the spathes, and in Thursday's Market huge baskets of the male spathes were exposed for sale. The palm-groves are surrounded by dykes to keep the water in. The date-tree is everything to a Bahreini.
His suit was not acceptable, so he made war on the islands and captured all the wells which supplied the towns on the bigger island; but the guardian deity of the Bahreini caused this spring to break out in the sea just before Moharek, and the invader was thus in time repulsed.
The Bahreini, for their own consumption, love to add sesame seeds to their dates, or ginger powder and walnuts pressed with them into jars. These are called sirah, and are originally prepared by being dried in the sun and protected at night, then diluted date-juice is poured over them.
The fruit which does not reach maturity is called salang, and is given as food to cattle, boiled with ground date-stones and fish bones. This makes an excellent sort of cake for milch cows; this, and the green dates also, are given to the donkeys, and to this food the Bahreini attribute their great superiority.
The sheikh has some fine war vessels, called batils, which did good execution about fifty years ago, when the Sultan of Oman and the rulers of El Hasa tried to seize Bahrein, and a naval battle took place in the shallow sea off the coast in which the Bahreini were victorious. Now that the Gulf is practically English and piracy at an end, these vessels are more ornamental than useful.
Ruins of houses and buildings surround this mosque, and here in the open space in the centre of the palm-groves the Bahreini assemble every Thursday for a market; in fact the place is generally known now as Suk-el-Khamis, or Thursday's Market. On our journey out not a soul was near, but on our return we had an opportunity of attending one of these gatherings.
One day we came across a cavalcade of Bahreini sportsmen, who looked exceedingly picturesque in their flowing robes and floating red kaffiehs, and riding gaily caparisoned horses, with crimson trappings and gold tassels. Each had on his arm a hooded falcon and by his side a Persian greyhound.
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