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Updated: May 23, 2025
Really Al Hafa and the Dhofar were ruled over autocratically by Wali Suleiman, who was sent out there about eighteen years before as governor, at the request of the feud-torn inhabitants, by Sultan Tourki of Maskat. In his small way Wali Suleiman was a man of great capacity; a man who has made history, and could have made more if his sphere had been larger.
Owing, however, to the illness of some of our party, we were at the last moment obliged to defer the expedition; though we had made all the preparations we could for the great cold we should have to encounter, the change of climate would have been injurious to Imam Sharif and two of his men. We next determined to go by sea to Merbat, and thence explore the Dhofar and Gara mountains.
Camels in Dhofar are not very choice feeders, and have a predilection for bones, and if they saw a bone near the path they would make for it with an eager rush extremely disconcerting to the rider. They are fine sturdy animals, and can go up and down hill better than any camels I have ever seen.
We asked for information about this place, but all we could get in reply was that it was the well of the Addites, the name always associated with the ruins of the bygone race. They also said the Minqui had lived in the town. In my opinion this spot is the site of the oracle mentioned by Ptolemy and others, from which the capital of Dhofar took its name.
Early Arabian authors are far more explicit, and we gather from Makrisi, Ibn Khaldun, and others, something more definite about Dhofar and the frankincense trade, and of the prince of this district who had the monopoly of the trade, and punished its infringement with death. These writers, when compared with the classical ones, assist us greatly in identifying localities.
Such palavering there was over this stupendous piece of diplomacy! Wali Suleiman and the Gara sheikhs sat for hours in solemn conclave in a palm-thatched barn about fifty yards distant from the castle, which takes the place of a parliament house in the kingdom of Dhofar.
We and they used involuntarily to sit down and slide and be brought up suddenly by a concealed rock. To the south the descent is abrupt and rocky to the plain of Dhofar and the Indian Ocean, and the horizon line on either side is remarkably similar, for in the far, far distance the sandy desert becomes a straight blue line like a horizon of water.
This name is obviously a Greek translation of the Sabæan for some well-known oracle which anciently existed here, not far, as Ptolemy himself tells us, from Cape Risout. This name eventually became Zufar, from which the modern name of Dhofar is derived. In a.d. 618 the town was destroyed and Mansura built, under which name the capital was known in early Mohammedan times.
Cutters and jolly-boats have taken their names from 'kattira' and 'jahlibot. Merbat, which is sixty-four miles from Maskat, is the first point of the Dhofar district after the long stretch of desert has been passed. It is a wretched little spot consisting of some fifty houses and a few Bedou huts, with about two hundred inhabitants.
Our object had been to go across from Dhofar by land to the Hadhramout, across the Mahri country. Wali Suleiman had done all in his power to help us, but without much success, as the Gara were more or less at war with the Mahri, who are a dangerous warlike tribe.
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