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Another door leads into a vaulted passage full of guards, through which we passed and entered into an inner court with a pool in the centre and a wide cloister around it supporting a gallery. Sultan Feysul was then a very young man, not much over twenty. He was greatly interested in seeing us, for we were the first English travellers who had visited him since his accession.
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.
The eldest of them, according to Arabian custom, claimed the throne and had collected an army amongst the Bedouin to assert his claims, and was then in possession of all the country, with the exception of Maskat and El Matra, for Feysul had no money, and hence he could not get his soldiers to fight.
His father, Tourki, not long before sewed up a woman in a sack and drowned her, whereupon a polite message came from the Residency requesting him not to do such things again. Hence young Feysul dared not be very cruel to offend the English would have been to lose his position.
But then it had been intimated to Feysul that in all probability the English would support his claims if he conducted himself prudently and wisely. So there was every likelihood that in due course he would be thoroughly established in the dominions of his father.
With the consent of, and at the request of, the Indian Government, Sultan Feysul has imposed additional heavy duty on all the produce coming in from the rebel tribes, that he may have a fund from which to pay indemnities to foreigners who suffered loss during the invasion. A good many Banyan merchants, British subjects, suffered losses, and their claim alone amounted to 120,000 rupees.
As we were preparing to depart the young monarch grew apparently very uneasy, and impatiently shouted something to his attendants, and when the servant came in, Feysul hurried to him, seized four little gilt bottles of attar of roses, thrust two of them into each of our pockets, and with some compliments as to our Queen having eyes everywhere, and Feysul's certainty that she would look after him, the audience was at an end.
There is also an American Consul there, who chiefly occupies himself in trade and steamer agencies, and in 1895 the French also sent a Consul to inquire into the question of the slave trade, which is undoubtedly the burning question in Arabia. Sultan Feysul remonstrated with France on this point, and the appointment of a Consul is the result.
Sultan Feysul was a complete autocrat as far as his jurisdiction extended. At his command a criminal could be executed either in the lion's cage or in a little square by the sea, and his body cut up and thrown into the waves. The only check upon him was the British Resident.
Sultan Feysul had done much in the last few years, since our first visit, to modernise his palace. British influence has abolished many horrors and cruelties, and the lion having died has not been replaced.
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