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To our surprise at twelve o'clock we stopped at a well, Bir al Ghuz, when our men began to unload the camels. They said they were only just waiting for the Hamoumi siyara to come up, and that they had already arrived at Sa'ah. The Hamoumi are a small, poor tribe of Bedouin, who occupy the lower end of Wadi Adim. They hire out camels to caravans, and do a great deal of the carrying business.
My husband said he had agreed for twenty-five, but they said they had spent two dollars on a messenger to fetch the Hamoumi. The Jabberi were by way of having 110 dollars for their siyar, forty first and the rest at Sheher. Besides this they always demanded their camel-hire every evening.
He was exceedingly good to us, and as we wanted to go along the coast for about eighty miles, to get a sight of the mouth of the Hadhramout valley near Saihut, where it empties itself into the Indian Ocean, he arranged that the chief of the dreaded Hamoumi tribe should personally escort us, so that there might be no further doubt about our safety.
One had three upright stones, which the Hamoumi camel-men touched, and then kissed their fingers. They cheerfully told us that many caravans have been robbed here, and men murdered; pleasant news for us. We asked them why we had been fired on, and they said that the people believed we poisoned the wells.
However, next morning seven camels came and we were quickly on the road, causing great terror to the crabs. When I say the road I mean the sand at low tide. We had the chief of all the Hamoumi with us, a very old, rich, and dirty man, but most precious to us as a safeguard. Two of his sons were kept as hostages in Sheher till we should return in peace.
There had been great trouble with the Hamoumi, and only three months before two soldiers had been killed about half a mile from Sheher. Ghaleb Mia and Hussein Mia dared not go to Inbula or anywhere outside their walls without forty or fifty men, and when Sal
There is a round, black basaltic mountain which they call the Hamoumi mountain. The Hamoumi tribe occupy nearly all the mountainous district east of Sheher, between the Hadhramout valley and the sea, and they are reported to be very powerful. Next to them come the tribe of Mahra. Even Sultan Ghalib himself cannot ride far out of his capital unprotected, because the Hamoumi are his foes.
Several times we went by small passes through gypsum hills, lovely to behold, and twice we passed water, not so bitter as Ghail Babwazir. We had plenty of up and down hill, but never had to dismount. The way was, for the most part, arid and uninteresting. Four years before, in these passes, the Hamoumi had attacked a caravan and killed nine men, taking eighty camels and 2,000 rupees.
'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.
Canals cut some twenty feet deep, like the kanats of Persia, conduct the water to the fields. The chief product is tobacco, known as Hamoumi tobacco. Our roof happened to command a view of the terrace where a bride and her handmaidens were making merry with drums and coffee.
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