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The Rufa'a are much older than Moharek, or Manamah; they are fortified with castellated walls of mud brick. Many of the El Khalifa family reside here in comfortable houses. South-western Rufa'a is quite a big place, and as our arrival became known all the village turned out to see us.
Manamah is the name of the town at which you land; it is the commercial capital of the islands just a streak of white houses and bamboo huts, extending about a mile and a half along the shore. A few mosques with low minarets may be seen, having stone steps up one side, by which the priest ascends for the call to prayer.
Moharek is aristocratic, being the seat of government; Manamah is essentially commercial, and between them in the sea is a huge dismantled Portuguese fort, now used as Sheikh Esau's stables. The town of Moharek gets its water supply from a curious source, springing up from under the sea.
Sheikh Esau's representative at Manamah his prime minister or viceroy, we should call him, though he is usually known there by the humble-sounding title of the 'bazaar master, by name Seid bin Omar, is a very stout and nearly black individual, with a European cast of countenance.
The other well, Abu Zeidan, is situated in the midst of the ruins known as Beled-al-Kadim, or 'old town. Two days later our camp was struck, and our long cavalcade, with Seid-bin-Omar, the bazaar-master, at its head, returned to Manamah.
These lodged at night in the bamboo village of Ali hard by, a place for which we developed the profoundest contempt, for the women thereof refused to pollute themselves by washing the clothes of infidels, and our garments had to be sent all the way to Manamah to be cleansed.
The water is slightly brackish, as is that of all these sources, so that those who can afford it send for water to a well between Rufa'a Jebeli and Rufa'a Shergeh called Haneini, which is exceedingly good, and camels laden with skins may be seen coming into Manamah every morning with this treasure. We obtained our water supply thence.
The Wahabi are fanatics of the deepest dye; 'there is one God, and Mohammed is his prophet, they say with the rest of the Mohammedan world, but the followers of Abdul Wahab add, 'and in no case must Mohammed and the Imams be worshipped lest glory be detracted from God. All titles to them are odious; no grand tombs are to be erected over their dead, no mourning is allowed; hence the cemetery at Manamah is but a pitiful place a vast collection of circles set with rough stones, each with a small uninscribed headpiece, and the surface sprinkled with helix shells.
As for ourselves, we, like everybody else, rode sideways, holding on like grim death before and behind, especially when the frisky Bahrein donkeys galloped at steeplechase pace across the desert. For some distance around Manamah all is arid desert, on which grow a few scrubby plants, which women cut for fodder with sickle-like saws, and carry home in large bundles on their backs.
Of course pearl-fishing is the great occupation of the islands, and Manamah is inhabited chiefly by pearl merchants and divers. Bahrein has in fact been celebrated for its pearl-fishing ever since the days of the Periplus of Nearchus, in the time of Alexander the Great.
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