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Updated: May 21, 2025
Since the death of Sultan Sayid the power of Oman has most lamentably gone down, partly owing to the very success of his attempts to put down piracy; this, followed by the introduction of steam, has diminished the importance of Maskat as a safe port for the merchants to deposit their wares.
Exciting rumours had reached the ears of Colonel Miles, a former political agent at Maskat, concerning lakes and streams, and fertility unwonted for Arabia, which existed in these mountains, and our appetites were consequently whetted for their discovery.
Personally, I suspect the latter was the true reason of their aversion to our presence, for the coast from here to Maskat has a bad reputation in this respect, and just lately Arab slave-dhows have been carrying on their trade under cover of protection obtained from France at Obok and Zanzibar. The inhabitants have plaited hair and knobkerries. I believe they belong to the Jenefa tribe.
Another mile on, closer to the sea, is the fine ruined fortress of the Portuguese, Gibliah, as the natives call it now, just as they do one of the fortresses at Maskat. It covers nearly two acres of ground, and is built out of the remains of the old Persian town, for many Kufic inscriptions are let into the wall, and the deep well in the centre is lined with them.
My other fellow- travellers were petty merchants of Medina going to await at Djidda the arrival of the Indian ships, and a rich merchant from Maskat, whom I had seen at Mekka, where he was on the pilgrimage: he had ten camels to carry his women, his infant children, his servants, and his baggage; and he spent, at every station, considerable sums in charity.
Here and there palm-trees, almond-trees, and the ubiquitous camelthorn are seen interspersed amongst the houses; women in red and yellow garments, with turquoise rings in their ears and noses, peep at you furtively from behind their flimsy doors, and as you proceed up the valley you find several towers constructed to protect the gardens from Bedouin incursions, and a few comfortable little villas built by Banyan merchants, where they can retire from the heat and dust of Maskat.
They brought us several, which, however, did not quite satisfy us, and afterwards we learnt that an enterprising German firm had made a lot of these buttra for sale amongst the Maskat women; but the shape being not exactly orthodox, the women will not buy them, so the owners of these unsaleable articles are anxious to sell them cheap to any unsuspecting traveller who may be passing through.
Out of the kingdom of Oman they were driven in 1620, and confined to the town of Maskat by the victorious imam, Nasir-bin-Murshid, during whose reign of twenty-six years the legend is told that no man in Oman died a natural death.
We were told that snow sometimes falls in the winter-time on Jebel Akhdar, and it rejoices in a certain amount of verdure, from which it derives its name. This range forms the backbone of Oman, and at its foot lie Nezweh and Rostok, the old capitals of the long line of imams of Oman, before Maskat was a place of so much importance as it is at present.
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.
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