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Updated: June 21, 2025
I have seen a householder after trying to hammer the key in with a stone, at last in despair climb over his own garden wall. Perchance a shark-skin or wooden buckler may be picked up from a Bedou from the mountains, and there are chances of obtaining the products of many nationalities, for Maskat, like Aden, is one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the East.
The suburbs of Maskat are especially interesting. As soon as you issue out of either of the two gates which are constructed in the wall, shutting the town off from the outer world, you plunge at once into a new and varied life.
In a nice-looking house by the shore dwelt Dr. Jayakar, an Indian doctor, who had lived for twenty-five years at Maskat, combining the post of British Vice-Consul with that of medical adviser to the few Europeans who dwell there.
Neither Ptolemy nor the author of the 'Periplus' gives us any definite information about the existence of a town in the harbour of Maskat, and consequently the first reliable information we have to go upon is from the early Arabian geographers.
Maskat would seem to want even this meagre protection, and 'gives, as a Persian poet has expressed it, 'to the panting sinner a lively anticipation of his future destiny. The approach to the cove of Maskat is highly striking.
He ascended the throne in 1804, and reigned for fifty-two years. He found his country in dire distress at the time of his accession, owing to the attacks of the fanatical Wahabi from Central Arabia, who had carried their victorious arms right down to Maskat, and had imposed their bigoted rules and religious regulations on the otherwise liberal-minded Mohammedans of Eastern Arabia.
There are the foundations of some curious unfinished houses near Kadhoup, also assigned to the Portuguese; but there appears to me to be no reason whatsoever for ascribing these miserable remains to the builders of the fine forts at Maskat, the founders of Ormuz and Goa, and the lords of the East up to the seventeenth century.
Consequently, Maskat is a most unhealthy place, especially when the atmosphere is damp and rain has fallen to stir up the refuse. The women with their mask-veils called buttra, not unlike the masks worn with a domino, pleased us immensely, so that we sought to possess a specimen.
For the Indian Government the question of Maskat is by no means pleasant, for, should any other Power choose to interfere and establish an influence there, it would materially affect the influence which we have established in the Persian Gulf. I never saw a place so void of architectural features as the town of Maskat itself.
In this district Maskat is the most important point; the kingdom of Oman, of which it is nominally the capital, commands the entrance to the Gulf. In the ninth century of the Christian era ships trading from Sherif to China took in water at Maskat from the wells which still supply the town.
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