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The town is governed by a wali chosen by the imam, and in the bazaars may be seen, in hopeless confusion, Banyans from India, Omani, Bedouin, Persians and Jews.
Oh, what hearty laughs our missionaries have had when comparing the eternally-sounding Eastern gibberish of Omani batsikhom, Omani batsikhom, and the Ave Maria and Amen Jesus of our own idiotical devotees."
The election was always by popular acclamation, and inasmuch as the Omani do not recognise the two 'imams' who immediately succeeded Mohammed, but chose their own, they form a separate sect. Internecine wars were always rife amongst them; but, at the same time, these early Omani had little or no intercourse with the outer world.
These women are eagerly sought after as wives by the half-castes of the East Coast, and even the pure Omani Arabs do not disdain to take them in marriage. To the north of Manyuema, Livingstone came to the light- complexioned race, of the colour of Portuguese, or our own Louisiana quadroons, who are very fine people, and singularly remarkable for commercial "'cuteness" and sagacity.
As soon, therefore, as the family were out of sight, he came down from the tree, and ventured in the house, where he found not only enough to satisfy his hunger, but what might be deemed luxury in his present condition: for there was a jolly cake, powell, a sort of Indian corn bread, and good omani, which is kidney-beans ground with Indian corn, sifted, then put into a pot to boil, and eat with molasses.
Of the internal quarrels of the country, the Omani historian Salid-bin-Ragik has given a detailed account, but for the rest of the world they are of little interest. In those days Oman seems to have had two ports, Sur and Kalhat, on the Indian Ocean, which were more frequented than Maskat.
Airy as our 'cabin' was, bilge-water was our torment. We had started on January 23, the weather being cool and overcast, about 11 o'clock, and reached the village of Rakhiout in thirty hours only forty miles. We called there to do a civility to the wali, and leave two soldiers there. This is the end of Omani influence, and there is a small fort as a protection against the Mahri.
Outside the walls the sultan is in the habit of distributing two meals a day to the indigent poor; and inasmuch as the Omani are by nature prone to laziness, there is but little doubt that his highness's liberality is greatly imposed on.
The streams which come down from these mountains nowhere reach the sea, but are lost in the deserts, and, nevertheless, in some places they fertilise oases in the Omani desert, where the vegetation is most luxuriant and fever very rife.
Two years later they were also driven from Maskat itself, and those two forts Jellali and Merani which they had built, the last foothold of the Portuguese on the Omani territory, were taken from them. The historian Salil tells the amusing story of the final fall of Maskat into the hands of the Arabs.
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