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Updated: June 5, 2025
The old Sultan Salem is father to the sultan of Sokotra, which belongs to the Mahri tribe, and brother to the sultan of Saihut, another robber chief, who is equally averse to admitting Europeans to his dominions. The fact is that these tribes object to European inquiry, as they know they would no longer be able to exist in their present condition.
Though Sokotra has been under Mahri rule probably since before our era for Arrian tells us that in his day the island of Dioscorida, as it was then called, was under the rule of the king of the Arabian frankincense country, and the best days of that country were long before Arrian's time nevertheless, the inhabitants have kept their language quite distinct both from Mahri and from Arabic.
Sultan Salem of Sokotra, the nephew of old Sultan Ali of Kishin, the monarch of the Mahri tribe, whom we had visited two years before on the south coast of Arabia, governed the island as his uncle's deputy.
When the Abyssinian Christian monarchs conquered Arabia in the early centuries of our era, and Christianised a large portion of that country, they probably did the same by Sokotra, and, inasmuch as this island was far removed from any political centre, Christianity probably existed here to a much later period than it did in Arabia.
Schweinfurth sees in the present name of Sokotra a Hindoo origin, and the survival of the Hindoo name Diu Sukutura, which the Greeks, after their easy-going fashion, changed into Dioscorides. This is very ingenious and most likely correct.
After leaving our camp at Saihon we took a path in a south-westerly direction, and after a few days of somewhat monotonous travelling we came again into the deeper valleys and finer scenery of the central districts of the island. Through them we made our way in the direction of Mount Haghier. Sokotra without Mount Haghier would be like a body without a soul.
This is the widest point of the island of Sokotra, and it is really only thirty-six miles between the ocean at Tamarida and the ocean at Noget, but the intervention of Mount Haghier and its ramifications make it appear a very long way indeed. The island to the east and to the west of its great mountain very soon loses its fantastic scenery and its ample supply of water.
From one end of Sokotra to the other we never found anything the least characteristic or attractive amongst the possessions of the islanders, nothing but poor examples of what one finds everywhere on the south coast of Arabia and east of Africa. Many weddings were going on during our residence at Kalenzia, and at them we witnessed a ceremony which we had not seen before.
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