“But perhaps my reader, after accompanying me thus far, may feel thirsty, for the heat, even in December, is almost oppressive, and the sky cloudless as though it were June or July. So let us turn aside into that grassy plantation, where half a dozen buffaloes are cooling their ugly hides in a pool, and drink a little from the source that supplies it. When behold! the water is warm, almost hot. Do not be surprised; all the fountain sources and wells of Hasa are so, more or less; in some one can hardly bear to plunge one’s hand; others are less above the average temperature, while a decidedly sulphurous taste is now and then perceptible. In fact, from the extreme north of this province down to its southern-most frontier, this same sign of subterranean fire is everywhere to be found. The rocks, too, are here very frequently of tufa and basalt, another mark of igneous agency.
“The products of Hasa are many and various; the monotony of Arab vegetation, its eternal palm and ithel, ithel and palm, are here varied by new foliage, and growths unknown to Nedjed and Shomer. True, the date-palm still predominates, nay, here attains its greatest perfection. But the nabak, with its rounded leaves and little crab-apple fruit, a mere bush in Central Arabia, becomes in Hasa a stately tree; the papay, too, so well known in the more easterly peninsula, appears, though seldom, and stunted in growth, along with some other trees, common on the coast from Cutch to Bombay. Indigo is here cultivated, though not sufficiently for the demands of commerce; cotton is much more widely grown than in Yemamah; rice fields abound, and the sugar-cane is often planted, though not, I believe, for the extraction of the sugar. The peasants of Hasa sell the reed by retail bundles in the market-place, and the purchasers take it home to gnaw at leisure in their houses. Corn, maize, millet, vetches of every kind, radishes, onions, garlic, beans, in short, almost all legumina and cerealia, barley excepted (at least I neither saw nor heard of any), cover the plain, and under a better administration might be multiplied tenfold.
“The climate of Hasa, as I have already implied, is very different from that of the uplands, and not equally favorable to health and physical activity. Hence, a doctor, like myself, if my readers will allow me the title, has here more work and better fees; this latter circumstance is also owing to the greater amount of ready money in circulation, and the higher value set on medical science by men whose intellects are much more cultivated than those of their Nedjean neighbors. In appearance, the inhabitants of Hasa are generally good-sized and well-proportioned, but somewhat sallow in the face, and of a less muscular development than is usual inland; their features, though regular, are less marked than those of the Nedjeans, and do not exhibit the same half-Jewish type. On the contrary, there is something in them that reminds a beholder of the Rajpoot or the Guzeratee. They are passionately fond of literature and poetry.
“I have already said that our great endeavor in Hasa was to observe unobserved, and thus to render our time as barren as might be in incidents and catastrophes. Not that we went into the opposite extreme of leading an absolutely retired and therefore uneventful life. Aboo-’Eysa took care from the first to bring us into contact with the best and the most cultivated families of the town, nor had my medical profession anywhere a wider range for its exercise, or better success than in Hofhoof. Friendly invitations, now to dinner, now to supper, were of daily occurrence; and we sat at tables where fish, no longer mere salted shrimps, announced our vicinity to the coast; vermicelli, too, and other kinds of pastry, denoted the influence of Persian art on the kitchen. Smoking within doors was general; but the nargheelah often replaced, and that advantageously, the short Arab pipe; perfumes are no less here in use than in Nedjed.
“We had passed about a week in the town when Aboo-’Eysa entered the side room where Barakat and I were enjoying a moment of quiet, and copying out ‘Nabtee’ poetry, and shut the door behind him. He then announced to us, with a face and tone of serious anxiety, that two of the principal Nedjean agents belonging to the Kôt had just come into the k’hawah, under pretext of medical consultation, but in reality, said he, to identify the strangers. We put on our cloaks—a preliminary measure of decorum equivalent to face- and hand-washing in Europe—and presented ourselves before our inquisitors with an air of conscious innocence and scientific solemnity. Conversation ensued, and we talked so learnedly about bilious and sanguine complexions, cephalic veins, and Indian drugs, with such apposite citations from the Koran, and such loyal phrases for Feysul, that Aboo-’Eysa was beside himself for joy; and the spies, after receiving some prescriptions of the bread-pill and aromatic-water formula, left the house no wiser than before. Our friends, too, and they were now many, well guessing what we might really be, partly from our own appearance and partly from the known character of our host (according to old Homer’s true saying, Heaven always leads like to like), did each and all their best to throw sand into Wahabee eyes, and everything went on sociably and smoothly. A blessing on the medical profession! None other gives such excellent opportunities for securing everywhere confidence and friendship.
“Before we leave Hasa I must add a few remarks to complete the sketch given of the province and of its inhabitants. Want of a suitable opportunity for inserting them before has thrown them together at this point of my narrative.
“My fair readers will be pleased to learn that the veil and other restraints inflicted on the gentle sex by Islamitic rigorism, not to say worse, are much less universal, and more easily dispensed with in Hasa; while in addition, the ladies of the land enjoy a remarkable share of those natural gifts which no institutions, and even no cosmetics, can confer; namely, beauty of face and elegance of form. Might I venture on the delicate and somewhat invidious task of constructing a ‘beauty-scale’ for Arabia, and for Arabia alone, the Bedouin women would, on this kalometer, be represented by zero, or at most 1°; a degree higher would represent the female sex of Nedjed; above them rank the women of Shomer, who are in their turn surmounted by those of Djowf. The fifth or sixth degree symbolizes the fair ones of Hasa; the seventh those of Katar; and lastly, by a sudden rise of ten degrees at least, the seventeenth or eighteenth would denote the pre-eminent beauties of Oman. Arab poets occasionally languish after the charmers of Hedjaz; I never saw anyone to charm me, but then I only skirted the province. All bear witness to the absence of female loveliness in Yemen; and I should much doubt whether the mulatto races and dusky complexions of Hadramaut have much to vaunt of. But in Hasa a decided improvement on this important point is agreeably evident to the traveller arriving from Nedjed, and he will be yet further delighted on finding his Calypsos much more conversible, and having much more, too, in their conversation than those he left behind him in Sedeyr and ’Aared.
“During our stay at Hofhoof, Aboo-’Eysa left untried no arts of Arab rhetoric and persuasion to determine me to visit Oman, assuring me again and again that whatever we had yet seen, even in his favorite Hasa, was nothing compared to what remained to see in that more remote country. My companion, tired of our long journey, and thinking the long distance already laid between him and his Syrian home quite sufficient in itself without further leagues tacked on to it, was very little disposed for a supplementary expedition. Englishmen, on the contrary, are rovers by descent and habit; my own mind was now fully made up to visit Oman at all risks, whether Barakat came with me or not. Meanwhile, we formed our plan for the next immediate stage of our route. My companion and I were to quit Hofhoof together, leaving Aboo-’Eysa behind us for a week or two at Hasa, while we journeyed northward to Kateef, and thence took ship for the town of Menamah in Bahreyn. In this latter place Aboo-’Eysa was to rejoin us. Our main reason for thus separating our movements in time and in direction, was to avoid the too glaring appearance of acting in concert while yet in a land under Wahabee government and full of Wahabee spies and reporters, especially after the suspicions thrown on us at Ri’ad. The Oman arrangements were to be deferred till we should all meet again.
“Barakat and myself prepared for our departure; we purchased a few objects of local curiosity, got in our dues of medical attendance, paid and received the customary P. P. C. visits, and even tendered our respects to the negro governor Belal, where he sat at his palace door in the Kôt, holding a public audience, and looking much like any other well-dressed black. No passport was required for setting out on the road to Kateef, which in the eyes of government forms only one and the same province with Hasa, though in many respects very different from it. The road is perfectly secure; plundering Bedouins or highway robbers are here out of the question. However, we stood in need of companions, not for escort, but as guides. Aboo-’Eysa made inquiries in the town, and found three men who chanced to be just then setting out on their way for Kateef, who readily consented to join band with us for the road. Our Abyssinian hostess supplied us with a whole sack of provisions, and our Hofhoof associates found us in camels. Thus equipped and mounted, we took an almost touching leave of Aboo-’Eysa’s good-natured wife, kissed the baby, exchanged an au revoir with its father, and set out on the afternoon of December 19th, leaving behind us many pleasant acquaintances, from some of whom I received messages and letters while at Bahreyn. So far as inhabitants are concerned, to no town in Arabia should I return with equal confidence of finding a hearty greeting and a welcome reception, than to Hofhoof and its amiable and intelligent merchants.
“We quitted the town by the northeastern gate of the Rifey-’eeyah, where the friends, who, according to Arab custom, had accompanied us thus far in a sort of procession, wished us a prosperous journey, took a last adieu, and returned home. After some hours we bivouacked on a little hillock of clean sand, with the dark line of the Hofhoof woods on our left, while at some distance in front a copious fountain poured out its rushing waters with a noise distinctly audible in the stillness of the night, and irrigated a garden worthy of Damascus or Antioch. The night air was temperate, neither cold like that of Nedjed, nor stifling like that of Southern India; the sky clear and starry. From our commanding position on the hill I could distinguish Soheyl or Canopus, now setting; and following him, not far above the horizon, the three upper stars of the Southern Cross, an old Indian acquaintance; two months later in Oman I had the view of the entire constellation.