“From our town supper we returned by torchlight to the castle; our baggage, no great burden, had been already taken down to the sea gate, where stood two of the captain’s men waiting for us. In their company we descended to the beach, and then with garments tucked up to the waist waded to the vessel, not without difficulty, for the tide was rapidly coming in, and we had almost to swim for it. At last we reached the ship and scrambled up her side; most heartily glad was I to find myself at sea once more on the other side of Arabia.”
After a slow voyage of three days Palgrave reached Bahreyn, the headquarters of the pearl fisheries, and established himself in the little town of Moharrek, to wait for the arrival of Aboo-’Eysa before undertaking his projected exploration of Oman. He and his companion enjoyed a grateful feeling of rest and security in this seaport among the sailors, to whom all varieties of foreigners were well known, and who, having no prejudices, felt no suspicion.
On January 9, 1863, Aboo-’Eysa arrived, and after much earnest consultation the following plan was adopted: Aboo-’Eysa was to send twenty loads of the best Hasa dates, and a handsome mantle, as presents to the Sultan of Oman, with three additional mantles for the three chiefs whose territories intervened between Bahreyn and Muscat. Palgrave was to accompany these gifts, under his character of a skilled physician in quest of certain rare and mysterious herbs of Oman. Meanwhile, Aboo-’Eysa and Barakat would take passage for Aboo-Shahr (Busheer), in Persia, where the former would be employed for three months in making up his next caravan of Mecca pilgrims. Here Palgrave was to rejoin them after his journey.
In place of Barakat his companion was a curious individual named Yoosef, whom Aboo-’Eysa had rescued from misery and maintained in a decent condition. He was a native of Hasa, half a jester and half a knave; witty, reckless, hare brained to the last degree, full of jocose or pathetic stories, of poetry, traditions, and fun of every description. When everything had been arranged the four parted company, Palgrave and his new companion sailing for the port of Bedaa’, on the Arabian coast, where resided the first of the three chiefs whose protection it was necessary to secure. They reached there after a cruise of five or six days, finding the place very barren and desolate, with scarcely a tree or a garden; but, as the chief said to Palgrave, “We are all, from the highest to the lowest, the slaves of one master—Pearl.” The bay contains the best pearl-fishery on the coast, and the town depends for its existence on the trade in these gems.
The chief was intelligent and friendly, and appears to have interposed no obstacle to the proposed journey into the interior, but Palgrave decided to go on by sea to the town of Sharjah, on the northern side of the peninsula of Oman. Embarking again on February 6th, the vessel was driven by violent winds across to the Persian shore, and ten days elapsed before it was possible to reach Sharjah. Here, again, although their reception was hospitable, the travellers gave up their land journey and re-embarked in another vessel to pass around the peninsula, through the Straits of Ormuz, and land on the southern shore, in the territory of Muscat.
In three days they reached the island of Ormuz, of which Palgrave says: “I was not at all sorry to have an opportunity of visiting an island once so renowned for its commerce, and of which its Portuguese occupants used to say, ‘that, were the world a golden ring Ormuz would be the diamond signet.’ The general appearance of Ormuz indicates an extinguished volcano, and such I believe it really is; the circumference consists of a wide oval wall, formed by steep crags, fire-worn and ragged; these enclose a central basin, where grow shrubs and grass; the basaltic slopes of the outer barrier run in many places clean down into the sea, amid splinter-like pinnacles and fantastic crags of many colors, like those which lava often assumes on cooling. Between the west and north a long triangular promontory, low and level, advances to a considerable distance, and narrows into a neck of land, which is terminated by a few rocks and a strong fortress, the work of Portuguese builders, but worthy of taking rank among Roman ruins—so solid are the walls, so compact the masonry and well-selected brickwork, against which three long centuries of sea-storm have broken themselves in vain. The greater part of the promontory itself is covered with ruins. Here stood the once thriving town, now a confused extent of desolate heaps, amid which the vestiges of several fine dwellings, of baths, and of a large church may yet be clearly made out. Close by the fort cluster a hundred or more wretched earth-hovels, the abode of fishermen or shepherds, whose flocks pasture within the crater; one single shed, where dried dates, raisins, and tobacco are exposed for sale, is all that now remains of the trade of Ormuz.”
After being detained three days at Ormuz by a storm, the vessel passed through the Strait, skirted the southern coast of the peninsula, and reached the harbor of Sohar on March 3d. Palgrave determined to set off with Yoosef the same evening on the land-journey of eight or nine days to Muscat; but he had already lost so much time by delays since leaving Bahreyn that he yielded to the persuasions of the captain of another vessel, who promised to take him to Muscat by sea in two days. He sailed on the 6th, weighed down with a vague presentiment of coming evil, which was soon to be justified. His wanderings in Arabia, and also in this world, very nearly came to an end. The vessel slowly glided on for two days, and Muscat was almost in sight when a dead, ominous calm befell them near the Sowadah Islands—some low reefs of barren rocks, about three leagues from shore. It proved to be a calm, ominous indeed for Palgrave, as well as for the captain of the vessel and all on board. It was followed by a furious storm that ended in the wreck of the dhow, and the loss of several lives, together with the entire outfit of the expedition. Palgrave and the survivors of the crew and passengers, nine in number, barely escaped with their lives, and reached the shore utterly exhausted, with nothing but the shirts they wore.
In sorry plight the traveller made his way along the coast to Muscat. He was obliged to give up the idea of exploring the interior of Oman, partly on account of the loss of the stores but chiefly because his identity as a European had been disclosed; and so in this disastrous manner ended the most important and interesting journey that had yet been made by any traveller in Arabia.
CHAPTER XVII.
Lady Blunt’s Pilgrimage to Nejd.