CHAPTER XXI
THE IDENTIFICATION OF ABYSSAPOLIS
We now pursued our way along the coast-line of Dhofar in an easterly direction. Wali Suleiman entertained us for a night at a farm he had built at a place called Rizat, the land around which is watered by an abundant stream. His garden was rich in many kinds of fruits, and on our arrival, hot and weary from the road, he spread a carpet for us under the shade of a mulberry tree while our camp was pitched, and ordered a slave to pick us a dishful of the fruit, which was exceedingly refreshing. Besides these he provided us with papayas, gourds, vegetables, and all sorts of delicacies to which we had been strangers during our wanderings in the Gara mountains. In this genial retreat Wali Suleiman passed much of his time, leaving behind him at Al Hafa the cares of state and the everlasting bickerings in his harem.
The next morning, refreshed and supplied with the requisites for another journey, we started off again in our easterly course towards Takha, the most important village at the east end of the plain of Dhofar. As we rode across the plain we were perpetually harassed by the thought as to where the excellent harbour could be, which is mentioned by all ancient writers as frequented by the frankincense merchants, and which modern writers, such as Dr. Glaser and Sir E. H. Bunbury, agree in considering to be some little way west of Merbat. Yakut tells us how the ancient ships on their way to and from India tarried there during the monsoons, and he further tells us that it was twenty parasangs east of the capital. The 'Periplus' speaks of it as Moscha, Ptolemy as Abyssapolis, and the Arabs as Merbat; but as there is no harbourage actually at Merbat, it clearly could not be there. So as we went along we pondered on this question, and wondered if this celebrated harbour was, after all, a myth.
It was a most uninteresting ride along this coast: flat, and for the most part barren, broken here and there by lagoons of brackish and evil-smelling water and mangrove swamps. On the way we saw antelopes and foxes with white bushy tails. One night we encamped by one of these river beds on slightly rising ground, and were devoured by mosquitoes, and so pestilent are these insects here that they not only attacked us, but tormented our camels to such a degree that they were constantly jumping up in the night and making such hideous demonstrations of their discomfort that our rest was considerably interfered with.
When we reached Takha, after a ride of fifteen miles, we found ourselves once more amongst a heap, or rather two heaps, of Sabæan ruins, which had not been so much disturbed by subsequent occupants as those at the capital, but at the same time they were not nearly so fine, and the columns were mostly undecorated. There were also some very rough sarcophagi.
The wali of Takha received us well, and placed his house at our disposal, but it was so dirty we elected to pitch our tents, and encamped some little distance from the village. On the following morning the wali sent us with a guide to inspect some ruins round the neighbouring headland which forms one end of the bay, of which Ras Risout is the other. The rock of which it is composed is white in all the sheltered parts and where the path is polished, and nearly black in the exposed parts. When we reached the other side of this promontory, to our amazement we saw before us a long sheet of water, stretching nearly two miles inland, broken by many little creeks, and in some parts fully half a mile wide. This sheet of water, which is called Kho Rouri, had been silted up at its mouth by a sandbank, over which the sea could only make its way at high tide, and the same belt of sand separated from it a fortified rock, Khatiya by name, which must formerly have been an island protecting the double entrance to what once must have been an excellent harbour, and which could be again restored to its former condition by an outlay of very little capital and labour. We were the more amazed at coming across this sheet of water, as it is not marked in the Admiralty chart.
Surely there can be no doubt that this is the harbour which was anciently used by the merchants who came to this coast for frankincense. It would be absolutely secure at all seasons of the year, and it is just twenty parasangs from the ruins of the ancient capital—exactly where it ought to be, in fact—and probably the Arabs called it Merbat, a name which has been retained in the modern village on the sheltering headland, where we landed when we first reached Dhofar. As for the name Moscha—given in the 'Periplus'—it is like Mocha, a name given to several bays on the Arabian coast, and I think we discovered why Ptolemy called it Abyssapolis, as I will presently explain. We ascended the rock at the entrance, took a photograph of the sheet of water, and felt that we had at last succeeded in reconstructing the geography of this interesting bit of country.
I hear that the Egyptologists are in search of a harbour to which the expedition to the land of Punt was made under the enterprising Queen Hatasou. Some imagine that this coast of Arabia was the destination of this expedition, and I herewith call their attention to this spot, for I know of none other more likely on the barren, harbourless coast between Aden and Maskat. If we take the illustration of this expedition given in the temple of Deir al Bahari, we have, to begin with, the frankincense trees, the long straight line of water running inland, the cattle and the birds; then the huts which the Bedouin build on tall poles, approached by ladders, from which they can inspect the produce of their land and drive off marauders, look exactly like those thereon depicted. All that we want are the apes, which certainly do not now exist in the Gara mountains, but it is just the spot where one would expect to find them; and in a district where the human race has been reduced to the smallest point, there is no reason why the kindred race of apes should not have disappeared altogether. Apes still exist near Aden.
