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. The great mass of mountains which occupies the centre of the island rises in many jagged and stupendous peaks to the height of nearly 5,000 feet. At all seasons of the year it catches the fugitive sea mists which so rarely visit the Arabian coasts, and down its sides flow sparkling streams and bubbling cascades. The Ghebel Bit Molek (a name which, by the way, sounds as if it had an Assyrian origin) is the highest peak. It is very sheer and unapproachable at its summit, and though only 4,900 feet high will give trouble to the adventurous crag-climber who is bent on conquering it. Then there are the Driat peaks, the Adouna peaks, and many others piercing the sky like needles, around which wild goats and civet cats roam, but no other big game.
In the lower ground are found quantities of wild donkeys, which, the Bedouin complained, were in the habit of trampling upon and killing their goats. Whether these donkeys are naturally wild or descendants of escaped tamed ones I am unable to say. Some are dark and some are white, and their skins seemed to be more glossy than those of the domestic moke. The Bedouin like to catch them if they can, with the hope of taming them for domestic use.
Vegetation in Sokotra
The glory of Mount Haghier is undoubtedly its dragon's-blood tree (Dracænia cinnabari), found scattered at an elevation of about 1,000 feet and upwards over the greater part of Sokotra. Certainly it is the quaintest tree imaginable, from 20 feet to 30 feet high, exactly like a green umbrella which is just in the process of being blown inside out, I thought. One of our party thought them like huge green toadstools, another like trees made for a child's Noah's Ark. The gum was called kinnàbare, but the Arab name is kàtir. The Sokoteri name is edah.
It is a great pity that the Sokotrans of to-day do not make more use of the rich ruby-red gum which issues from its bark when punctured, and which produces a valuable resin, now used as varnish; but the tree is now found in more enterprising countries—in Sumatra, in South America, and elsewhere. So the export of dragon's blood from its own ancient home is now practically nil.
If the dragon's-blood tree, with its close-set, radiating branches and stiff, aloe-like leaves, is quaint—and some might be inclined to say ugly—it has, nevertheless, its economic use; but not so its still quainter comrade on the slopes of Mount Haghier, the gouty, swollen-stemmed Adenium. This, I think, is the ugliest tree in creation, with one of the most beautiful of flowers: it looks like one of the first efforts of Dame Nature in tree-making, happily abandoned by her for more graceful shapes and forms. The swollen and twisted contortions of its trunk recall with a shudder those miserable sufferers from elephantiasis; its leaves are stiff and formal, and they usually drop off, as if ashamed of themselves, before the lovely flower, like a rich-coloured, large oleander blossom, comes out. The adenium bears some slight resemblance, on a small scale, to the unsightly baobab-tree of Africa, though it tapers much more rapidly, and looks as if it belonged to a different epoch of creation to our own trees at home.
Then there is the cucumber-tree, another hideous-stemmed tree, swollen and whitish; and the hill-slopes covered with this look as if they had been decorated with so many huge composite candles which had guttered horribly. At the top of the candle are a few short branches, on which grow a few stiff crinkly leaves and small yellow flowers, which produce the edible fruit. This tree, in Sokoteri kamhàn, the Dendrosicyos Socotrana of the botanist, is like the language of the Bedouin, found only on Sokotra, and is seldom more than 10 or 12 feet in height. It is a favourite perch for three or four of the white vultures which swarm in the island, and the picture formed by these ungainly birds on the top of this ungainly tree is an odd one.
To the south of Mount Haghier one comes across valleys entirely full of frankincense-trees, with rich red leaves, like autumn tints, and clusters of blood-red flowers. No one touches the trees here, and this natural product of the island is now absolutely ignored. Then there are the myrrhs, also ignored, and other gum-producing plants; and the gnarled tamarinds, affording lovely shade, and the fruit of which the natives, oddly enough, do know the value of, and make a cooling drink therewith. Then there are the tree-euphorbias, which look as if they were trying to mimic the dragon's blood, the branches of which the natives throw into the lagoons so that the fish may be killed, and the poisonous milky juice of which they rub on the bottoms of their canoes to prevent leakage.