THE HADHRAMOUT
CHAPTER VI
MAKALLA
After our journeys in South Africa and Abyssinia, it was suggested to my husband that a survey of the Hadhramout by an independent traveller would be useful to the Government; so in the winter of 1893-94 we determined to do our best to penetrate into this unknown district, which anciently was the centre of the frankincense and myrrh trade, one of the most famed commercial centres of 'Araby the Blest,' before Mohammedan fanaticism blighted all industries and closed the peninsula to the outer world.
In the proper acceptation of the term, the Hadhramout at the present time is not a district running along the south-east coast of Arabia between the sea and the central desert, as is generally supposed, but it is simply a broad valley running for 100 miles or more parallel to the coast, by which the valleys of the high Arabian table-land discharge their not abundant supply of water into the sea at Saihut, towards which place this valley gradually slopes.
There is every reason to believe that anciently, too, the Hadhramout meant only this valley; we learnt from Himyaritic inscriptions that five centuries b.c. the name was spelt by the Himyars as it is now (namely, t m r d h [Symbol: See page image]), and meant in that tongue 'the enclosure or valley of death,' a name which in Hebrew form corresponds exactly to that of Hazarmaveth of the tenth chapter of Genesis, and which the Greeks, in their usual slipshod manner—occasioned by their inability, as is the case still, to pronounce a pure h—converted into Chatramitæ, a form which still survives in the Italian word catrame, or 'pitch.'
Owing to the intense fanaticism of the inhabitants, this main valley has been reached only by one European before ourselves—namely, Herr Leo Hirsch, in 1893. In 1846 Von Wrede made a bold attempt to reach it, but only got as far as the collateral valley of Doan. My husband and I were the first to attempt (in the latter part of 1893 and the early part of 1894) this journey without any disguise, and with a considerable train of followers, and I think, for this very reason, that we went openly, we made more impression on the natives, and were able to remain there longer and see more, than might otherwise have been the case, and to establish relations with the inhabitants which, I hope, will hereafter lead to very satisfactory results.
Having arrived at Aden with letters of recommendation to the Resident from the Indian Government and the India Office, besides private introductions, we were amazed at all the difficulties thrown in our way. It quite appeared as if we had left our native land to do some evil deed to its detriment, and we were made to feel how thoroughly degrading it is to take up the vocation of an archæologist and explorer.
Many strange and unexpected things befell us, but the most remarkable of all was that when a certain surgeon-captain asked for leave to accompany us, it was refused to him on the ground that 'Mr. Theodore Bent's expedition was not sanctioned by Government,' in spite of the fact that the Indian Government had actually placed at my husband's disposal a surveyor, Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur. We had no assistance beyond two very inferior letters to the sultans of Makalla and Sheher, which made them think we were 'people of the rank of merchants,' they afterwards said.
