Firstly, there are numerous wild tribes of Bedouin scattered all over the country, who do all the carrying trade, rear and own most of the camels, and possess large tracts of country, chiefly on the highlands and smaller valleys. They are very numerous and powerful, and the Arabs of the towns are certainly afraid of them, for they can make travelling in the country very difficult, and even blockade the towns. They never live in tents, as do the Bedouin of Northern Arabia; the richer ones have quite large houses, whilst the poorer ones—those in Shabwa and the Wadi Adim, for instance—dwell in caves.
Secondly, we have the Arabs proper, a decidedly later importation into the country than the Bedouin. They live in and cultivate the lands around the towns; many of them carry on trade and go to India and the Straits Settlements, and some of them are very wealthy. They also are divided into tribes. The chief of those dwelling in the Hadhramout are the Yafei, Kattiri, Minhali, Amri, and Tamimi. The Bedouin reside amongst them, and they are constantly at war with one another, and the complex system of tribal union is exceedingly difficult to grasp.
Thirdly, we have the Seyyids and Sherifs, a sort of aristocratic hierarchy, who trace their descent from the daughter and son of the Prophet. Their influence in the Hadhramout is enormous, and they fan the religious superstition of the people, for to this they owe their existence. They boast that their pedigree is purer than that of any other Seyyid family, even than those of Mecca and Medina. Seyyids and Sherifs are to be found in all the large towns and considerable villages, and even the Arab sultans show them a marked respect and kiss their hands when they enter a room. They have a distinct jurisdiction of their own, and most disputed points of property, water rights, and so on, are referred to their decision. They look with peculiar distrust on the introduction of external influence into their sacred country, and are the obstructionists of the Hadhramout, but at the same time their influence is decidedly towards law and order in a lawless land. They never carry arms.
Lastly, we have the slave population of the Hadhramout, all of African origin, and the freed slaves who have married and settled in the country. Most of the tillers of the soil, personal servants, and the soldiers of the sultans are of this class.
CHAPTER VII
OUR DEPARTURE INTO THE INTERIOR
Never shall I forget the confusion of our start. Mokaik and ten of his men appeared at seven in the morning of the day before in our rooms, with all the lowest beggars of Makalla in their train, and were let loose on our seventy packages like so many demons from Jehannam, yelling and quarrelling with one another. First of all the luggage had to be divided into loads for twenty-two camels, then they drew lots for these loads with small sticks, then they drew lots for us riders, and finally we had a stormy bargain as to the price, which was finally decided upon when the vizier came to help us, and ratified by his exchanging daggers with Mokaik, each dagger being presented on a flat hand. In the bazaars bargains are struck by placing the first two fingers of one contractor on the hand of the other. All that day they were rushing in and weighing, and exhorting us to be ready betimes in the morning, so we were quite ready about sunrise.
We felt worn and weary when a start was made at two o'clock, and our cup of bitterness was full when we were deposited, bag and baggage, a few hundred yards from the gate, and told that we must spend the night amidst a sea of small fish drying on the shore, and surrounded on all sides by dirty Bedou huts. These fish, which are rather larger than sardines, are put out to dry by thousands along this coast. Men feed on them and so do the camels; they make lamp-oil out of them; they say the fish strengthens the camel's back, and they consider it good for camels to go once a year to the sea. Large sacks of them are taken into the interior as merchandise; they are mixed with small leaves like box, and carried in palm-leaf sacks, about 3 feet wide and 1½ feet high, and the air everywhere is redolent of their stench.
