OUR SOJOURN AT KOTON
Like a fairy palace of the Arabian Nights, white as a wedding cake, and with as many battlements and pinnacles, with its windows painted red, the colour being made from red sandstone, and its balustrades decorated with the inevitable chevron pattern, the castle of Al Koton rears its battlemented towers above the neighbouring brown houses and expanse of palm groves; behind it rise the steep red rocks of the encircling mountains, the whole forming a scene of Oriental beauty difficult to describe in words. This lovely building, shining in the morning light against the dark precipitous mountains, was pointed out to us as our future abode. My horse, Basha, seemed to have come to life again and enjoy galloping once more, for we had left the servants, camels, &c. to follow.
As we approached feux de joie announced our arrival, and at his gate stood Sultan Salàh to greet us, clad in a long robe of canary-coloured silk, and with a white silk turban twisted around his swarthy brow. He was a large, stout man, negroid in type, for his mother was a slave, and as generous as he was large, to Arab and European alike. He looked about fifty-five or sixty, but said his age was 'forty-five or forty.' At first, on being seated in his reception-room, we were very cautious in speaking of our plans, as we were surrounded with all sorts and conditions of men.
He placed at our disposal a room spread with Daghestan carpets and cushions, furnished with two tables and three chairs, and not a mouthful of our own food would he allow us to touch, a hospitality which had its drawbacks, for the Arab cuisine is not one suited to Western palates.
We were very glad of this hospitality at first as it would give Matthaios a holiday, which he could devote to the washing of clothes, water being so plentiful. I will describe one day's meals, which were invariably the same. At eight o'clock came several cups, all containing coffee and milk, honey, eggs, hard boiled and peeled, and a large thin leathery kind of bread made plain with water, and another large thin kind made with ghi, and like pastry.
About 2.30 came two bowls like slop-bowls, one containing bits of meat, vegetables, eggs and spices in sauce, under about an inch of melted ghi, the other a kind of soup. They were both quite different, but at the same time very much alike, and the grease on the top kept them furiously hot. There were little pieces of boiled lamb, and little pieces of roast lamb; tiny balls of roast meat and also of boiled; a mound of rice and a mound of dates; and upon requesting some water we were given one large glassful. Identically the same meal came at 9.30, an hour when the bona-fide traveller pines to be in his bed. These things were laid on a very dirty coloured cotton cloth, but no plates or knives, &c. were provided.
At several odd times through the day a slave walked in and filled several cups of tea, a few for each of us. The cups were never washed by him.
After struggling for a few days, many of the party having had recourse to the medicine-chest, we were at length compelled humbly to crave his majesty to allow us to employ our own cook. This he graciously permitted, and during the three weeks we passed under his hospitable roof, our cook was daily supplied by the 'sultanas'—most excellent housewives we thought them—with everything we needed.
One of the most striking features of these Arabian palaces is the wood-carving. The doors are exquisitely decorated with it, the supporting beams, and the windows, which are adorned with fretwork instead of glass. The dwelling-rooms are above, the ground floor being exclusively used for merchandise and as stables and cattle stalls, and the first floor for the domestic offices. The men-servants lie about in the passages. We lived on the second floor, the two next stories were occupied by the sultan and his family, and above was the terraced roof where the family sleep during the summer heat. Every guest-room has its coffee corner, provided with a carved oven, where the grain is roasted and the water boiled; around are hung old china dishes for spices, brass trays for the cups, and fans to keep off the flies; also the carved censers, in which frankincense is burnt and handed round to the guests, each one of whom fumigates his garments with it before passing it on. It is also customary to fumigate with frankincense a tumbler before putting water into it, a process we did not altogether relish, as it imparts a sickly flavour to the fluid.
We found the system of door-fastening in vogue a great nuisance to us. The wooden locks were of the 'tumbler' order. The keys were about 10 inches long, and composed of a piece of curved wood: at one end were a number of pegs stuck in irregularly, to correspond with a number of the tumbling bolts which they were destined to raise. No key would go in without a tremendous lot of shaking and noisy rattling, and you always had to have your key with you, for if you did not lock your door on leaving your room there was nothing to prevent its swinging open; and if you were inside you must rise and unbolt it to admit each person, and to bolt it behind him for the same reason.
