In A.D. 1833, four years after the death of Radama I., the Sayyid formed matrimonial designs upon the person of Ranavola Manjaka, Queen of the Hovas, and a personage somewhat more redoubtable than our good Queen Bess. Amongst his envoys on this occasion was one Khamisi wa Tání, who, under the Arabized name Khamis bin Osman, presently played some notable tricks upon the credulous ‘comparative geographer,’ Mr W. D. Cooley. The envoys were kept upon the frontier till the ‘Tangi-man’ arrived, bringing the Tangina. This nut, scraped in water, is administered as an ordeal, like the bitter water of the ancient Israelites and the poison nut of modern Calabar. The patient is ordered to walk about; after some 20 minutes he feels atrocious bowel-pains, prolapsus takes place, and he dies; if wealthy enough to pay the priest, another kind of nut is at once administered, and it may cure by emesis. As soon as this potion, which always destroys traitors with frightful torments, in fact, with the worst symptoms of Asiatic cholera, was proposed to the ambassadors, in order to prove the purity of their intentions, and their affection for the royal family, all fled precipitately, as may be imagined, from the ‘Great Britain’ of Africa. Sayyid Said was also unlucky in the choice of another Persian bride, the daughter of Irich Mirza, a supposititious son of Mohammed Shah, and hardly a second-class noble. She came to Zanzibar in A.D. 1849, accompanied by a train of attendants, including her Farráshas (carpet-spreaders), her Jilaudár (groom), and her private Jellád (executioner). She astonished the Arabs by her free use of the dagger, whilst her intense relish of seeing her people ride men down in the bazar, and of superintending bastinadoes administered with Persian apparatus, made the Banyans crouch in their shops with veiled faces, and the Arabs thank Allah that their women were not like those of the A’ajám. In a short time the lady made herself so disagreeable, that her husband sent her back divorced to her own country.
The Sayyid kept a company of 60 or 70 concubines, and he always avoided those that bore him children. Though a man of strong frame and vigorous constitution, he exhausted his powers by excesses in the harem, he suffered from Sarcocele (sinistral) during later life, and an alarming emaciation argued consumption. The heat of Maskat, which he last visited when hostilities between England and Persia were reported, brought him to his grave. In October, 1856, he died at sea off the Seychelles Islands, on board his own frigate, the ‘Victoria.’ Aged 67, the ‘Second Omar,’ as his subjects were fond of calling him before his face, seems to have had a presentiment of death; before embarking he prepared, contrary to Arab custom, a ‘Sandúk el Mayyit,’ or coffin, and when dying he gave orders that his remains should be thrown overboard. The corpse, however, was carried to Zanzibar and interred in the city.
Sayyid Said was probably as shrewd, liberal, and enlightened a prince as Arabia ever produced, yet Europe overrated his powers. Like Orientals generally, he was ever surrounded by an odious entourage, whom he consulted, trusted, and apparently preferred to his friends and well-wishers. He firmly believed in the African Fetish and in the Arab Sahir’s power of metamorphosis;[[82]] he would never flog a Mganga (medicine-man), nor cut down a ‘devil’s tree.’ He sent for a Shaykh whose characts were famous, and with a silver nail he attached the paper to the doorway of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s sick-room, thereby excluding evil spirits and the ghost of Mr Napier, who had died at the Consulate. He refused to sit for his portrait—even Colonel Smyth’s History of Knight-errantry and Chivalrous Characters failed to tempt him, for the European peasants’ reason,—it would take away part of his life. When ‘chivalry’ was explained to him, he pithily remarked that only the ‘Siflah’ (low fellows) interfere between man and wife, master and man. His pet axiom—a fair test of mental bias—was ‘Mullahs, women, and horses never can be called good till death,’ in this resembling Pulci—
Cascan le rose, e restan poi le spine;
Non giudicate nulla innanzi al fine.
The Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord sent him their diploma: he declared that he would not belong to a body of grave-robbers and corpse-snatchers. The census of Zanzibar having been proposed to him, unlike King David, he took refuge with Allah from the sin of numbering his people. When tide-gauges were supplied by the Geographical Society of Bombay, he observed that the Creator had bidden the ocean to ebb and to flow—‘what else did man want to know about it?’ Such was his incapacity for understanding European affairs, that until death’s-day he believed Louis Philippe to have carried into exile, as he himself would have done, all the fleet and the public treasure of the realm. And he never could comprehend a Republic—‘who administers the stick?’
Of this enterprising man, the Mohammed Ali Pasha of the further East, I may say, Extinctus amabitur idem. Shrewd and sensible, highly religious though untainted by fanaticism; affable and courteous, he was as dignified in sentiments as distinguished in presence and demeanour. He is accused of grasping covetousness and treachery—but what Arab ruler is not covetous and treacherous? He was a prince after the heart of his subjects; prouder of his lineage than fond of ostentation or display, an amateur conqueror on a small scale, mild in punishment, and principally remarkable as the chief merchant, cultivator, and ship-builder in his dominions. An epitaph may be borrowed for him from a man of very different character—first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-countrymen. Peace be to his manes!
Sayyid Said’s territory at the time of his death extended in Oman from the Ra’as el Jebel (Cape Musseldom) to Sohar. In Mekran the seaboard between Ra’as Jask and Guadel belonged to him: in the Persian Gulf he had Khishm, Larak, and Hormuz, and he farmed from the Shah, Bandar Abbas and its dependency, Mina. His African possessions were far the most extensive and important. He ruled, to speak roughly, the whole Eastern Coast from N. lat. 5°, and even from Cape Guardafui, where the maritime Somal were to a certain extent his dependents, to Cape Delgado (S. lat. 11°), where the Arab met the Portuguese rule—an extent of 16° = 960 geographical miles. The small republics of Makdishu (Magadoxo, in N. lat. 2° 1′ 4″), of Brava (N. lat. 1° 6′ 48″), of Patta or Bette (S. lat. 2° 9′ 12″), and of Lamu (S. lat. 2° 15′ 42″), owned his protectorate, and in April, 1865, Marka received from him a garrison. The whole Zanzibarian Archipelago was his, and he claimed Bahrayn, Zayla, Aden, and Berberah, the first-mentioned with, the last three without, a shadow of right. His Arab subjects declared that they, and not the Portuguese, ceded Bombay to the British: the foundation of the story is a mosque built in ancient times by the Omanis, somewhat near the present Boree Bandar.
Sayyid Said left a single widow, the lady Azzá bint Musa, of the Bú Kharibán, a grand-daughter of the Imam Ahmad, and consequently a cousin. She is now (1857) in years, but her ancient lineage and her noble manners retain for her the public respect. She had but one child, which died young: all the male issue of the Prince are by slave-girls, a degradation in the eyes of free-born Omani Arabs. As usual amongst the wealthy and noble of the polygamous East, the daughters are the more numerous,[[83]] and many are old maids, the pride of birth not allowing them, like the Sherifehs of the Hejaz, to wed with any but equals. The eldest of the fourteen sons, Sayyid Hilal, who, in 1845, had visited England, it is said, after an escapade, died at Aden en route to Meccah in 1851. He was followed, after an interval of a few months, by his next brother, Sayyid Khalid, called the Banyan. The eldest surviving heir (Sayyid Suwayni), the son of a Georgian or Circassian slave, born about 1822, became by his father’s will, successor to and lord of the northern provinces. To Sayyid Majid, the fourth son, now (1857) aged 22, a prince of mild disposition and amiable manners, contrasting strongly with the vigorous ruffianism of his elder brother, was left the Government of Zanzibar and of the East African Coast. There is, as usual amongst Arabs, a turbulent tribe of cousins: of these the most influential is Sayyid Mohammed, a son of Sayyid Salim bin Sultan, younger brother to the late Prince, who some years ago died of consumption. Hitherto he has used his powers loyally—ruling, but not openly ruling. Sayyid Said’s valuable property, including his plantations, was sold, as his will directed, and the money was divided according to a fixed scale, even the youngest princes claiming shares. No better inducement to permanent dissension could have been devised. But Eastern monarchs apparently desire that their dynasties should die with them. Fath Ali Shah of Persia, when asked upon his death-bed to name a successor, drew a sword and showed what made and unmade monarchs: scarcely had the breath left his body than the chamber was dyed with the blood of his sons, each hastening to stab some hated rival brother.
These lines were penned in 1857. Since 1859 the hapless and turbulent family has been in a state of fratricidal strife, and the province of Oman has reverted to its normal state of intrigue, treachery, and assassination. Sayyid Suwayni, a negligent and wasteful though not an unpopular man, to whom the English were especially obnoxious, threatened in 1859 an attack upon Sayyid Majid, and was prevented by British cruisers; in due time he was murdered by his son, Sayyid Salim, who usurped the Government. This Sayyid Salim was dethroned by his uncle, Sayyid Turki, who surprised Maskat, and made himself master of the situation. The European would imagine that the stakes were hardly worth such reckless play: Arabs, however, judge otherwise.