Southern Arabia | Page 9

else. In shape it is like two diamond-frames made of gold and coloured braids, fastened together by two of their lower edges. This middle strip comes down the nose and covers the mouth, and the sides come between the ears and eyes. It affords very little concealment, but is very becoming to most of its wearers, particularly if they happen to be negresses. On their heads would be baskets with dates or citrons, and now and again a particularly modest one would dart behind a palm-tree until that dangerous animal man had gone by.
About half way to the scene of our labours we halted by the ruins of the old Arab town, Beled-al-Kadim.
This ancient capital, dating from a period prior to the Portuguese occupation, still presents some interesting ruins. The old mosque (Madresseh-i-abu-Zeidan), with its two slender and elegant minarets, so different from the horrible Wahabi constructions of to-day, forms a conspicuous landmark for ships approaching the low-lying coasts of these islands. Around the body of the mosque runs a fine inscription in Kufic letters, and from the fact that the name of Ali is joined with that of the Prophet in the profession of faith, we may argue that this mosque was built during some Persian occupation, and was a Shiite mosque. The architecture, too, is distinctly Persian, recalling to us in its details the ruins of Rhey (the Rhages of Tobit) and of Sultanieh, which we saw in the north of Persia, and has nothing Arabian about it.
Ruins of houses and buildings surround this mosque, and here in the open space in the centre of the palm-groves the Bahreini assemble every Thursday for a market; in fact the place is generally known now as Suk-el-Khamis, or Thursday's Market.
On our journey out not a soul was near, but on our return we had an opportunity of attending one of these gatherings.
Sheikh Esau has here a tiny mosque, just an open loggia, where he goes every morning in summer-time to pray and take his coffee. Beneath it he has a bath of fresh but not over-clean water, where he and his family bathe. Often during the summer heats he spends the whole day here, or else he goes to his glorious garden about a mile distant, near the coast, where acacias, hibiscus, and almonds fight with one another for the mastery, and form a delicious tangle.
Another mile on, closer to the sea, is the fine ruined fortress of the Portuguese, Gibliah, as the natives call it now, just as they do one of the fortresses at Maskat. It covers nearly two acres of ground, and is built out of the remains of the old Persian town, for many Kufic inscriptions are let into the wall, and the deep well in the centre is lined with them. It is a regular bastioned fortification of the sixteenth century, with moat, embrasures in the parapets, and casemented embrasures in the re-entering angles of the bastions, and is one of the finest specimens of Portuguese architecture in the Gulf, an evidence of the importance which they attached to this island.
Amongst the rubbish in the fort we picked up numerous fragments of fine Nankin and Celadon china, attesting to the ubiquity and commerce of the former owners, and attesting, also, to the luxury of the men who ruled here--a luxury as fatal almost as the Flanders wars to the well-being of the Portuguese in the East.
Our road led us on through miles of palm-groves, watered by their little artificial conduits, and producing the staple food of the island. Seid bin Omar talked to us much about the date. 'Mohammed said,' he began, 'honour the date-tree, for she is your mother,' a true enough maxim in parched Arabia, where nothing else will grow. When ripe the dates are put into a round tank, called the madibash, where they are exposed to the sun and air, and throw off excessive juice which collects below; after three days of this treatment they are removed and packed for exportation in baskets of palm leaves. The Bahreini, for their own consumption, love to add sesame seeds to their dates, or ginger powder and walnuts pressed with them into jars. These are called sirah, and are originally prepared by being dried in the sun and protected at night, then diluted date-juice is poured over them. The fruit which does not reach maturity is called salang, and is given as food to cattle, boiled with ground date-stones and fish bones. This makes an excellent sort of cake for milch cows; this, and the green dates also, are given to the donkeys, and to this food the Bahreini attribute their great superiority. The very poor also make an exceedingly unpalatable dish out of green dates mixed with fish for their own table, or,