Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/351

Rh these very districts, may conjecture much not far from the truth. And if we add the imperfectly suppressed Sabæan belief and practices, in a land so far removed from the great centres of Mahometan action, it will appear how tangled a skein is given to unravel here, and yet more in ’Oman. That task I accordingly reserve for another and fuller description of Eastern Arabia.

The climate of Hasa is far warmer than that of Nejed; house fires, even in January, are out of the question, and cloaks are only worn in the winter season. Indeed, one could sleep in the open air almost all the year through. But the air is moist, and health is at a lower standard here than in central Arabia, especially in the marshy low grounds about Kateef, where intermittent fevers, with all their train of organic evil, are remarkably prevalent.

We have yet to consider the islands of Bahreyn and the provinces of Katar and ’Oman.

From the port of Kateef I crossed in a small Arab smack to the sea-port town of Menamah, situated on the north side of the island Bahreyn, and opposite to the corresponding roadstead and island of Moharrek. The sea-arm between Kateef and Menamah is extremely shallow; at low water navigation is hardly possible; and at high tide the ripple barely reaches the summits of the palm-branches planted here and there in the ooze, in form of a quadrangular enclosure, for the purpose of capturing the fish whose ill fortune may bring them within the leafy walls.

The strait between Menamah and Moharrek is narrow, being less than two miles across, and so shallow that at ebb-tide a man can easily wade from one island to the other. Menamah is a large sea-port town, containing about 25,000 inhabitants, or rather more, with several extensive market-places, a noble castle on the sea-edge, for the Vice Governor, Alee Ebn Khalifah (the Governor in Chief, Mohammed Ebn Khalifah, resides at the town of Mo¬ harrek; he is dependant on the Sultan of ’Oman), and several large and handsome houses two or three stories high, but now for the most part falling into decay; Wahhabee invasion and bigotry having much injured the commerce and prosperity of Bahreyn.

The island itself is about 70 miles in length, and nearly half as many in breadth. It is in general very flat and low, a mere shoal hardly 20 feet above the sea-level, especially towards the north and west. To the east, however, it boasts a range of mountains, or rather hills, whose highest peak hardly appears to exceed eight or nine hundred feet, though the flatness of the intervening level renders it very conspicuous. The soil is in most places fertile, but not in dates, which are mainly imported hither from Kateef. In compensation, rice and potherbs, and some fruits, especially very fine citrons, are grown here. Water abounds throughout the island, but it is often brackish.