Zanzibar and in Maskat. Palgrave in 1863 describes Maskat as having 40,000 inhabitants; there are probably half that number now.
The Sultan of Zanzibar has to pay an annual tribute of 40,000 crowns to his relative of Maskat in order to equalise the inheritance, and this tribute being a constant source of trouble, of late years he has taken to urging the wild Bedouin tribes in Oman to revolt against the present, rather weak-minded sultan who reigns there. He supplies them with the sinews of war, namely money and ammunition, and the insurrection which occurred in February 1895 was chiefly due to this motive power.
One of his sisters married a German, the English conniving at her escape from Zanzibar in a gunboat. On her husband's death, her elder brother having in the meantime also died, she returned to Zanzibar thinking her next brother, the present sultan, to be of a milder disposition, but he refused to take any notice of her and her children.
The present ruler of Maskat, Sultan Feysul, is a grandson of Sultan Sayid and son of Sultan Tourki by an Abyssinian mother. Since his accession, in 1889, he has been vacillating in his policy; he has practically had but little authority outside the walls of Maskat, and were it not for the support of the British Government and the proximity of a gunboat, he would long ago have ceased to rule. When we first saw him, in 1889, he was but a beardless boy, timid and shy, and now he has reached man's estate he still retains the nervous manner of his youth. He lives in perpetual dread of his elder brother Mahmoud, who, being the son of a negress, was not considered a suitable person to inherit the throne. The two brothers, though living in adjacent houses, never meet without their own escorts to protect them from each other.
The way in which Feysul obtained possession of the Sultan's palace on his father's death, to the exclusion of his brother, is curious.
Feysul said his grief for his father was so great that his feelings would not admit of his attending the funeral, so he stayed at home while Mahmoud went, who on his return found the door locked in his face.
The palace is entered by a formidable-looking door, decorated with large spiked bosses of brass. This opens into a small court which contained at the time of our first visit the most imposing sight of the place, namely the lion in his cage to the left, into which Feysul was in the habit of introducing criminals of the deepest dye, to be devoured by this lordly executioner. Opposite to this cage of death is another, a low probationary cage, which, when we were there, contained a prisoner stretched out at full length, for the cage is too low to admit of a sitting posture. From this point he could view the horrors of the lion's cage, so that during his incarceration he might contemplate what might happen to him if he continued, on liberation, to pursue his evil ways. Another door leads into a vaulted passage full of guards, through which we passed and entered into an inner court with a pool in the centre and a wide cloister around it supporting a gallery.
Sultan Feysul was then a very young man, not much over twenty. He was greatly interested in seeing us, for we were the first English travellers who had visited him since his accession. We caught sight of him peeping at us over the balcony as we passed through the courtyard below, and we had to clamber up a ladder to the gallery, where we found him ready to welcome us. He seized our hands and shook them warmly, and then led us with much effusiveness to his khawah, a long room just overhanging the sea, which is his reception and throne-room. Here were high, cane-bottomed chairs around the walls, and at one end a red chair, which is the throne; just over it were hung two grotesque pictures of our Queen and the Prince Consort, such as one could buy for a penny at a fair. They are looked upon as objects of great value here, and act as befitting symbols of our protectorate.
The imam fed us with sweets and coffee, asked us innumerable questions, and seemed full of boyish fun. Certainly with his turban of blue and red checked cotton (which would have been a housemaid's duster at home), his faded, greenish yellow cloak, fastened round his slender frame by a red girdle, he looked anything but a king. As we were preparing to depart the young monarch grew apparently very uneasy, and impatiently shouted something to his attendants, and when the servant came in, Feysul hurried to him, seized four little gilt bottles of attar of roses, thrust two of them into each of our pockets, and with some compliments as to our Queen having eyes everywhere, and Feysul's certainty that she would look after him, the audience was at an end.
Sultan Feysul was a complete autocrat as far as his jurisdiction extended. At his command a criminal could be executed either in the lion's cage or in a little square by the sea, and his body cut up and thrown into the waves. The only check upon him was the British Resident. His father, Tourki, not long before sewed up a woman in a sack and drowned her, whereupon a polite message came from the Residency requesting him not to do such things again. Hence young Feysul dared not be very cruel—to offend the English would have been to lose his position.
His half brother, Mahmoud, whose mother was a Swahili, lives next door to his brother, Sultan Feysul, in the enjoyment of a pension of 600 dollars a mouth. The uncles, however, are not so amenable. The eldest of them, according to Arabian custom, claimed the throne and had collected an army amongst the Bedouin to assert his claims, and was then in possession of all the country, with the exception of Maskat and El Matra, for Feysul had no money, and hence he could not get his soldiers to fight. But then it had been intimated to Feysul that in all probability the English would support his claims if he conducted himself prudently and wisely. So there was every likelihood that in due course he would be thoroughly established in the dominions of his father.
When we visited the town for the second time an even more serious rebellion was impending, the Bedouin of the interior, under Sheikh Saleh, having attacked Maskat itself. The sultan and his brother, who hastily became friends, retired together to the castle, and the town was given up to plunder. There were dead bodies lying on the beach, and but for the kindness of Colonel Hayes Sadler, the British Resident, there would have been difficulties in the fort as regards water. They relied principally on H.M.S. Sphinx, which lay in the harbour to protect British interests, and to maintain Sultan Feysul in his position.
This state of terror lasted three weeks, when the rebels, having looted the bazaars and wrecked the town, were eventually persuaded to retire, free and unpunished, with a considerable cash payment; probably intending to return for more when the cooler weather should come, and the date harvest be over. With the consent of, and at the request of, the Indian Government, Sultan Feysul has imposed additional heavy duty on all the produce coming in from the rebel tribes, that he may have a fund from which to pay indemnities to foreigners who suffered loss during the invasion. A good many Banyan merchants, British subjects, suffered losses, and their claim alone amounted to 120,000 rupees. As a natural result of this disaster and its ignominious termination, Sultan Feysul's authority at the present moment is absolutely nil outside the walls of Maskat and El Matra, and he is still in a state of declared war with all the Bedouin chiefs in the mountains behind Maskat.
A few British subjects were scared, but not killed, and as all was over in a few weeks no one thought much more about it except those more immediately interested, and few paused to think what an important part Maskat has played in the opening up of the Persian Gulf and the suppression of piracy, and what an important part it may yet play should the lordship of the Persian Gulf ever become a casus belli.
Although Maskat has been under Indian influence for most of this century, it has latterly gone down much in the world; the trade of the place has well-nigh departed, and with a weak sultan at the head of affairs, confidence will be long in returning. Unquestionably our own Political Agent may be said to be the ruler in Maskat, and his authority is generally backed up by the presence of a gunboat. There is also an American Consul there, who chiefly occupies himself in trade and steamer agencies, and in 1895 the French also sent a Consul to inquire into the question of the slave trade, which is undoubtedly the burning question in Arabia.
Whilst England has been doing all she can to put slavery down, it is complained that much is carried on under cover of the French flag, obtained by Arab dhows under false pretexts from the French Consul resident in Zanzibar. Sultan Feysul remonstrated with France on this point, and the appointment of a Consul is the result.
The great reason for our unpopularity in Arabia is due without doubt to our suppression of this trade. Slavery is inherent in the Arab; he does as