'History of the imâms and seyyids of 'Omân by Salîl-ibn-Razîk, from A.D. 661-1856; translated from the original Arabic, and edited with notes, appendices, and an introduction, continuing the history down to 1870, by George Percy Badger, F.R.G.S., late chaplain in the Presidency of Bombay.' [‎79] (240/612)

the imams op 'oman.
79
When the Imam Sultan-bin-Seif had decided to fight the
Portuguese he pitched his camp at Tawy-er-Rula, near el-
Matrah. He had a large army under his command, with
which he assailed the enemy every morning and afternoon.
The Portuguese, on their part, were well prepared for these
attacks, and showed no signs of cowardice or of yielding.
They had filled the two forts of Maskat, its towers, walls,
and mountains, with picked men, 1 and waited patiently for
the coming assault. The Imam Sultan-bin-Seif^s troops
advanced against them as far as the Bir-el-Rawiyah, of
Maskat; but the Portuguese had erected towers on the
mountains of Maskat and gai'risoned them with musketeers,
so that whenever any of the Imam's soldiers approached
1 Maskat is situated at the extremity of a small cove, in the gorges
of an extensive pass, which is subdivided by 'Akabalis, or hills, into
three valleys, called the Large, the Middle and the Small Wadis, through
which there are roads leading round to el-Mdtrah and the village of
Killabuh to the westward, and to the village of Sidab, about four miles
to the southward. Landward the town is surrounded by a wall in
which there are eight towers mounting artillery, and two fortified gates.
Arid rocks, three hundred feet high, rise almost perpendicularly from
the sea and form the cove. This boundary, on the eastern side, consists
mainly of an islet—called " the Island" by the author—about a mile
long and a quarter of a mile wide, indented with creeks and defended
towards the mouth of the harbour by a half-moon battery ; a correspond
ing work is erected on the opposite side, a little lower down in the cove.
The islet is only separated from the double hill which bounds the town
on the east by a narrow channel, which is nearly dry at low water.
On the summit of the hill just named stands the " Eastern Fort, " and
on the opposite side, rising above the town, is the "Western Fort,"" both
strongly built and tolerably well armed. Some of the guns, however,
are very old, and belonged to the Portuguese. I saw one in 1861 in the
Eastern Fort bearing the date 1625. Besides these fortifications there
are several small watch-towers on the surrounding hills and also over the
pass on the south-east, leading to Killabuh.
The reader will understand from the narrative that the attack on the
Portuguese was made by land, from the vicinity of el-Matrah, the
assailants marching from thence by one of the Wadis towards the out
posts beyond the town wall, where the wells are, the weakest point and
the most difficult to defend.