'Southern Arabia, by Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., F.S.A., Author of 'The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland' 'The Sacred City of the Ethiopians' 'The Cyclades, Or Life Among the Insular Greeks' etc. and Mrs Theodore Bent' [‎15] (50/552)

MAN AM All AND MOTIAREK
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of a similar nature on the coast around : the Kaseifah spring
and others. There is such a spring in the harbour of Syra
cuse, about twenty feet under the sea.
The legend is that in the time of Merwan, a chief, Ibn
Hakim, from Katif, wished to marry the lovely daughter of
a Bahrein chief. His suit was not acceptable, so he made
war on the islands and captured all the wells which supplied
the towns on the bigger island ; but the guardian deity of
the Bahreini caused this spring to break out in the sea just
before Moharek, and the invader was thus in time repulsed.
It is a curious fact that Arados or Arvad, the Phoenician town
on the Mediterranean, was supplied by a similar submarine
source.
Sheikh Esau's representative at Manamah—his prime
minister or viceroy, we should call him, though he is usually
known there by the humble-sounding title of the ' bazaar
master,' by name Seid bin Omar, is a very stout and nearly
black individual, with a European cast of countenance. He
looked exceedingly grand when he came to see us, in his
under-robe of scarlet cloth, with a cloak of rustling and stiff
white wool with a little red woven in it. Over his head
floated a white cashmere shawl, with the usual camel-hair
rings to keep it on, and sandals on his bare feet. He was
deputed by his sovereign to look after us, and during the
fortnight we were on the island he never left us for a single
day. Though outwardly very strict in his asceticism, and
constantly apt to say his prayers with his nose in the dust
at inconvenient moments, we found him by no means averse
to a cigarette in the strictest privacy, and we learnt that his
private life would not bear European investigation. He is
constantly getting married. Though sixty years of age he
had a young bride of a few weeks standing. I was assured
that he would soon tire of her and put her away. Even in
polygamous Arabia he is looked upon as a much-married man.