'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' [‎38] (77/552)

38
SOUTHERN AEABIA
kind .to assist us in conveying these delicacies to our mouths.
With pieces of bread we scooped up the rice, with our
fingers we managed the rest, and we were glad no one was
looking on to witness our struggles save Zamzam. with a
ewer of water, with which Jie washed us after the repast was
over, and then we put ourselves away for the night.
Very early next morning we were on the move for our
trip across the island. The journey would be too long for
donkeys, they said, so Sheikh Khallet mounted us on three of
his best camels, with lovely saddles of inlaid El Hasa work,
with two pommels, one in front and one behind, like little
pillars, capped and inlaid with silver. We—that is to say my
husband and I and the bazaar-master—ambled along at a
pretty smart pace across the desert in the direction of ^
fishing village called Asker, on the east coast of the island,
near which were said to exist ancient remains; these, of
course, turned out to be.myths, but the village was all that
could be desired in quaintness ; the houses were all of bamboo,
and the floors strewn over with little white helix shells; in
one of them we were regaled with coffee, and found it
delicious after our hot ride; then we strolled along the
shore and marvelled at the bamboo skiffs, the curiously-
fashioned oars and water casks, the stone anchors, and other
primitive implements used by this seafaring race. The
bazaar-master would not let us tarry as long as we could
have wished, for he was anxious for us to arrive before the
inidday heat at a rocky cave in the ' mountain of mist,' in
the centre of the island. We dismounted from our camels,
and proceeded to examine Jebel Dukhan, an escarped mass of
limestone rocks with rugged outline and deep caves. Prom
the gentle elevation of the misty mountain one gets a very
fair idea of the extent and character of Bahrein. The island
has been likened to a sheet of silver in a sea of pearl, but it
looked to us anything but silvery, and for all the world like