'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' [‎47] (86/552)

SOME HISTORICAL FACTS ABOUT OMAN 47
The approach to the cove of Maskat is highly striking.
Many-coloured volcanic rocks of fantastic form protect
the horseshoe-shaped harbour, whilst behind the white
town, as far as the eye can reach, stretch deeply serrated, arid
mountains, which culminate in the heights of Jebel Akhdar,
or the 4 Green Mountains,' some fifty miles, as the crow flies,
inland, reaching an elevation of 9,000 feet. We were told
that snow sometimes falls in the winter-time on Jebel
Akhdar, and it rejoices in a certain amount of verdure, from
which it derives its name. This range forms the backbone
of Oman, and at its foot lie Nezweh and Eostok, the old
capitals of the long line of imams of Oman, before Maskat
was a place of so much importance as it is at present. The
streams which come down from these mountains nowhere
reach the sea, but are lost in the deserts, and, nevertheless,
in some places they fertilise oases in the Omani desert, where
the vegetation is most luxuriant and fever very rife. Grapes
grow on the slopes of Jebel Akhdar, and the inhabitants,
despite the strictures of Mohammed, both make and drink
wine of them, and report says (how far it is true I know
not) that the Portuguese exported thence the vines to
•which they gave the name of muscatel. The inhabitants
of this wild range are chiefly Bedou and pastoral, and it is
from this quarter that the troubles which beset the poor
sultan, Feysul, generally emanate.
The "harbour of Maskat is full of life. The deep blue sea
is studded with tiny craft: canoes painted red, green, and
white, steered by paddles, swarm around the steamer;
fishermen paddling themselves about on a plank or two tied
together, or swimming astride of a single one, hawk their
wares from boat to boat. The oars of the larger boats are
generally made with a fiat circular piece of wood fastened on
to a long pole, and are really more like paddles than oars.
In the northern corner lie huddled together large dhows.