'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' [‎147] (194/552)

THE CITY OF SHIBAHM
147
fall into the Hadhramout, and a glance at the map made by
our chartographer, Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur, will at once
show the importance of this situation.
Shibahm is the frontier town of the Yafei tribe, the
Kattiri occupying the valley about two miles to the east, and
these two tribes are constantly at war. Sultan Salah's big
standard was in one of our dwelling-rooms, ready to be
unfurled at a moment's notice. He has cannons on his
walls pointed in the direction of his enemy—old cannons
belonging to the East India Company, the youngest of which
bore the date of 1832. From the soldiers we obtained a speci
men of the great conch shells that they use as trumpets in
battle, and which are hung to the girdle of the watchmen,
who are always on the look-out to prevent a surprise.
The Kattiri are not allowed to stay in the town at night,
for we heard that seven months before some of them
were detected in an attempt to blow up the palace with
gunpowder. There was a fight also, about a quarter of a
mile outside the town, in which five Kattiri and seven Yafei
were killed.- There are three or four armed soldiers to pro
tect Shibahm, the sultan has erected bastions and forts all
about it, and the walls are patrolled every night.
There are many ruined houses in the plain, relics of the
great war forty years ago, when the Kattiri advanced as far
as A1 Koton and did great damage. The sultan of Siwoun
was invited, with seven sheikhs, to the palace of Shibahm on
friendly terms and there murdered in cold blood, while forty
of his followers were killed outside.
The inhabitants of Shibahm were not at all friendly
disposed to us. On the day of our arrival my husband
ventured with two of the sultan s soldiers into the bazaai,
and through the narrow streets; but only this once, for the
people crowded round him, yelled at him, and insulted him,
trying their best to trip him up and impede his progress ; he