'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' [‎148] (195/552)

148
THE HADHRAMOUT
was nearly suffocated by the clouds of filthy dust that the
mob kicked up, and altogether they made his investigations so
exceedingly disagreeable that he became seriously alarmed
for his safety, and never tried to penetrate into the heart of
Shibahm again. On the whole I should accredit Shibahm with
a population of certainly not less than six thousand souls :
there are thirteen mosques in it, and fully six hundred
houses, tall and gaunt, to which an average population of
ten souls is but a moderate estimate. The slave population
of Shibahm is considerable ; many slaves have houses there,
and wives and families of their own. The sultan's soldiers
are nearly all slaves or of slave origin, and one of them,
Muoffok, whose grandfather was a Swahili slave, and who
had been one of our escort from Makalla, took us to his
house, where his wife, seated unveiled in her coffee corner,
dispensed refreshments to quite a large party there assembled,
whilst Muoffok discoursed sweet music to us on a mandoline,
and a flute made out of the two bones of an eagle placed side
by side.
Taisir and Aboud were also abiding in Shibahm. Taisir
when he met us, on the minute asked for bakhshish, saying
he had been ill when we parted and had had none though we
had sent it to him. Oh ! there was such kissing of hands !
so we thought it politic to love our enemy and gave him
a present. The Wazir Minister. Salim-bin-Ali had travelled with us
to take care of us in the absence of his master.
Once the Arabs had a good laugh at the expense of
three members of our party. One morning our botanist
went forth in quest of plants and found a castor-oil tree,
the berries of which pleased him exceedingly. Unwilling
to keep so rare a treat for himself, he brought home some
branches of the tree, and placed the delicacy before two of
our servants, Matthaios and, I am glad to say, Saleh, who
also partook heartily. Terrible was the anguish of the two