"ملاحظات حول جزر البحرين والآثار بقلم النقيب إ. ل. دوراند، ١ المساعد للمقيم في الخليج العربي." [و‎‎٢‎٣] (٣٢/٨)

5
little dwarf grey donkey who picks up a subsistence as best as he can round the
villages is plentiful, and used, generally raw with sores, to carry date branches,
Wood, &c., to market in the towns.
39. Wild Animals. —The wild animals are few. The gazelle, the hare,
and the mangoose, are all that I know of.
40. The Arab gazelle in its perfect and slender beauty of proportion, differs
as much from the Persian or Mesopotamian as a thoroughbred does from a
cart-horse.
41. Tbe hares are about the size of a three-quarter grown English rabbit,
very small and blood-looking, with prominent eyes. This casty look is noticeable
in every Arabian animal, man included. The Arab horse is well known, but the
Arab greyhound of which a really good specimen is seldom obtainable, is a
most beautiful animal, so light and slender as to seem useless for work, but
when going, appearing rather to fly than gallop. These hares are easily tamed ;
I had two, rescued from a hawk and a greyhound respectively, which after
four days became so tame that they played about the room, hopping up
occasionally to see what I was doing, and only retiring behind a box on the
arrival of a stranger.
42. The mangoose runs about in broad day everywhere.
43. There are several sorts of fish in the fresh water. One with peculiar
marking drew my attention. I have never seen
him noticed. The dorsal fin is the centre of 3
circular or oval bands of dark colour, which show
very plainly against the silver sides of the fish
and present an odd effect when he swims. The
largest I saw was only probably a few ounces in
weight. It would almost seem as if he had caught
the "colour of his coat from swimming constantly
in these shallow crystal waters shaded by the long
thin spikes of date palm, but perhaps this is too
Darwinian, as, although fish do constantly take, and even change their
colour from the sort of water they live in, they would scarcely take their
marking in this manner.
44 Jintiquarian, —I have already given a slight sketch of the individuality
of these islands, if I may use the term, in connection with the lie of the ground
and the certainty that is forced upon even the most superficial observer that
he is standing upon no common soil, but on that of a land which, although now
desolate enough has probably teemed with life, and under whose dust in all
probability lies the history of countless generations ot his fellows.
45 i have mentioned the tumuli, which cover the island on all sides, from
the coast to the centre or the cliffs of the central basin, and the grey dust land,
which crops out everywhere barren, between the date-groves, and tells i s
own tale.
46. I will i ust take one glance at what is known of the earliest historic days
of the race that peopled these islands, and then give a brief account of what
three weeks of constant research have disclosed, leaving it for others, n ho know
more about these matters than I do to judge whether my conclusions are right
47 S We know that probably amongst other matters, these islands have been
ruled bv Phoenicians, Babylonians (?), Persians, Arabs, and Portuguese. With
L former Herodotus savs that "the Phoenicians first dwelt upon the
legaic , m : gTa ted to the Mediterranean when, &c.,' and again
Erythrean fee , h. ^ „ o - „ that Xerxes paraded for the conquest of
liter on in. us acc pf 3 f]^ Phoenicians of Sidon had won the
Greece, after h ^yi rl ^ i l ^ f 10 ^ t monarc h's marble throne on Abydos, that
regatta held at the foot ation dw elt anciently upon the Erythrean
"according to their own aoco , the Coast of Syria, where
5 Mr SawLm-. .. ....