"تقرير عن إدارة المقيمية السياسية في الخليج العربي والوكالة السياسية في مسقط لسنة ١٨٧٦-١٨٧٧." [و‎‎٥‎٨] (١٢٥/١١٤)

a®
AND MUSCAT POLITICAL AGENCY FOR THE YEAR 187G-77.
working- classes are comparatively free. Scurvy has been observed prin
cipally amongst the pearl-fishers, who have to live a greater part of the
year on dates and dried fish, and also amongst Indian pilgrims on their
way back from Mecca.
Sanitation. —Considering the general character of the people, their
ignorance of some of the simplest and most essential hygienic laws, and
their great aversion to innovations of any kind, it is not to be wondered
at that there exists no public system of sanitation in Muscat or the neigh
bouring towns and hamlets. Notwithstanding this, most of the large
streets generally present a respectable appearance, are clean and free from
any offensive odour, which is to be attributed entirely to the practice which
obtains amongst the Arabs principally, both inside and outside the town,
of cleaning the portions of the streets in the immediate neighbourhood of
their houses. The Beloochees, on the contrary, would seem to take a
delight in raising mounds of dirt and filth of all kinds in the imme
diate vicinity of their habitations, and as all their little hamlets are
built within an easy reach of large and open graveyards, for which
they seem to have a particular liking, the air around and inside
their huts is extremely vitiated, and the stench almost unbearable,
especially m close weather. The conservancy outside the town is of the
most primitive nature, but owing to the great heat of the sun and its
power of rapidly drying up the excreta, it does not seem to affect the
health of the people in any particular way. Inside the town the
system of cess-pits exists, the stink from which, when the air is stao--
nant, is offensive and injurious. They are occasionally opened up for
the purpose of cleaning and disinfectants, such as common salt and lime,
put in. In some houses a large quantity of ashes and salt are thrown
into the pits every or every other morning. This large accumulation
of decomposing excrementatious matter in the subsoil would lead one
to suppose that it would be a fertile source of disease inside the town,
but that such is not the case is due^ in a great measure to the wells'
which supply the drinking water, being situated outside the town, and
also to the fact of the ground-floor rooms of most of the houses in the
town being generally uninhabited. In Muttrah this cess-pit svstem does
not exist; conservancy there is either of the primitive nature mentioned
before, or the close proximity of the sea renders the immediate removal
or excreta more practicable.
Fop u la t ion .—Owing to the maritime position and importance of
Muscat, and its being the modern capital of the province of Oman its
population presents great variety and fluctuation. Politically and com-
mercially speaking, Muscat may be supposed to include the large town of
Muttrah, with its spacious harbour and the villages and hamlets in its
neighbourhood, and the small towns of Kalbu, Riam and Sadab There
are no means of determining the exact population, but it may be roughlv
guessed to be about 40,000. This number may be considered to be the
, population, but there is a constant fluctuation which is principally
observed amongst Bedouin-Arabs and Indian and other pilgrims.
,, Of the fixed population, by far the largest portion is composed of
he African races, and the mixed race of Africans and Arabs, the former
being pnnc.paUy represented by Negroes, whose number may be stated to
exceed ten thousand. I he pure Abyssmians are few in number, compared