Oman

“ While Oman gazed, unable to speak, scarcely to think, a shadowy smile crossed the Rajah’s lips, and he began to murmur a few unintelligible words. Oman bent to catch them, and Bhavani’s eyes rested on his face.
“Fidá,” he whispered, low, but distinctly: “we played together—with Ahalya—”
“Yes. Yes!” answered Oman, hoarsely.
“Brave things. Let us play again. I always Arjuna. Thou, O Fidá, Yudishthir, the King.—Ahalya, the beautiful Draupadi. I have won her from all the rest. But now—we are marching away—from Hastinapur. We are seeking heaven. It is a long journey. We reach the sea. ”

“ In this sea, to the right as you leave Oman, is the country of Sihar or Shihr, where frankincense grows, and other countries possessed by the nations of Ad, Hamyar, Jorham, and Thabatcha, who have the Sonna, in Arabic of very ancient date, but differing in many things from what is in the hands of the Arabs, and containing many traditions unknown to us. They have no villages, and live a very hard and miserably wandering life; but their country extends almost as far as Aden and Judda on the coast of Yaman, or Arabia the happy. ”

“ Within Oman’s body two natures, both human, both filled with direst cravings of humanity, had long struggled for supremacy. Now he had been removed from the old life, where he beheld sense worshipped on every side, and found himself in a community which taught, as an inviolable law, the renunciation of all sense gratification as the only road to happiness. A sudden austerity, born of the brain, began to work in Oman’s heart. ”

“ Yemen and Hedjaz, Mecca and Medina, are no longer mysteries to us, nor are we wholly without information on the districts of Hadramaut and Oman. But of the interior of the vast region, of its plains and mountains, its tribes and cities, of its governments and institutions, of its inhabitants, their ways and customs, of their social condition, how far advanced in civilization or sunk in barbarism, what do we as yet really know, save from accounts necessarily wanting in fulness and precision? ”

“ The kingdom of Oman has extended itself along the eastern shore, nearly to the head of the Persian Gulf. The northern oases, the seat of the powerful sect of the Wahabees, are called Nedjed; and the unknown southern interior, which is believed to be almost wholly desert, inhabited only by a few wandering Bedouins, is known as the Dahna or Akhaf.
Arabia has been inhabited by the same race since the earliest times, and has changed less, in the course of thousands of years, than any other country of the globe, not excepting China. ”

“ The fertility of the whole region is wonderful and in striking contrast with the barren rocks of so large a part of the coast. With a semi-tropical climate, an elevation of 3,000 to 5,000 feet and abundant springs the wadys and oases of Oman have awakened the delight and amazement of every traveller who has ventured to explore them. Water, the one priceless treasure in all Arabia, here issues in perennial streams from many rocky clefts and is most carefully husbanded by the ingenuity of the people, for wide irrigation, by means of canals or watercourses called faluj. ”

“ The sultan, a descendant of those Yemenite imams who consolidated Arab power in Zanzibar and on the East African coast, and raised Oman to its position as the most powerful state in Arabia during the first half of the 19th century, resides at Muscat, where his palace directly faces the harbour, not far from the British residency. The little port of Gwadar, on the Makran coast of the Arabian Sea, a station of the Persian Gulf telegraph system, is still a dependency of Oman. ”

“ In Oman is said to exist a fragment of the government of the old Ethiopian or Cushite race. If this is true, then we may be able to perceive at the present time something of the character of the political institutions of this ancient nation. As no people remains stationary, and as degeneracy has been the rule with surrounding countries, we may not expect to find among the people of Oman a true representation of ancient conditions, yet, as has been observed, we may still be able to note some of the facts relative to the organization of society and their governmental institutions. ”

“ Oman heeded nothing, nor remembered what surrounded him. He had forgotten Mandu, the day, the woman of gold, the beauty of Bhavani—everything; and had slipped back into the old freedom of his days on the Silver Peak. Humankind was infinitely far from his thoughts. But humankind had not forgotten him. Suddenly the curtain of his doorway was thrust aside, and Bhavani came quietly into the room.
The Rajah was not now in royal raiment, but clad from head to heels in spotless white, the purity of which seemed a fitting frame for his fine physique and the spiritual dignity of his face. ”

“ Later he was borne back, triumphant, to Poussa’s hut.
That night Oman could not sleep for very joy. Here at last was—success. At last men had given him free right of brotherhood, and more. He had known the respect, the reverence, of his own kind. By a miracle, the outcast was become the acclaimed among men. The cost of it, those bitter years of loneliness and despair, was not counted now. Oman knew only that he was welcome, was honored among the people ”

“ Among the townsfolk, in the evening, the great subject of gossip was always: “The Child of Gokarna—called Oman.” “He has given up the life of the Snataka.” “No more does he study the sacred books.” “Yet the ceremony of the cessation of study has not taken place.” “Ah, yes, something is wrong. It is very strange.”
Oman still wore the sacred cord of the Brahman. How should he, knowing so much of the holy Vedas, remove it? But he moved through his native town a wanderer, an outcast, addressing none of the townspeople, who would scarcely have answered him for fear of defiling their caste. ”

“ Oman, a territory of Arabia, lying along the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, round the south-eastern nob of the peninsula; has some stretches of very fertile country where there happens to be water for irrigation, but the coast is very hot and not healthy. ”

“ After a little, Oman began to move slowly around the room, feasting his eyes on every passing phase of richness. And finally, with a hesitation born of timidity, he ventured to lie down on the divan, resting his head and shoulders on cushions, and drawing up his knees, after the universal custom of the Orient. Then, all at once, a feeling of naturalness came. Luxury was no longer strange. The glowing lights, the subdued color, the faint aroma of stale incense, induced ghostlike dreams of what had been, of things to come. ”

“ There is little of interest in the annals of Oman and of her colonies. Fond of genealogy, the modern Arabs are perhaps the most incurious of Orientals in the matter of history: they ignore the past, they disregard the present, and they have a superstitious aversion to speak of the future. ”

“ These ancient lords of Oman claim direct descent from Kahtan (Joetan) , great-grandfather of Himyar, founder of the Southern Arabs, and brother to Saba, who built in Yemen the city that bore his name: the stock is held to be noble as any in the Peninsula. Oman remained under foreign dominion, paying 288tribute to, and owning the rule of, Nadir Shah, till the Chief of Sohar, Said bin Ahmad el Bu Saídí, struck the blow for freedom. ”

“ One long before, in the west, had spoken such words; but they had not lived truly in the hearts of men. Before Oman paused, however, he had brought all the throng literally to his feet, because of the things he said and the way he said them. And, in that hour, Oman won his place with the low castes of Mandu, among whom, henceforth, he was privileged to much that their priests could not obtain of them. ”

“ Yet it was roofed over with wood, and within the open doorway firelight shone. There must be human creatures there; and there Oman was determined to enter. He approached, almost reverently, and halted before the door. Within, was only one person—a woman, or girl, of perhaps sixteen. Her dress proclaimed her widowhood, and her caste was too easily recognizable. Oman, however, accustomed to such matters, thought of nothing but that she was a woman—kneading barley-cakes before her fire; and, as he watched her, his heart warmed with humanness, and he smiled. ”

“ Oman went slowly out of his cave, with a new sense of desolation on him. The air was cold. The surrounding hills lay wrapped in still, gray shadows. [Pg 320] All the morning joy had left the world. Reluctantly, with dread in his heart, Oman made his way down the eastern slope to the place of the funeral pyre. There lay a heap of wood ashes, mingled with white bones, a few scraps of cloth, and some pieces of charred and blackened flesh. That was all. The fire had done its work well. A week of rains and wind, and no trace would remain of him who had ascended the Silver Peak to die. ”

“ Oman had been governed for nine hundred successive years by independent rulers called Imams; elected by popular choice and not according to family descent. From that time until 1650 the Portuguese remained in power at Muscat. In 1741 Ahmed bin Said, a man of humble origin, a camel-driver, rose by his bravery to be governor of Sohar, drove the Persians who had succeeded the Portuguese, out of Muscat and founded the dynasty that has ever since ruled Oman. As early as 1798 the East India Company made a treaty with the Sultan of Muscat to exclude the French from Oman. ”

“ Rice is imported from India. The total population of Oman is estimated by Colonel Miles not to exceed 1,500,000. There are numerous towns of 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants; Muscat and Mattra are the chief towns on the coast, and are practically united as they are only two miles apart. The climate of Oman on the coast is excessively hot and moist during a large part of the year, although the rainfall here is only six to ten inches annually; in the interior the heat is greatly tempered by the elevation, the rainfall is much greater and the climate as pleasant as in the highlands of Yemen. ”

“ In Oman such amusements are still more frequent. Again in Yemen and Oman, coffee-houses, where people resort for conversation, and where public recitals, songs and other amusements are indulged in, stand open all day; while nothing of the sort is tolerated in Nejd. So too the ceremonies of circumcision or marriage are occasions of gaiety and pastime on the coast, but not in the central provinces.
An Arab town, or even village, except it be the merest hamlet, is invariably walled round; but seldom is a stronger material than dried earth used ”

“ On the plateau, which has an altitude of 4000 ft., there is good pasturage; inland the country slopes gently to a broad valley beyond which the view was bounded by the level horizon of the desert.
Oman (q.v.) includes all the south-eastern corner of the peninsula. Its chief feature is the lofty range of J. Akhdar, 10,000 ft. above sea-level. Like the great range of western Arabia, it runs parallel to the coast; it differs, however, from the western Oman. range in that its fall on the landward side is as abrupt and nearly as great as on its seaward side. ”

“ S. B. Miles, J. R. Wellsted, and S. M. Zwemer have explored Oman in the extreme east; but the interior south of a line drawn from Taif to El Katr on the Persian Gulf is still virgin ground. In northern Arabia the Syrian desert and the great Nafud (Nefud) have been crossed by several travellers, though a large area remains unexplored in the north-east between Kasim and the gulf. In the centre, the journeys of W. Palgrave, C. Doughty, W. Blunt and C. Huber have done much to elucidate the main physical features of the country. ”

“ It seemed as if the very elements were struggling over that soul in the cave. Never had such storms of hail, rain, wind, and snow raged round the Silver Peak. In all that time, however, Oman’s weaker nature never once manifested itself. He was using all the man and all the strength in him for the wanderer, whom the wild weather greatly disturbed. Indeed, often, during the storms, he would lie cowering with terror in his far [Pg 306] corner of the shelter, talking deliriously of strange things, or uttering wild and terrified cries that wrung Oman’s very heart. ”

“ Our path, well tracked and trodden, now lay between ridges of precipitous rock, rising abruptly from a level and grassy plain; sometimes the road was sunk in deep gorges, sometimes it opened out on wider spaces, where trees and villages appeared, while the number of wayfarers, on foot or mounted, single or in bands, still increased as we drew nearer to the capital. There was an air of newness and security about the dwellings and plantations hardly to be found nowadays in any other part of Arabia, Oman alone excepted. ”

“ Oman, obeying the instinct of common sense, rose to his feet, swayed and reeled with numbness, and was promptly pummelled into sensibility by one of the men who seemed to understand what he needed. So, presently, the three of them, Oman with a [Pg 404] soldier on either side, descended the narrow stone steps of the tower and came out upon the causeway. Here was a sight to try the nerves of the Mohammedan conqueror himself. All was deathly still, yet already men were working by the light of torches, the sickly, flickering glare of which cast streaks of light and shadow over the horrid scene. ”

“ By this unpremeditated act, Oman made possible for himself something that he had desired long and earnestly. It opened the way for him to go down among the humbler people, and cause them to reveal their souls to him, that he might give them his truths. In the next months he studied, ardently, the nature of mankind, in the hope of finding means of escape from temptation for those too weak to resist it, and of giving proper strength to those who could still struggle against themselves. ”

“ Oman, now inured to constant exercise, throve on it and grew strong. His limbs began to show muscle, and his body renewed its vigor, till he looked a straight and handsome youth. And as his physique developed, so also his mind. Hushka never [Pg 238] ceased his instructions in the Dharma, nor did Oman fail to treasure his master’s lightest precept. He was familiar now with what lay before him during the Vassa season. He learned the mode of daily life; the rules of procedure in the Samgha, or community of brethren ”