'Muscat-Omani relations' [‎89r] (187/412)

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large mango and other fruit trees also. We spent one night
at Sumail in the guest house of the Y/ali. He was most hospi
table and friendly, and sent me a lamb for dinner. This was
a great treat, especially for dwellers in Muscat where the only
meat killed, except on rare occasions, is one goat a day. He
told me that the lack of rain in the last few years had resulted
in a diminition in the number and size of the flocks due to the
lack of grazing. This may be so, and it is quite true that
there are very few flocks to be seen. With the next breath,
however, ne complained the excess of rain last summer had ruined
the date crop. To point out that the rain would eventually re
sult in an addition to the water supply by reviving the springs
was a too long-term policy to be received with favour. The rain
does not really spoil the date crop, but the drying of the dates.
In Oman there is a kind of date which they gather just before it
is ripe, and boil in large earthenware pots. They then spread
the boilea dates on the river bed to dry. If it rains dur?!.ng
the drying period considerable loss is sustained.
V. At Sumail numbers of Sheikhs and the leading Qazi visited
me in the guest house garden where I sat under the large mango
trees. They talked a little of the war, but did not show ma^
interest in it beyond its effect upon themselves. They asked
me if the 'control system 1 were an invention of the British Gov
ernment, and if I thought that it was necessary. They said that
it caused great hardship to themselves as it resulted in their
being short of cloth and grain. I replied say.ing that certainly
in war time it was absolutely necessary to control supplies,
when we were warming to the conversation the Wali suddenly asked
to be allowed to leave for a few minutes. Whereupon he and his
greybeards went away and held a confabulation just out of earshot
behind the guest house They came back after what seemed an in
terminable time, for it was nearly 11 O'clock at night and I had
been riding all day, and turned to the weather as a subject of
conversation. I suppose their native caution had overcome them.
S. The ^umail fort is a large stone building perched on a rock
some 100 feet high in the middle of the valley where it broadens
out a little. There is a small bazaar there where stinking fish
is/-