The inhabitants are a mixture of Arabs and negroes. They are intelligent
and sprightly, and had not only heard of the American war, but said it
bore heavily on them, as they were now compelled to pay a much higher
price for their goods, which are mostly cotton. We have driven away,
they say, all their Yankee trade. The Sultan is a young man of
twenty-eight, with a moderate harem of only five wives.
_Thursday, February 11th_.--Visited the town to get sights for my
chronometers--which puts the town at 44.26.30 N., just 30" less than
Captain Owen's determination. The town, as viewed from the anchorage, is
a picturesque object, with its tall minaret, its two forts, one perched
on a hill commanding the town, and the other on the sea-beach, and its
stone houses; but the illusion is rudely dispelled on landing. You land
on a beach of rocks and shingle, through a considerable surf even in the
calmest weather. The beach was strewn with the washed clothes of the
ship, and a set of vagabonds of all colour, save only that of the
Caucasian, were hanging about looking curiously on. The town is
dilapidated and squalid to the last degree--the houses of rough stones,
cemented and thatched; the streets five feet wide, and rendered, as it
would seem, purposely crooked.
It was the second day of the fast of Ramadan, and groups of idlers were
congregated in the narrow porticoes reading the Koran. The language,
which is peculiar to the island, is very soft and pleasing to the ear.
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