300 Professor Bayley Balfour [April 20, 



encouraging accounts, Dr. Sclater in 1878 brought the matter pro- 

 minently before the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, and the Committee of the Government Fund for Scientific 

 Eesearch, with the result that a certain sum of money was obtained, 

 and a committee appointed to take steps for the exploration of the 

 Natural History of the island. 



Various causes delayed the sending out of the expedition, and it 

 was not until January 1880, that I left this country, returning again 

 in April, having spent, with two companions — Lieutenant Cockburn, 

 6th Koyals, whose regiment was at Aden, and Alexander Scott, a 

 gardener from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, who accom- 

 jjanied me from England — nearly seven weeks on the island. 

 Although so long a period elapsed between the evacuation of the 

 island by the British and the date of our expedition, yet we were 

 followed in the succeeding year by the German traveller and botanist 

 Dr. Schweinfurth, who with three companions — MM. Riebeck, Eosset, 

 and Mantay — spent five weeks on Socotra. Thus, after an interval 

 of forty years, the island has been explored in two successive years. 



Such is a brief historical account of the island up to the present 

 time. And I may now give a short account of the government and 

 people. 



The government of the island is in the hands of the Sultan of 

 Keshin and Socotra. At present two brothers are joint Sultans, and 

 one lives at Keshin, the other resides in Socotra. They are nephews 

 of the one who, in 1834, refused to sell the island to the British. 

 The Sultan has complete sway in Socotra. He has a residence on 

 Gharriah plain, at the base of the Haggier hills, and has also a 

 palace in Tamarida, w^here he dispenses justice. Under him, each of 

 the large villages has its sheikh or head, and the island is divided into 

 four sections, each of which is in charge of a ranger. The Sultan 

 alone has power to inflict punishment. In each section the land is 

 let out to the various tribes of Bedouins, both for pasture and for 

 the collection of gum, payment therefore being made in ghi. The 

 Sultan reserves for himself one portion of land for the collection of 

 dragon's-blood. 



The trade of the island at present is small, ghi being the chief 

 export. It is carried on by buggalows from the Arabian coast. 

 " These arrive in the first months of the year with cofiee, rice, and 

 other articles, which they exchange for ghi, aloes, orchella, weed, &c., 

 which they take to Zanzibar, and, on their return, they bring coco- 

 nut, bombe, and American piece-goods. They dispose of as many of 

 these as possible, and take outwards ghi, aloes, dragon's-blood, 

 blankets, &c., and return to Arabia. Pearl-fishers from the Persian 

 Gulf at times visit the island and dispose of their pearls. The Sultan 

 takes tithe of all exports. From ghi his revenue is about 500^, 

 aloes bring him 250^, edah gives 80^, and other sources bring it up 

 to lOOOB a year, which, with his stipend of 360^ from the British, 

 makes him a comparatively rich man in this region." 



