154 Report on the Island of Socotfa. [March, 



exercise it. Nor is this, as with the Socotrian Arabs, confined to those of 

 their own faith ; and while with the latter we were unceasingly tired with 

 silly questions relating either to our religion cr our views on the island, 

 the Bedouins gave themselves no concern either about one or the other. A 

 watch excited much mirth among them, and it was long before they would 

 cease to believe it was a living animal ; but unaccustomed as they were to 

 the sight of fire-arms, what excited their utmost astonishment was a pair of 

 pistols with detonating caps. Ever cheerful, they were always ready to 

 enter into conversation,or to be pleased with what was shown them. I saw 

 no instrument of music during my stay on the island, but they appear pas- 

 sionately found of song, and on one occasion, at a wedding, I observed 

 them dancing. A party stood round in a circle, and while one of their number 

 continued to sing, two or three others, without any pretence to a regular 

 step, by a succession of jumps or bounds, endeavoured to keep something 

 like time to it. 



The Bedouins have a great variety in their modes of salutation : two 

 friends meeting will kiss each other on the cheek or shoulder six or eight 

 times, then shake hands, kiss them, and afterwards, exchange a dozen sen- 

 tences of compliments; they have also the same singular and indelicate mode 

 of salutation which is observed at Kisbeen, when they place their noses 

 together, and accompany the action by drawing up their breath audibly 

 through the nostrils at the same time. Male and female relations salute 

 each other in public in this manner. Those of different sexes, who are 

 merely known to each other, kiss each other's shoulder or hand, except with 

 the principal individual of the tribe. When the females fall in with him, they 

 salute his knees, and he returns it on their forehead. The old men salute 

 children in the same manner. With the use of the compass the Bedouins 

 were totally unacquainted, and they had no terms in the Socotrian language 

 to express the cardinal points. The superiority of the Arabian numerals for 

 extended calculations over their own, has induced them to entirely discon- 

 tinue the use of the latter, and in all transactions among themselves, as well 

 as with the Arabs, the Arabian alone are now used ; it was therefore not 

 without some difficulty that I was enabled to collect the Socotrian nu- 

 merals, they are as follows: 



1 Tand 5 Hamish 9 Scab 



2 Terean 6 Heitah 10 Ushari 



3 Thedder 7 Heibah 11 Usharit and 



4 Urubah 8 Tomani 12 Ushari terean 

 and so on to 20, which is two tens, or usharum, and usharin tand 21 ; 

 thirty, which is thedder ushari, urubah or three-tens ; forty, which is 

 ushari, or four tens, and so on to one hundred, which is meyen or meian, 

 which is like the Arabic mit or meat. 



But by this decimal mode of calculation they could advance no further 

 than ten hundred. I have frequently sought without success for something 

 to express a thousand : this gives no very high opinion of their mental 

 capacity, and it evinces, unless they have sadly retrograded, a strong proof 





