162 Report on the Island of Socotr a. [March, 



sionally reside for a few months on the island, ridicule them unmercifully 

 for this spirit of intolerance, and have assured us, even in the presence of 

 the zealots, that the Socotrian Arabs were poor wretches, who had nothing 

 to plead in defence of it save the lowest state of ignorance, and their mon- 

 grel descent. After the receipt of Hamed Bin Tary's letter, prohibiting our 

 further progress through the interior of the island, I was confined by the 

 Socotrian Arabs for several days in the town, and it was principally through 

 the influence which the Mahara Bedouins exercised on that occasion that 

 I was again enabled to set forward on my journey. The behaviour of the 

 former on this occasion exhibited a mixture of irresolution, timidity, and 

 avarice which I have never seen equalled ; they wavered between dread of 

 the Shekh if they permitted us to go, and their fear of missing what they 

 might gain by hiring out their camels if they prevented us. Exoi-bitant 

 demands were at first made ; and when they found that I would not listen 

 to these, they continued to hold councils for three days, during which pe- 

 riod, whenever I had commenced and packed up all in readiness for start- 

 ing, permission was given and cancelled more than half a dozen times. 



It is observed by Malte v Brun in his " Universal Geography," that the 

 population of this island might furnish a subject of lengthened discussion. 

 Henotices on the authority of'PHiLOSTORGEs, Edrisse, and UMDAULAH,that a 

 colony, sent here by Alexander the Great, remained for a long period ; 

 and during the time of Philostorges, an ecclesiastical historian, who wrote a 

 history of the church on the Arian principles at the conclusion of the fourth 

 century, that they spoke the Syriac language. Various other authorities are 

 cited by the same author, to prove the existence of a race of Christians with 

 which the island was peopled until as late a period as 1593, when the Nes- 

 torians and Jacobites had each a bishop residing on it ; and even when Sir 

 Thomas Roe visited it in 1614, he observes, that " the Bedoignes,"as he styles 

 them, " were of the Nestorian persuasion." In the absence of books or manu- 

 script of any description, for I believe no notice connected with the habits 

 or religious character of the islanders has since this period been handed 

 to Europeans, it might prove a hazardous task to venture, on the mere 

 traditions of the islanders, any observation on the causes or events which 

 have led to the total abolition of the Christian, and the universal establish- 

 ment of the Mohammedan, creed. Information on these points may possibly 

 be gleaned from authors to which I have not at present any means of 

 gaining access; but I cannot, however, dismiss the subject without observing, 

 that as the channel of the Indian trade, at the early period to which the 

 above-mentioned authors refer, was by the way of Socotra, and the ports at 

 the entrance of the Red Sea, it can excite but a small portion of surprise 

 to find proselytes of these persuasions residing on a spot so far removed 

 from where the principles on which these were founded were avowed and 

 practised. It is observed by Sale, in his preliminary discourse, that the 

 persecutions and disorders which happened " in the eastern church, soon 

 after the beginning of the third century, obliged great numbers of Christians 



