INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXV 



Greeks and other inhabitants were converted to Christianity, and that clergy 

 from Persia regularly visited the island. The population at this time, a few 

 centuries after the Christian era, is put down by some at as much as 10,000, 

 the majority of whom are described as Nestorian Christians and pirates. 



In the time of Marco Polo, towards the end of the thirteenth century, the 

 island was a metropolitan see of the Nestorian Church. Many ships visited 

 the island, all vessels for Aden touching there, and the trade was mainly in 

 ambergris, cotton stuffs, and salt fish. The people had the reputation of being 

 enchanters, able at will to raise the wind, to bring back ships, and to produce 

 storms and disasters. 



Although so mixed a population lived on Socotra, yet from the earliest 

 times it appears to have been under the rule of the Mahri tribe, dwelling on 

 the opposite coast of Arabia, whose sultan or sheikh lived at Keshin. 



In 1503 Fernandez Pereira discovered it for the Portuguese, at which time 

 an Arab sheikh lived in a fort at Zoko (modern Suk), then the capital of the 

 island; but it was not until 1507 that Tristan daCunha and Albuquerque captured 

 the island for the Portuguese. After four years' occupancy the Portuguese 

 retired from the island, leaving abundant traces of their presence. The remains 

 of a fort on Haclibu plain, and at various places on the south and south-west 

 sides of the island, are most substantial ruins. Their influence is possibly also 

 seen in such names of places as Derafonta and in Feraigey one of the ruined 

 forts ; indeed the dialect of Socotra, it is thought by some, may owe part of its 

 peculiarity to a Portuguese basis. At the present time a large section of the 

 inhabitants of the hill-region of the island claim direct descent from the 

 Portuguese. About the date of the Portuguese occupancy the character of 

 Christianity had somewhat changed, and the doctrines of the Jacobite sect 

 were professed. 



The evacuation of the island by the Portuguese allowed a return of the 

 Sultan of Keshin, and in his hands it has ever since remained, with the exception 

 of a short occupancy on three several occasions by a foreign race — in 1538 by 

 the Turks, in 1800 by the Wahabbees, and by the British from 1835 to 1839. 



Although the ships of the East India Company frequently called at the 

 island during the seventeenth century, — some meeting with a friendly reception, 

 others finding the reverse, — and carried on a small trade in aloes and dragon's- 

 blood, it was not until the year 1800 that affairs in the East directed the 

 attention of the British Government to Socotra as a desirable possession, and 

 the commander of the naval station in that region was directed to seize it. 

 This was not done, and it was only the necessity for a coaling station that 

 induced the Indian Government in 1834 to survey the island. This was 

 accomplished by Captain Haines and Lieutenant Wellsted, and the result of 

 the survey being satisfactory, the Government attempted to buy the island, but 



TRANS. ROY. S0C. EDIN. VOL. XXXI. d 



