APPENDIX III. 



477 



conduct us to tlie Sooltan — another suspicious circumstance 

 that did not give us much encouragement. But, had such 

 been our desire, we had already gone too far to return, for 

 the cutter with all the Europeans and Arabs were at some 

 distance, and we had no means of rejoining them. Those 

 who landed were — Captain Smee, Lieut. Hardy, and myself, 

 the Syrang,^ captain's servants, with the pilots and persons 

 from the Sooltan's boat. Under the direction of these 

 last we walked from the landing-place, surrounded hj a 

 crowd of armed savages, to a large unshapely heap of mud 

 called the Palace of Sooltan Hammed, where we met with 

 our interpreter, !Mallum Ali. Having entered it through 

 a wicket in a strong door or gate, w^e were conducted 

 across a square court to a kind of open porch used, it 

 seems, as a place of public audience ; in it were placed 

 several low beds or couches with broken rattan bottoms, 

 on one of which we were desired to sit down. They were 

 excessively dirty and looked as if they had been stolen 

 from some native brother in India. Immediateh^ to the 

 left of the one in which we were seated, stood the Sooltan's 

 seat or throne, being nothing more than a new wooden 

 arm-chair vath a high back, and some rude carving on it. 

 On the ground before, a round piece of wood or stone with 

 a hole in the middle supplied the place of a footstool ; 

 and around stood a crowd of naked men and boys, for all 

 ranks and descriptions have, it seems, here free access to 

 the presence of their sovereign. The Sooltan immediately 

 entered, and, holding out his hand to us severally, took 

 ours, and put the back of it to his mouth — a ceremony the 

 natives reversed ; they all kissed the back of his hand. 

 He is in person of a middle stature, rather corpulent, and 

 ^ Sarbang, or native boatswain. 



