the town is now in ruins. Fifty years ago the population must have been nearly three times greater than it is now. There is also wanting in the town the feature which makes most Moslem towns picturesque, namely[64] the minaret; the mosques of the Ibadhuyah sect being squalid and uninteresting. At first it is difficult to distinguish them from the courtyard of an ordinary house, but by degrees the eye gets trained to identify a mosque by the tiny substitute for a minaret attached to each, a sort of bell-shaped cone about four feet high, which is placed above the corner of the enclosing wall. I have already mentioned the Ibadhuyah's views with regard to the imams. I believe they hold also certain heterodox opinions with regard to predestination and free will, which detach them from other Moslem communities; at any rate they are far more tolerant than other Arabian followers of the Prophet, and permit strangers to enter their mosques at will. Tobacco is freely used by them, and amongst the upper classes scepticism is rife. The devout followers of Mohammed look upon them much as Roman Catholics look on Protestants, and their position is similar in many respects.

As elsewhere in Arabia, coffee is largely consumed in Oman, and no business is ever transacted without it; it is always served in large, copper coffee-pots, of the quaint shape which they use in Bahrein. Some of these coffee-pots are very large. An important sheikh, or the mollah of a mosque, whose guests are many, will have coffee-pots two or three feet in height, whereas those for private use are quite tiny, but the bird-like form of the pot is always scrupulously preserved.

The bazaars of Oman do not offer much to the curio-hunter. He may perchance find a few of the curved Omani daggers with handsome sheaths adorned with filigree silver, to which is usually attached, by a leather thong, a thorn