“Nominally Makalla is ruled over by a Sultan of the Al Kaiti family, whose connection with India has made them very English in their sympathies, and his Majesty’s general appearance, with his velvet coat and jewelled daggers, is far more Indian than Arabian. Really the most influential people in the town are the money-grubbing Parsees from Bombay, and it is essentially one of those commercial centres where Hindustani is spoken nearly as much as Arabian. We were lodged in a so-called palace hard by the bazaar, which reeked with mysterious smells and was alive with flies; so we worked hard to get our preparations made and to make our sojourn in this uncongenial burning spot as short as possible....
“Leaving these villages behind us, we climbed rapidly higher and higher, until, at an elevation of over 5,000 feet, we found ourselves at last on a broad level plateau, stretching as far as the eye could reach in every direction, and shutting off the Hadramaut from the coast. This is the ‘mons excelsus’ of Pliny; here we have the vast area where once flourished the frankincense and the myrrh. Of the latter shrub there is plenty left, and it is still tapped for its odoriferous sap; but of the former we only saw one specimen on the plateau, for in the lapse of ages the wealth of this country has steadily disappeared; further east, however, in the Mahra country, there is, I understand, a considerable quantity left.
“Near Hajarein are many traces of the olden days when the frankincense trade flourished, and when the town of Doani, which name is still retained in the Wady Doan, was a great emporium for this trade. Acres and acres of ruins, dating from the centuries immediately before our era, lie stretched along the valley here, just showing their heads above the weight of superincumbent sand which has invaded and overwhelmed the past glories of this district. The ground lies strewn with fragments of Himyaritic inscriptions, pottery, and other indications of a rich harvest for the excavator, but the hostility of the Nahad tribe prevented us from paying these ruins more than a cursory visit, and even to secure this we had to pay the Sheikh of the place nineteen dollars; and his greeting was ominous as he angrily muttered, ‘Salaam to all who believe Mohammed is the true prophet.’