If ever this tract of country comes into the hands of a civilised nation, it will be capable of great and useful development. Supposing the harbour restored to receive ships of moderate size, the Gara hills, rich in grass and vegetation, with an ample supply of water and regular rains, and, furthermore, with a most delicious and health-giving air, might be of inestimable value as a granary and a health resort for the inhabitants of the burnt-up centres of Arabian commerce, Aden and Maskat. It is, as I have said, about half way between them, and it is the only fertile stretch of coast-line along that arid frontage of the Arabian Peninsula on to the Indian Ocean.
Every November a fair or gala is held up here by the side of the lakes, to which all the Bedouin of the Gara tribe come and make merry, and the fair of Derbat is considered by them the great festival of the year. A round rock was shown us on which the chief magician sits to exorcise the jinni of the lakes, and around him the people dance. There is doubtless some religious purport connected with all this, but, as I have said before, it is extremely difficult to get anything out of the Bedouin about their religious opinions; like the Bedouin of the Hadhramout, they do not observe the prayers and ablutions inculcated by the Mohammedan creed, and the Arabs speak of them as heathen, but beyond this we could not find out much. Their language, too, is different from anything we had heard before. They can understand and converse in Arabic after a fashion, but when speaking amongst themselves none of our party, Arab or European, could make out anything they said, and from such simple words as we were able to learn--such, for example, as _ouft_ for _wadi_, a valley, _shur_ instead of _yom_ for day, and _kho_ instead of _nahr_ for a river--we were led to believe that they speak an entirely different language, and not a dialect as in the Hadhramout.
As we passed through the hay, the Gara had gathered up a lot of it in sacks, which they put under the camels' loads by day and used as beds by night, and between times applied to quite a different purpose. One of these sacks was used as a combined dish and strainer when they boiled their rice. The rice was turned out of the pot, and as soon as the cook had scraped it all out with his hands they sat round, and fed themselves with handfuls of it.