About half way to the scene of our labours we halted by the ruins of the old Arab town, Beled-al-Kadim.
This ancient capital, dating from a period prior to the Portuguese occupation, still presents some interesting ruins. The old mosque (Madresseh-i-abu-Zeidan), with its two slender and elegant minarets, so different from the horrible Wahabi constructions of to-day, forms a conspicuous landmark for ships approaching the low-lying coasts of these islands. Around the body of the mosque runs a fine inscription in Kufic letters, and from the fact that the name of Ali is joined with that of the Prophet in the profession of faith, we may argue that this mosque was built during some Persian occupation, and was a Shiite mosque. The architecture, too, is distinctly Persian, recalling to us in its details the ruins of Rhey (the Rhages of Tobit) and of Sultanieh, which we saw in the north of Persia, and has nothing Arabian about it.
Ruins of houses and buildings surround this mosque, and here in the open space in the centre of the palm-groves the Bahreini assemble every Thursday for a market; in fact the place is generally known now as Suk-el-Khamis, or Thursday's Market.
On our journey out not a soul was near, but on our return we had an opportunity of attending one of these gatherings.
Sheikh Esau has here a tiny mosque, just an open _loggia_, where he goes every morning in summer-time to pray and take his coffee. Beneath it he has a bath of fresh but not over-clean water, where he and his family bathe. Often during the summer heats he spends the whole day here, or else he goes to his glorious garden about a mile distant, near the coast, where acacias, hibiscus, and almonds fight with one another for the mastery, and form a delicious tangle.
Another mile on, closer to the sea, is the fine ruined fortress of the Portuguese, Gibliah, as the natives call it now, just as they do one of the fortresses at Maskat. It covers nearly two acres of ground, and is built out of the remains of the old Persian town, for many Kufic inscriptions are let into the wall, and the deep well in the centre is lined with them. It is a regular bastioned fortification of the sixteenth century, with moat, embrasures in the parapets, and casemented embrasures in the re-entering angles of the bastions, and is one of the finest specimens of Portuguese architecture in the Gulf, an evidence of the importance which they attached to this island.