Free A Writer's World by Jan Morris Page B

his features. It was an antique, melancholy face, such as you might see in old pictures of the East, as profoundly enigmatic, I thought, as the Pyramids.
    The driver of the truck stood trembling beside its door, and the Sultan climbed in athletically. I watched him hitch up his robe, adjust his sword, arrange his papers and settle himself in the front seat. With deliberate care he put on a pair of sunglasses, and the driver jumped in and started the engine.
    ‘Now, Mr Morris,’ said the Sultan. ‘If you are ready I think we might start. It will be an interesting journey, I think. I hope you will be comfortable, and if there is anything at all you want, please let my people know.’
    I bowed; he smiled; the retainers clanked their rifles; and I walked from the inner courtyard into the big yard outside. There stood our convoy, ready for the journey. There were six more American trucks, all identical, piled almost to overturning with stores and bags. Each carried its complement of strong Negro slaves, wearing blue jerseys like sailors of the Royal Navy or skippers of Skylarks at faraway piers. In one vehicle five small goats, doomed but stoical, stood with their heads just showing above its sides, their ears waggling vigorously. In the front seats of others a strange assortment of dignitaries was sitting, and I had a smudged glimpse of beards, turbans, rifles, daggers and bright eyes as I hastened across the yard. There was a champagne feeling in the air.
    The Sultan was evidently a man of punctuality. The engines were already racing, the slaves were clinging precariously to the mountains of stores. ‘Here, Sahib! This way!’ said two smiling Negroes, running across the yard to meet me. ‘Your bags are in. Welcome!’ And practically frogmarching me across the yard they guided me to my truck, its door already open, its driver grinning at me from inside. I jumped into my seat; the slaves climbed agilely up behind; and at that very instant there was a loud insistent blare of the Sultan’s horn. The trucks leapt away like dogs from the leash, manoeuvring for position. Exhaust smoke billowed about the palace. We were off! The slaves struck up a loud unison fatha , invoking blessings on our mission. The household retainers lining the several courtyards bowed low and very humbly, and some of the men prostratedthemselves. The keepers of the portals swung open the gates with a crash. The bystanders waved their sticks and shouted loyal greetings. Slave-girls, after preliminary reconnaissance, ran giggling into their houses with flying draperies. With a tremendous roaring of engines we rushed through the town and into the plain, and even the old camels, labouring around their wells, looked up for a bleary moment to watch us pass.
    First went a truck flying the red flag of Muscat. Beside its driver sat our Beduin guide, a small withered man with an avaricious look about him. Next rode the Sultan, his big turban bobbing up and down with the bumps of the track. In the third truck sat an elderly functionary with a long white beard; in the fourth were two splendid desert sheikhs, crowded together over the gearbox, with their rifles protruding from the window; in the fifth was a very old qadi of saintly bearing; and the rest of us followed behind, at tremendous speed, jolting wildly over the plain like raiders hot on the heels of an enemy. The flag flapped bravely. The big slaves laughed at each other and clutched their weapons. The little goats huddled together for company. It was a gloriously exhilarating start.
    ‘Where are we going?’ inquired my driver.
    We were going to the Sultan’s capital, Muscat on the Persian Gulf, and all went well. The Sultan humiliated various dissidents of the remote and mountainous interior, satisfied himself about oil rights and arrived at his capital in triumph (although fourteen years later he was to be deposed by his own son, and the country was renamed simply Oman). His slaves, by the way, seemed