Note {4} — Chapter XXXVII

Note 4.—This custom holds more or less on all the Arabian coast from Sheḥr to the Persian Gulf, and on the coast east of the Gulf also. Edrisi mentions it at Sheḥr (printed Shajr, I. 152), and the Admiral Sidi ’Ali says: “On the coast of Shehr, men and animals all live on fish” (J. A. S. B. V. 461). Ibn Batuta tells the same of Dhafár, the subject of next chapter: “The fish consist for the most part of sardines, which are here of the fattest. The surprising thing is that all kinds of cattle are fed on these sardines, and sheep likewise. I have never seen anything like that elsewhere” (II. 197). Compare Strabo’s account of the Ichthyophagi on the coast of Mekran (XV. 11), and the like account in the life of Apollonius of Tyana (III. 56).