Sultan Feysul was a complete autocrat as far as his jurisdiction extended. At his command a criminal could be executed either in the lion's cage or in a little square by the sea, and his body cut up and thrown into the waves. The only check upon him was the British Resident. His father, Tourki, not long before sewed up a woman in a sack and drowned her, whereupon a polite message came from the Residency requesting him not to do such things again. Hence young Feysul dared not be very cruel--to offend the English would have been to lose his position. His half brother, Mahmoud, whose mother was a Swahili, lives next door to his brother, Sultan Feysul, in the enjoyment of a pension of 600 dollars a mouth. The uncles, however, are not so amenable. The eldest of them, according to Arabian custom, claimed the throne and had collected an army amongst the Bedouin to assert his claims, and was then in possession of all the country, with the exception of Maskat and El Matra, for Feysul had no money, and hence he could not get his soldiers to fight. But then it had been intimated to Feysul that in all probability the English would support his claims if he conducted himself prudently and wisely. So there was every likelihood that in due course he would be thoroughly established in the dominions of his father. When we visited the town for the second time an even more serious rebellion was impending, the Bedouin of the interior, under Sheikh Saleh, having attacked Maskat itself. The sultan and his brother, who hastily became friends, retired together to the castle, and the town was given up to plunder. There were dead bodies lying on the beach, and but for the kindness of Colonel Hayes Sadler, the British Resident, there would have been difficulties in the fort as regards water. They relied principally on H.M.S. _Sphinx_, which lay in the harbour to protect British interests, and to maintain Sultan Feysul in his position. This state of terror lasted three weeks, when the rebels, having looted the bazaars and wrecked the town, were eventually persuaded to retire, free and unpunished, with a considerable cash payment; probably intending to return for more when the cooler weather should come, and the date harvest be over. With the consent of, and at the request of, the Indian Government, Sultan Feysul has imposed additional heavy duty on all the produce coming in from the rebel tribes, that he may have a fund from which to pay indemnities to foreigners who suffered loss during the invasion. A good many Banyan merchants, British subjects, suffered losses, and their claim alone amounted to 120,000 rupees. As a natural result of this disaster and its ignominious termination, Sultan Feysul's authority at the present moment is absolutely _nil_ outside the walls of Maskat and El Matra, and he is still in a state of declared war with all the Bedouin chiefs in the mountains behind Maskat.