Southern Arabia

Their arrival on Bahrein begins in mid-ocean: bag and baggage, the travellers are transferred onto white asses marked with yellow henna. Their interpreter, Abdullah, cheerfully asks, “What time you eat your mules to-day, Sahib?”

In 1889, J. Theodore Bent and Mrs. Theodore Bent cross the Persian Gulf to investigate mysterious mounds on the islands, hoping to find traces of ancient Phoenicians. But the dig is only part of the adventure. From their chilly tower above Manamah’s bamboo huts, they watch pearl-fishers at play, explore bazaars full of curious wares, and try to make themselves understood through Abdullah’s wonderfully faulty English. Every stage of the journey demands improvisation, and the bustling life around them proves as absorbing as the buried past they came to seek. What will Bahrein reveal above ground—and beneath it?

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