Socotora has abundance of civet cats,[215] which are taken in traps in the mountains by the cafrs, who sell them for twelve-pence each.  Flesh is dear in this island; a cow costing ten dollars, and one goat or two sheep a dollar.  Their cattle have good firm and fat beef, like those in England.  The goats are large, and have good flesh; and the sheep are small with coarse wool.  The goats and sheep are very abundant.  They make very good butter, but it is always soft like cream, and is sold for four-pence or six-pence a pound.  Goat’s milk may be bought for three-pence the quart.  Plenty of hens may be had, at the rate of five for a dollar, or about twelve-pence each.  In the whole island there are not above two or three small horses of the Arab breed, and a few camels.  At Delisha they take great quantities of lobsters and other good fish.  A few cotton plants are found growing on the strand; where likewise there grows among the stones a shrubby plant, having large thick round green leaves, as big as a shilling, with a fruit like capers, of which it is a kind, called eschuc, and is eaten in sallads.  Oranges are scarce and dear.  There is very fine sweet bazil.  On the shore, many fine shells are found, mixed with cuttle-fish bones, and vast quantities of pearl-oyster shells, which the people say are driven thither by the winds and waves, as no pearl-oysters are to be found here-about.  The people are very poor, and rank beggars, who buy what they are able and beg all they can get, yet are honest and give civil usage.  Their best entertainment is a china dish of coho, a black bitterish drink, made of a berry like that of the bay tree, which is brought from Mecca.  This drink is sipped hot, and is good for the head and stomach.[216]

[Footnote 215:  The Civet, or Vierra Civetta of naturalists, is an animal somewhat allied to the weazel; but the genus is peculiarly distinguished by an orifice or folicle beneath the anus, containing an unctuous odorant matter, highly fetid in most of the species; but in this and the Zibet the produce is a rich perfume, much esteemed in the east.—­E.]

[Footnote 216:  This Coho of Finch is evidently coffee.—­E.]

At our first landing in Socotora, the people all fled from us for fear into the mountains, having formerly received injurious treatment from the Portuguese, who they said had carried off some of them forcibly.  Their town which they left, is all built of stone covered with spars and palm branches, with wooden doors, and very ingenious wooden locks.  Near the sea-side stands their church, enclosed by a wall like that of a church-yard, having within a couple of crosses and an altar, on which lay frankincense, with sweet wood and gums.  When we first got speech of them, they pretended this was Abba del Curia, and not Socotora, which we afterwards found to be false.  We walked up two or three miles into the country, not seeing a single pile of green grass, but many date trees.