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He was preparing for an exploration of the island of Sokotra, when he died, at Stuttgart, on the 5th of November 1876.

The sultan of the Mahra, to whom Sokotra also belongs, lives at Kishin, a poor village consisting of a few scattered houses about 30 m. west of Rās Fartak.

Its islands are few and insignificant, the chief being Sokotra, off the African, and the Laccadives, off the Indian coast.

The overthrow of the Wahhabis in 1817 restored Sultan Said to independence; he equipped and armed on Western models a fleet built in Indian ports, and took possession of Sokotra and Zanzibar, as well as the Persian coast north of the straits of Hormuz as far east as Gwadur, while by his liberal policy at home Sohar, Barka and Muscat became prosperous commercial ports.

Several venerable legends are reproduced; and Conti’s name-forms, partly through Poggio’s vicious classicism, are often absolutely unrecognizable; but on the whole this is the best account of southern Asia by any European of the 15th century; while the traveller’s visit to Sokotra is an almost though not quite unique performance for a Latin Christian of the middle ages.