Muscat, capital of Oman, in Eastern Arabia, on the Gulf of Oman; is an ill-built, unhealthy city, but does an important transit trade between Arabia, Persia, India, and East Africa; it was in Portuguese possession from 1508 to 1658, but has been independent since.
Population (circa 1900) given as 20,000.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Musæus, John August * Muses, The