Compatibility photos on Flickr

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⛧⛧ Katana for Hot Drop Weekend!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

19 1

Hi Culties & Spookies, Time to kick off your weekend shopping just right!

★ Item ★ The Katana boots are sleek and hot and would be great for any boot collector!

★ Rigged For ★ Reborn ★ Legacy F ★ Kupra ★ Lara ★ Gen-X ★ MaitreyaX ★

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

by Jeffrey Grenfell

4

SMU 220 with "high speed" modifications approaching Robina. With the introduction of the IMU 160 and SMU 260 class, these trains were no longer required on the Gold Coast line and the versions with High Speed modifications were reconfigured back to the standard arrangements for compatibility with the rest of the class.

Canon 350D

08-07-2006

Farrah-Flowers-&-All-You-Need-Poster by Gabrielle Hamelin

5

♥ Full Version Two ♥

Inworld Here: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cevedale/45/70/22

Marketplace Here: marketplace.secondlife.com/p/GH-Farrah-Sweater-Version-II...

Classic Alpha is included - BOM compatibility not tested*

Includes Exclusive Textures

Please Always Test your demo!

♥ Maitreya

♥ Slink Hourglass

♥ Slink Physique

♥ TMP

♥ Belleza Venus

♥ Belleza Freya

♥ Belleza Isis

♥ Classic Avatar (XXS - L)

♥ eBODY Curvy

♥ eBODY Classic

Materials Enhanced Motifs

⛧⛧ Madeline for Crafty Weekend Sale!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

33 1

Hi Culties & Spookies, More Weekly Sales for your shopping pleasure!

★ Item ★ The Madeline boots are sleek and sexy with pretty bows!

★ Rigged For ★ Reborn ★ Legacy Female ★ Kupra ★ Lara ★ Gen-X Curvy ★ MaitreyaX ★

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

Bahraini Merchants by Muharraq Forever

8

From right to left: Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945), Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944), Jacques-Théodule Alfred Cartier (1884-1941), Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair (1844-1923), and Abdulrahman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim (1875-1960) circa March 1912.

(Contrary to earlier conflicting accounts about the location of this famous photograph, local historians now believe it was taken during the introductory visit of Jacques Cartier to the townhouse of the undisputed doyen of the Bahraini pearl trading community, prominent pearl merchant Salman Bin Hussain Matar, on the island of Muharraq, by one of Cartier's assistants on the portico (Iwan) of the main reception hall in the inner courtyard of the house, since the densely populated old town of Muharraq, with its maze of narrow winding streets, was not only the largest urban centre on the small island of Muharraq, but it was also the political capital of Bahrain and the seat of power for the Al Khalifa ruling dynasty for more than a century from 1810 to 1923, in addition to being the then capital of the pearl diving industry in the entire Arabian Gulf; however, in 1923, the capital was moved to Manama on the nearby more extensive principal island of Awal of the Bahrain archipelago)

(The date of birth of Yusuf Kanoo of 1861 in the caption above is arguably the most accurate of all his purported birth dates, in particular when compared to the other two widely circulated unsubstantiated discretionary dates of 1874 and 1868, the first of which is found in the British national archives (India Office Records), vaguely based on Yusuf Kanoo's own account, casting doubt on the questionable veracity of some of the information-gathering methods of the British archival records, while the second is a more recent date, first appearing as the official birth date of Kanoo in the late 1990s, it is important to note that, with few exceptions here and there, prior to the gradual establishment of the modern bureaucratic centralised state system in Bahrain in the 1920s and the following decades, virtually every birth date in Bahrain and the rest of the basic protection social contract of Arab Gulf polities where the livelihoods and worldly possessions of the people were under the protection of a specific ruler in a loosely designated geographical area was usually determined by word-of-mouth discretionary supposition, collective consensus, and, in some rare cases, chronicled by momentous or calamitous events occurring at random during any given time in a certain year, such as warfare, lethal epidemics, or destructive natural disasters, typically identifying the year by a distinctive feature or characteristic attributed to the calamity itself by describing the person born in the year in question, irrespective of gender, routinely referred to as "being born in the year of so and so," and at best by adding the season of birth according to the seasonally unaligned Islamic Hijri Calendar, which would become over the course of time part of the collective and cultural orally transmitted from one generation to another folk memory of the Bahraini people and the Gulf region in general, at a time when a sizable portion of the indigenous local population was both illiterate and semiliterate before the spread of government-sponsored formal education in the early 1920s and 1930s in the newly formed Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf, for example when the devastating Spanish flu pandemic reached Arabia as a whole in the autumn of 1919, including Bahrain, resulting in the death of more than fifteen hundred inhabitants in Bahrain alone, the year of the outbreak was called "The Year of Mercy" due to the frequency of funerary prayers and supplications for mercy for the souls of so many victims who succumbed to the disease one after another, an Islamic religious nomenclature once commonly used in the Arabian Peninsula in relation to the catastrophic reoccurrences of virulent diseases that ravaged the Peninsula, as people in Arabia sauntered through a never-ending cycle of rampant epidemics, with very high mortality rates as one would expect under such conditions, not dissimilar to those in mediaeval Europe or even to those of their contemporaries relatively more advanced standards of the neighbouring fertile crescent, constantly girding themselves for the worse, in light of the practically complete lack of modern medical care facilities, preventive healthcare, quarantine measures, including immunisation, and public sanitation with the significantly effective though insufficient three modern healthcare facilities exceptions in the Gulf, operating in chronological order with the opening of each of them, starting with the commercial, for-profit enterprise medical services of the American Mission Hospital in 1903 in Manama, Bahrain, followed three years later by the semi-gratuitous medical services of the chronically underfunded Victoria Memorial Hospital, together with its small quarantine facility in 1906, located near the sea, directly across from the British political agency (now the British Embassy), further down the same long, meandering street as the American hospital, both facilities catered not only to the local Bahraini population but also to those from the eastern and central regions of present-day Saudi Arabia, and finally, the American Mission Hospital of Kuwait in 1914 served Kuwait and its urban and desert sedentary environs communities where there was practically a yearly infestation of at least one epidemic, most notably bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, and smallpox, causing numerous fatalities in a short space of time, particularly along the Arab polities of the western coast of the low-density populated and extensively penurious Arabian Gulf region and throughout the Arabian Peninsula in the first third of the twentieth century, before the life-changing discovery of oil in the 1930s and 1940s, and the subsequent development of an efficient free-of-charge governmental medical system funded by oil revenues, however, one of the most noteworthy calamities to leave an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of the people of the Gulf was an odd hurricane of cataclysmic proportions on the 1st of October 1925, dubbed "The Year of the Sinkage," inflicting variable damage to buildings and the surrounding environment, especially vulnerable mud huts with palm-frond thatched roofs (known as Barastis) in coastal aquicultural and fishing villages belonging to indigent toiling fishermen and indentured farmers, these huts were torn apart, interspersing their roofs across far-flung distances, and, needless to say, the pearl fishing industry during the final weeks of the four-month-long summer pearling season in anticipation of the onset of the dormant winter months for the industry and its ancillary essential sectors in the Gulf, the cornerstone of the regional fragile monocultural economy, which was hit hard, with thousands of boats sunk and, tragically, over five thousand lives, predominantly sailors, lost in a single thunderous foreboding night in the otherwise almost always placid waters of the Gulf; the calamity wrought havoc in its wake, leaving a path of devastation across a vast region, primarily in the central part of the Arabian Gulf, centring on the Bahrain archipelago and the eastern coastline of the Qatar peninsula, coupled with a number of islands and the sparsely populated coastal towns and villages along the present-day eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, including Dammam (now a metropolis) and Tarout Island, well-known back then for its small fishing and pearl diving communities, namely the famous pearl diving town of Darin, and also the nearby agricultural town of Qatif, where one hundred and fifty people died from falling date palm trees on their homes, in addition to Ras Tanura, and to a lesser extent Jubail in the north, thus the perfectly apt appellation, as these rudimentary speculative and dubious methods were the order of the day, rather than any accurate, bureaucratic official government or religious documentation specifying the exact date and year of birth, with the first large-scale issuance of birth registration certificates in Bahrain beginning in earnest in the 1950s, given the discovery of an officially notarised endowment trust fund transfer deed dated Thursday the 15th of Rabi' al-Thani 1295 in the Hijri Calendar, corresponding to the 18th of April 1878 in the Gregorian Calendar, undermining decidedly the credibility of the two earlier mentioned alleged dates of birth of Yusuf Kanoo, where respected foodstuff merchant Ahmed Mohamed Kanoo and his eldest son Yusuf were among the nine legally required consenting adults, competent witnesses to validate the strict transfer of wealth procedure, since both of the previously stated birth dates of Yusuf Kanoo pertinent to the timeline of the binding legal solemnity of such a document are incompatible with the required legal age of the witnesses, whereas Yusuf Kanoo was illogically either an undiscerning child of four or a child of ten, indicating that he was a minor under the legal age of majority of full legal responsibility in both instances to be allowed to appear before an Islamic Sharia Judge or any other judge of any civil or religious denomination for that matter, it should be clarified that, with the exception of Iran (historically known as Persia), which is still reliant on its own highly precise unique Solar Hijri Calendar designed by the renowned Muslim polymath, Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), time and age measurements, and the foundation for standard civic purposes of all aspects of mundane life, not just religious holidays, worshipping activities, and festivities, were calculated in the Arabian Gulf and much of the Islamic world then, per the purely lunar Islamic Hijri Calendar's dynamic but orderly unaligned seasons of the monthly cycles of the phases of the Moon, in contrast to the seasonally aligned, more dependable Gregorian, and less complex Solar Calendar, and all currently in use others, in a number of Asian nations, such as China, India, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, are regulated by their indigenous hybrid Lunisolar Calendar's overlapping intercalations of both the positions of the Moon and the Sun, in compatibility with the Western globalised economic requirements and realities of modern life, in conclusion, as expounded earlier in the text, in the absence of a centralised efficient bureaucratic state system in the late modern period, from roughly the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century in Bahrain and the rest of the Gulf, it was a challenging task to determine the precise birth dates of the vast majority of the population, including those of the ruling and mercantile elites, with a few rare anomalous exceptions, mostly among the clergy, demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that Yusuf Kanoo, as one of the signatories of the said revealing document, was of the irrefutable legal adult majority discerning age of eighteen lunar years, marking the adulthood threshold where individuals were recognised as legally responsible for their actions, according to the prevailing consensus since the late mediaeval period of the four principal Islamic Sunni orthodoxy schools of jurisprudence at the time, before the partial implementation of more secular western-influenced administrative reforms and legislations by the British colonial local authorities in the Gulf in the first third of the twentieth century, slowly but surely replacing the lunar Hijri Calendar in daily civic use by the Gregorian solar Calendar, among other modernising measures, as part of the British worldwide imperial colonial grafting process policy similar to that of the French, but in a less brutal, culturally imperialist, and bloodstained manner, by paternalistically integrating Britain more vigorously to its racially inferior and inherently less civilised colonies in varying degrees, while taking into account the distinct circumstances of each of the occupied territories according to British evaluation that constituted the British Empire through the self-designated various British classification of each territory (such as Colonies, Crown Colonies, Charter Colonies, Protectorates, Mandates, etc) via the subtle influence of cultural assimilation, thus securing the long-term economic interests of Britain whether through primarily peaceful persuasion or, when necessary, forceful means, as demonstrated in the implementation of the aforementioned administrative reforms starting in the field experiment of Bahrain in post-World War one, the smallest yet the most advanced Arab state on the western coast of the Gulf in all fields prior to the discovery of oil, namely the establishment of a modern, centralised, bureaucratic, Western-style state system, where both approaches of grafting were aggressively adopted, derived from the ancient and still in use horticultural technique of grafting, whereby different strains of plant tissues are united to create a strong, inseparable bond, ensuring the optimal growth of desirable traits, this practice mirrors some of the nuanced strategies of European colonial powers to secure future dominance over their colonies through the soft power of cultural hegemony)

(In light of the fact that Bahrain was the centre of the pearl trade in the Arabian Gulf, renowned worldwide for producing some of the finest natural pearls since antiquity, the small seafaring nation became the haunt for anyone seeking business success in the lucrative highly sought-after market for natural pearls in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, igniting what might have been an unprecedented pearl mania in recorded history to satisfy the contemporary ever-increasing international demand for pearl jewellery, especially among the upper echelons of Indian society, dominated by the British Raj vassal potentates of Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Nawab princes, the feudal successors of the once-mighty defunct Mughal Empire, the old European royalty, most supremely the doomed absolutists and fabulously extravagant Russian imperial house of Romanov, the burgeoning capitalist, upwardly mobile Western bourgeoisie, and the extraordinarily wealthy ostentatious nouveau riche urban dwellers, primarily the American tycoons of New York, amidst the sweeping American Industrial Revolution, epitomising the opulence and excess of the era known as the "Gilded Age," as in the case of the young French jeweller Jacques-Théodule Alfred Cartier (1884-1941), who opted to bypass the exorbitant prices of the Parisian coterie of pearl dealers by sourcing pearls directly from local suppliers in the Arabian Gulf, depicting an example of the final connections between the international Western jewellery industry, where natural pearls were marketed as luxury finished products in the high-end jewellery shops of the major Western capitals and cities such as London, Paris, and New York, and the intricate hierarchical network of interwoven business relationships within the once steeped in tradition centuries-old rich history of the Arabian Gulf pearl trade, personified by the four transnational Arab merchants, each of whom was associated with Bahrain to a varying degree due to its advantageous economic standing in comparison to its Arab Gulf neighbours in this iconic picture taken by one of the assistants of Jacques Cartier and meticulously stored in the photo albums of the Cartier company archives in Paris along with hundreds of other photographs taken during the various trips of Cartier to the Gulf and India as he was keen on photographically documenting as much as he could of all the major events he had taken part in during these trips, notably those from his second extended visit to Bahrain in 1912 as well as his handwritten pedantically detailed travel journal containing vital information about the places he visited and the key people he met in his trips to the Orient and other parts of the world, but let us be clear this picture for the most part is about the three noted pearl merchants Bin Matar, Al-Thukair, and Al-Ibrahim, who more or less share similar backgrounds since they all hail directly from the Najd region of central Arabia, taking into account that Bahrain meant a different thing for each of them, for Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair (1844-1923), it was a second home away from home after his beloved birthplace of Unaizah in Najd however, for the magnanimous and highly esteemed longest reigning doyen of the Bahraini business community for over half a century, the honourable staid and reticent Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944), it was his native birthplace, as his grandfather and namesake moved to Bahrain from Najd in 1825, making it his permanent home, and finally, for Abdurrahman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim (1875-1960), Bahrain was a worthwhile frequent business destination halfway between his country of origin, Kuwait, on the northern tip of the Arabian Gulf, where his family moved in from Najd in the early 1700s, soon after the country was established as an independent sovereign political entity by the Al-Sabah dynasty of the Bani Utbah tribal confederation of Najd, and the bustling British-founded Indian entrepôt city of Bombay, now known as Mumbai, the financial capital and most populous city in India, and the abode of choice of Al-Ibrahim until the end of his life, apart from being his final resting place, the vibrant commercial hub on the Arabian Sea, and the main gathering place for Arab traders and their families in the Indian subcontinent for nearly a century, and in many instances, the real head start for a slew of industrious young Arab merchants from the inhospitable, population-repelling, and, on the whole, economically deprived pre-oil Arabian Peninsula as for the apparent role of the fourth Arab in the picture as an Arabic-Hindi and English interpreter in this historically significant photograph, the shrewd and influential merchant Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945), whose ancestors originated from Najd, north of the present-day Saudi capital, Riyadh, emigrated more than a hundred years before his birth to the broadly Arab eastern coast of the Arabian Gulf, then after one or two generations in the early nineteenth century, the descendants of those ancestors decided once again to relocate to the pearl-rich island state of Bahrain off the western coast of Arabia near their ancestral homeland in the Najd plateau, central Arabia, following a temporary sojourn on what is now erroneously called the Persian coast, as scores of Arabs from the hinterlands of Arabia did in the past for one reason or another before the creation of nowadays artificial political borders when the Gulf was an Arabian lake for many centuries, needless to say, the role of Kanoo was not just confined to language interpretation; therefore, it is first and foremost necessary to shed light on his business interests and activities prior to his fortuitous entry into the shipping agency business in 1911 when he was appointed as the Bahraini shipping agent for the ill-fated short-lived pioneering first fully Arab-owned shipping and passenger company "The Arab Steamers, Limited" by the majority of the principal shareholders of the budding company, most of whom were his friends, where he embraced wholeheartedly this unexpected business opportunity which came knocking at his door, as it would also play a pivotal role in shaping his future business career making him synonymous with the shipping liner and oil tanker industries in the last three decades of his life and posthumously, the eponymous company he founded up to the present, notwithstanding his involvement in significant business activities other than shipping, including the acquisition in 1913 of the highly profitable agency for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now British Petroleum "BP"), in particular, before the discovery of oil in Bahrain in 1932 and the introduction of locally oil-refined byproducts with the completion and opening of the Bahrain refinery in 1936, the paramount byproduct of these in the Bahraini market in the first third of the twentieth century was Kerosene, also known as paraffin, when monthly shipments of thousands of barrels of the essential commodity imported from the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's refinery in Abadan in the northern Gulf used to arrive in Bahrain for local consumption, to be transported by dhow boats from a steamship anchored in deep water in the middle of the sea to the port of Manama (the current site of Bahrain Financial Harbour), a small shallow-water port incapable of receiving deep-draught large ships, then uploaded onto donkey-pulled carts to the warehouses of the nearby seaside landmark building belonging to Yusuf Kanoo in Manama, but after the building was sold, in 1934, the Kerosene shipments were stored in the warehouses of the Kanoo main office building inside the old Manama souk (the future office building of the Y.B.A. Kanoo group until 2016), for distribution to Kanoo's local subagents, as Kerosene oil was indispensable for domestic use as the primary fuel source for lighting lamps, portable lanterns and, to a smaller scale, cooking stoves, as the majority of Bahrainis used wood for cooking, while some low-income households used dried cow dung as an affordable, easy substitute for the more expensive wood prior to the gradual establishment of an electrical power grid in the 1930s and subsequent decades, other oil derivatives, especially petrol and diesel fuel, were insignificant products since the country only had two hundred motor vehicles by 1930, Yusuf Kanoo was also the first local merchant to import diesel-electric engines, ice making machines, and mechanical water pumps into Bahrain in post-World War One, in addition to becoming the refuelling and ground handling agent for Imperial Airways' long flights from London, landing in Bahrain en route to Karachi and Delhi in British India, and the Orient Express-like exorbitantly expensive luxurious nine-day flight to Sydney, Australia in 1929, the predecessor for "British Airways", for he was the only Bahraini supplier of petroleum products for almost twenty years, laying the groundwork for the highly profitable Kanoo regional aviation ground handling business in the coming decades, specifically in Bahrain and across Saudi Arabia, his efficiency in managing plane refuelling resulted in him being appointed as the travel agent for Imperial Airways in 1937, making him the owner of the first airline travel agency in Bahrain, which ten years later would become the first agency in the Gulf to be accredited by IATA (International Air Transport Association) in 1947, among the myriads of products and services he launched in Bahrain and the Gulf as a whole, inadvertently leading to the development of arguably the first genuinely local Western-style management-based modern business firm in the Arabian Gulf, with the contemporary state-of-the-art Y.B.A. Kanoo regional conglomerate still maintaining substantially a similar scope of the then nascent businesses of its forward-thinking founder Yusuf Kanoo in the early twentieth century, most significantly shipping, travel, machinery, and oil & gas, where the company has steadily risen to become a market leader in these sectors across all of its operational markets, achieving this in less than two decades after its founder passed away in 1945, this growth has been evident particularly since the impactful first oil boom in the mid-1970s in its three main regional markets by business size: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, as these new businesses and technologies were briefly touched upon above in the course of the fifty-five-year business career of Yusuf Kanoo, in which he weathered a multitude of challenges, trials, and tribulations through an almost consecutive chain of three global catastrophes: the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World, as Yusuf was chiefly a banker and general trader during the first twenty years of his long business career, and as a British-influenced maverick cosmopolitan entrepreneur with a global perspective, branching out from the foodstuff business of his father, Ahmed Muhammad Kanoo (1835-1905), one of the major wholesale foodstuff merchants in Bahrain in the late nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century, and the owner of two large mixed-use elongated buildings in Manama built in the traditional Gulf architectural style, primely located close to each other, separated by the existing narrow Al Khalifa Avenue, flanked from the right side of the main building by an equally detached building of similar length but slightly broader width, formerly belonging to the brothers Abdullah & Salman Kamal, constituted the current smaller attached row of buildings consisting of shops, representing a miscellaneous collection of businesses and trades, mostly in the retail sector, owned by several different proprietors, are on the left side of the now covered pedestrian no-car strip of Souq Bab Al Bahrain Avenue, across from what were once customs bonded warehouses, the present-day site of Bab Al Bahrain shopping mall, whereas the left side of the Kanoo building is flanked by another building of the same length belonging to Sheikh Hamad, the 33-year-old crown prince of Bahrain and future ruler, and which remains in the possession of his descendants from the Bahraini royal family, as the main building is a nearly five-hundred-foot-long three-story building and fifty-five-foot width, one of the largest detached commercial buildings in Manama in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while the smaller opposite one, the once seaside building is a two-story over two hundred feet long and also detached as its much larger sister, yet of identical width, with the first floor of the smaller building serving as a private residence for the only surviving male offspring of Ahmed Kanoo, Yusuf, whom he and his two nephews and soul heirs then sold several decades later in 1934 to the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Hamad (1932-1942), coupled with other properties sold to others, the most important being Yusuf Kanoo's own constructed impressively huge two-story building on a plot of land reclaimed from the sea at the turn of the twentieth century, the largest mixed-use commercial and residential building in Bahrain and the whole Gulf back then, the present site of several prime location properties owned by the Bahraini royal family, consisting of the Unitag Group building and its car park, the Regency Intercontinental Hotel's auxiliary Plaza Spa and wellness building at the back, and the adjacent large building alongside it where a number of mostly financial firms and banks operate, covering the total three-hundred-foot right wing width of the old building, and at one point facing the old customs house, part of the one hundred and twenty thousand square feet plot of land encompassing the entire incomplete rectangular-shaped semi-bottom square bracket building, including the three-hundred-foot built-up two wings width across the two-hundred-foot length of the semi-courtyard partially unbuilt hollow-shaped space opposite the sea at the back of the property, serving as a docking area for the building, where in the mid-1970s, the Regency Intercontinental Hotel was erected on sea-reclaimed land in front of the docking area, which Yusuf Kanoo sold to prominent Kuwaiti pearl merchant Helal Bin Fajhan Al-Mutairi (1855-1938) in late 1934 for a quarter of a million British Raj rupees, the official currency used across the Gulf as the polities of the Gulf were under the jurisdiction of the British Indian Raj, in a desperate sale transaction to alleviate some of his massive debt incurred as a result of the global crisis of the Great Depression, as with a multitude of merchants across the Arabian Gulf, nevertheless, the present site of the smaller building is the Bab AL Bahrain Hotel, and all of the rented spaces on the four corners of the ground floor of the detached property, as the previous property is also owned by the royal family of Bahrain, located in close proximity to the Bab Al Bahrain archway (Gateway of Bahrain) historical landmark in Manama separated by just a thin aisle pedestrian passage between the two buildings, the upcoming exposition, is partly based on an amalgamation of varied documented materials spanning both local and foreign, including archival sources, notarised official documents, diaries, biographies, and so on, but above all based on the detailed descriptive notarised "deed of gift" of Ahmed Muhammad Kanoo, the father of Yusuf Kanoo, outlining in detail how he gifted specific holdings of his fixed and movable assets during his lifetime to his four adult heirs, these were his four adult offspring, his two sons Yusuf and Muhammed, and his two daughters Latifa and Hussa, where the aforementioned properties and their boundaries were clearly stated, among other heirlooms, leaving no room for ambiguity or obfuscation, dated 5th of Jumada al-Awwal 1323, in Hijri Islamic Calendar, corresponding to Saturday 8th of July 1905, in Gregorian Christian Calendar, penned shortly prior to the passing of Ahmed, stating that the two neighbouring buildings belonging to him in Manama were gifted to his sons Yusuf and Muhammed equally, whereas the large rear building served as the future headquarters offices of the titular firm of the eldest son of Ahmed, Yusuf, the posthumous Y.B.A. Kanoo regional conglomerate owned by the nephews and heirs of Yusuf, the sons of his deceased younger brother Muhammed, Jassim and Ali Kanoo, and their immediate eight male offspring and their legal heirs of both sexes' descendants, given that Muhammed died soon after his father Ahmed in 1905 of the plague during one of the requiring outbreaks of the deadly infectious disease at the turn of the twentieth century in Bahrain, since Yusuf did not have children of his own despite his three successive marriages, the building described above became symbiotically attached to the Y.B.A. Kanoo family business in the minds of many ordinary Bahrainis, especially dwellers of old Manama, for several generations from the death of Ahmad in 1905 to the death of his son Yusuf forty years later on the 21st of December 1945, and then operating continuously from the same premises for the next seven decades, albeit the old traditionally built structure was rebuilt in a Semi-Mediterranean commercial style using modern building materials in the late 1950s, until finally in 2016, when the company moved to a new steel and glass high-rise headquarters after more than a century in the same location, however, with respect to the smaller building, it became solely owned by Yusuf Kanoo, explaining why it was sold by him as thoroughly discussed earlier; in the meantime, the two said daughters of Ahmed received gold jewellery, in contrast to the commonly held inaccurately long perpetuated conception that Yusuf Kanoo started from humble origins and died practically bankrupt in 1945, as will be explained further in the text, it should be noted that when Yusuf established the first local bank in Bahrain and the entire Gulf, including Persia (Iran) in 1890, he was venturing into the risky uncharted territory of banking business in the Arabian Gulf at a time when banking was associated, at least in this deeply conservative puritanical region of the Arab world in the local Muslim collective consciousness, with unethical exploitative usury, as the Bank of Yusuf Kanoo remained the only bank in Bahrain for thirty years until the opening of the British-owned Oriental Bank in 1920 (The Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China), the present-day Standard Chartered Bank, having been inspired by the successful banking firms of the British Raj in India, the Kanoo Bank was significantly different from regular commercial banks as it leaned more towards private banking, targeting Bahraini wealthy pearl merchants with sizeable monetary surpluses, some of whom were occasionally in need of significant cash flows for the thousands of indentured workers on their payroll throughout the four-month-long summer pearl diving season in a non-banking-based economic environment, particularly those of the island of Muharraq and its towns where Yusuf Kanoo was constantly courting their goodwill, as they were the real drivers of the fragile local monocultural economy, as with the rest of the region, Muharraq was the most active pearling town in the Arabian Gulf, thanks in large part to having the richest pearl oyster beds in the Gulf in its northern waters, and, as a matter of course, home to the highest number of pearl divers and the largest fleet of pearling vessels in the region, the former political capital of Bahrain and the seat of power of its Al Khalifa ruling dynasty for over a century, and the beating heart of the pearling industry of the tiny archipelago, the most salient of those Muharraq's merchants was the closest, steadfast, and trusted friend of Yusuf Kanoo and chief creditor, referred to earlier in the preface, one who cannot be commended highly enough or quantify his innumerable virtuous deeds, the celebrated, unassuming, and bonhomous legendary philanthropist Salman Bin Matar, who was widely recognised for donating large amounts of rice and dates to the poor in Bahrain during the dire economic conditions of the First and Second World Wars to alleviate the sudden shortages of imported foodstuffs, principally rice, the staple food for the vast majority of Bahraini people regardless of class, stemming from disruptions in international supply chains caused by military operations, and to make matters worse, the economic strife of the First World War was compounded by a virulent epidemic, as in the situation in Bahrain, where five thousand people died from an outbreak of plague in December 1914, as referred to by the British political agent in Bahrain, Captain Keyes, in his correspondence to his superior, Deputy Political Resident Major Trevor of the British Residency in Bushehr, Persia (Iran) on the 5th of December 1914 in the following excerpted letter passage: (Divers and coolies continued to leave Bahrain till the outbreak of plague in December when hundreds of Persians also left. Plague further reduced the population by some 5000. There was then a slight revival of trade and the profits in coffee and tea were so good that several merchants took advantage of the cheapness of the labour market to collect stones and build, thus, giving work to numbers of the most indigent. There was also a market for household articles, old clothes etc, and it was not till February that any people were entirely without resources. Two or three merchants, notably Salman Bin Matar, then made large donations of rice and dates, and work was found for some men by the Agency), in conjunction with his bountiful donations in times of economic crises, there was the daily sight of long queues of the less fortunate at his doorstep all year long, both at his winter and summer residences awaiting alms of the generous distribution of cooked meals made of lamb and rice, Salman Bin Matar, the wealthiest merchant in Bahrain, aside from being its most consequential pearl merchant for nearly fifty years from the 1890s until his greatly lamented death on the 10th of February 1944, the subsequent concise bracketed excerpt below originates from a declassified comprehensive report compiled by two British political agents, Captain N. N. E. Bray (1885-1962) and Major H. R. P. Dickson (1881-1959), who served consecutively though briefly in Bahrain, whereas the latter would significantly influence the modern history of Bahrain's northern neighbour Kuwait as a future political agent, this report offers a glimpse into the mindset of these colonial officers and the prevailing racist climate in the West, as reflected in this extremely subjective observational case study of the people of Bahrain from a British colonial perspective, verifying the typical racist European tropes and stereotypes of how none white people were widely viewed back then, including two opposing lists of influential Bahrainis who played central roles in shaping the socioeconomic and political landscape of the small state, either by aligning with Britain or opposing it, with Salman Bin Matar prominently placed at the top of the Whitelist, this list evidently refers to a group of the wealthiest and most powerful high-ranking Bahrainis considered allies of the British, conversely, the Blacklist represents a diverse group of individuals from all segments of Bahraini society, belonging to various social backgrounds, faiths, affiliations, and origins, unified by the suspicion and hostility they faced from the British colonial authorities in Bahrain, for reasons that were not exclusively political, Bin Matar was described in this special 1920 report by the British political agency in Bahrain as follows: quote (1. Salman Bin Matar. A wealthy pearl merchant, very friendly.) a simple yet emblematic description of a man who maintained a modest demeanour all his life despite his immense wealth, dedicating much of his long life to assisting the downtrodden and improving the quality of life of the Bahraini people in general in every way possible irrespective of their race, ethnicity, creed, or colour, in particular, through the introduction of modern formal government education, as he was one of the founders of the first formal school in Muharraq, the former capital of Bahrain in 1919, he was also a vital member of all the governmental councils and committees of the newly formed bureaucratically centralised, and chronically underfunded Bahraini state, where he unfailingly provided generous financial funding to these fledgling government bodies, both before and after the discovery of oil in 1932, and continued to do so until his death, as evidenced by a short though thoughtful obituary in the declassified British colonial annual archival report of 1944 on Bahrain, the following is the slightly edited bracketed obituary: (The death occurred during the year of Haj Salman Bin Matar, one of the leading pearl merchants of Muharraq, who was well known for his philanthropic deeds. For several years he provided food for large numbers of poor people who were daily fed at his doors. He sat on various councils and committees and was a valuable member of the community), he was also well-known for his significant contributions as the biggest and longest-standing depositor of the Kanoo Bank until its bankruptcy and permanent closure at the height of the Great Depression in the early 1930s; furthermore, he was accredited for waiving all of his large outstanding debts to his local and regional debtors during the decade-long debilitating depression crisis, followed by the conflagration of the Second World War, including, as expected, the debt of Yusuf Kanoo, his lifelong friend and confidant amounting to more than half a million Indian British Raj silver rupees without legal recourse, a considerable fortune in the pre-oil Arabian Gulf, in spite of the constant insistence of Yusuf Kanoo on offering his most prized possession, his mixed-use monumental building, which he then sold to Kuwaiti pearl merchant Helal Al-Mutairi, as previously mentioned, and additional properties comprising the building gifted to him and his late brother by their father, who he sold as above indicated to the ruler of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad, and a medium-sized date palm orchard within the vicinity of Al Khamis village near Manama, to cover the stupendous debt of Salman Bin Matar, after all the last-ditch attempts of Kanoo, a trustworthy man of impeccable integrity in all of his business dealings, to offer the building among other assets to Bin Matar in exchange for the defaulted debt had failed, thus, upon the arrival of Al-Mutairi at dusk, a good friend of both eminent Bahraini merchants from Kuwait, to seal the critical sale deal of the building on an unspecified day in a cold late December evening of 1934, Yusuf Kanoo, accompanied by his prospective Kuwaiti buyer, walking in the unlit dark narrow alleys of Muharraq, aided by oil lanterns carried by assistants, went to the winter residence townhouse of Salman Bin Matar in the heart of the old town of Muharraq in a poignant final gesture of sincere goodwill to persuade him to accept the building as the least credible rightful legal settlement for the substantial outstanding debt; however, he resolutely declined, a clear attestation to the incomparable altruism and nobility of this exceptional gentleman, demonstrated by being deservedly afforded the appellation 'Father of Orphans and Protector of Widows' by the Bahraini people many a decade before these affairs, an honorific that remained synonymous with him throughout much of his long adult life and posthumously until the present, due in no small part to the cherished memories he represents for a lot of Bahrainis from all walks of life passed down through the generations, as he is unanimously recognised as the preeminent philanthropist Bahrain has produced in modern times, and also as its foremost pearl merchant of the golden age of the pearl trade, interestingly, the preceding debt case incident represents a compelling true moral story seldom seen in our fast-paced, materialistically driven, and consumer-oriented globalised village society in a world increasingly characterised by cynicism, moral apathy, and venal propensity, where meaningless vapid and insipid hypocritical rhetoric about human rights is routinely harangued tediously on the world media, serving as irrefutable proof of the remarkable mutual fidelity and devotion these two friends held for each other throughout their long friendship of over fifty years, lasting from the mid-1890s to their close deaths separated by just well over a year, prompting Yusuf Kanoo, a few months after this defining incident in 1935, to take the necessary precautions to ensure the continuity of his business enterprise for posterity by transferring ownership of his company and all of his remaining properties into the safe and capable hands of his nephews, Jassim and Ali, ten years before his passing in 1945, except for the dear to him 'Anglo-Persian Oil Company' (APOC) agency, now the multinational oil giant British Petroleum (BP), which remained under his ownership until his death, stipulating that the company will continue to bear his name after his death, thereby eliminating any future claims by creditors, and to limit the inheritance to the two brothers as the sole heirs of Yusuf Kanoo and their male progeny, ensuring the smooth transition of the family business in a traditional patriarchal society as a logical consequence, Yusuf died with virtually no inheritance left behind, debunking the notion that his heirs rebuilt his company from scratch, bearing in mind that the previously mentioned nephews at the time of Yusuf's death were middle-aged, well-established businessmen in their own right, owning business interests independently from the firm of their illustrious uncle, and married with grown-up children and even grandchildren, whose pioneering sons, Ahmed, the eldest son of Ali, and Muhammed, the eldest son of Jassim, and their diligent younger brothers, following steadily in the footsteps of their great uncle Yusuf Kanoo in the late 1940s, ably taking on the heavy mantle of his, expanding the resilient eponymous company he built almost sixty years prior across the Arabian Gulf, transforming it into the multinational regional conglomerate it is today, the following bracketed excerpt from the declassified 1945 colonial annual report of the British political agency in Bahrain on internal and external affairs of the country and the Arabian Gulf is an edited obituary of Yusuf Kanoo, explicitly confirming his high status both locally and regionally, as the unfounded and nebulous age of Kanoo, stated to have been born in 1874 in the said archival obituary, has been refuted conclusively in the comprehensive and detailed missive above on the different hypotheses about his age, delving concisely into the chaotic rudimentary birthdate documentation methods in Bahrain and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula before the establishment of modern centralised bureaucratic state systems in the region, which commenced in earnest after the end of World War One, (On the 21st December Haji Yusuf Ahmed Kanoo died at the age of 71, (most likely between 84 and 85). His association with His Majesty's Government started in 1898 in the time of the Agent Haji Ahmed bin Abdul Rasool (Al Safar). He continued to serve as Assistant until the arrival of Mr. Gaskin in 1902, and was associated with Major Prideaux and Captain Mackenzie until 1909. He received the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal II. Class in 1911, the title of KHAN SAHIB in 1917 and the M.B.E. in 1919. In 1924, a C.I.E. was bestowed upon him. In 1913, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company appointed him their agent in Bahrain. He received honours from the late King Hussain of the Hedjaz and, also, from His Highness the Amir (Abdullah) of Transjordan (now kingdom of Jordan), who granted him the title Pasha. The death of this well-known old Arab was marked in Bahrain by the closing of the bazaars for one day. The political Agent sent a message of condolence to the bereaved family.), at any rate, the collapse of the only Bahraini indigenous-owned bank during the Great Depression reflects the far-reaching cataclysmic effects of the first economic crisis of the modern economic realities of the ever-increasingly interconnected world of the twentieth century, turning it into a global phenomenon where plenty of financial institutions and businesses irrespective of size were falling prey to insolvency, engendering widespread economic hardship and turmoil; the momentous collapse of Kanoo Bank had a significant impact on the establishment of another indigenous bank in Bahrain, delaying the whole process for a quarter of a century until the establishment of the first commercial Bahraini-owned bank in the country, the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) in 1957, in view of the modest oil revenues of the slowly gaining momentum new Bahraini oil economy in comparison to the exponentially oil-rich Arab Gulf neighbours of Bahrain, namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and to a lesser extent Qatar in the 1950s and early 1960s, before the arrival of the last two crucial newcomers on the oil-producing scene in the Arabian Gulf, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the Sultanate of Oman, where the former would later become the dominant Emirate of the newest robust country in the Arabian Gulf, and its newly rebuilt capital city, Abu Dhabi, would be proclaimed the federal capital of the seven dynastic Emirates of the federal state of the UAE after independence from Britain in 1971, due to its geographical size and enormous hydrocarbon wealth, not to mention the British loosening of their monopolising grip on the Bahraini local banking sector in the aftermath of the brief but consequential Anglo-French debacle of the 1956 Suez crisis, which was up until then under the complete control of the British embodied by only two British banks, the formerly alluded to Standard Chartered Bank and the British Bank of the Middle East (BBME), what is now the HSBC Bank Middle East, the second biggest Kanoo Bank depositor was leading pearl merchant Muhammad Bin Rashid Bin Hindi Al Mannai (1850-1934), also from the historic previously walled eponymous town of Muharraq, as Salman Bin Matar, the largest and most densely populated on the island, with an architectural landscape characterised by the few extant buildings of the once-forest of wind towers and sun-gleaming white facades of traditional ornate residential and commercial buildings constructed largely of coral stone and covered in white lime mortar, forming the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Pearling Path, standing as testament to the prosperous and storied past of the island, when Muharraq was the pearl capital of the entire Gulf, along with the respected merchants and cousins Sayyid Khalifa Bin Abdulghafoor Al Sadah (1839-1912) and Sayyid Abdullah Bin Ibrahim Al Sadah (1853-1932) of the historically seafaring sand spit town of Al Hidd on the southeastern extremity of the island, these key pearl merchants and other business leaders were the primary economic drivers of the local economy and the largest employers prior to the turning point discovery of oil and the following gradual formation of the modern centralised state bureaucratic apparatus system in the Arabian Gulf region; yet, it is a little-known fact that Yusuf Kanoo was also a sagacious and trusted pearl broker, both locally and regionally, acting as a sort of decorous middleman interpreter and poised interlocutor between visiting international pearl dealers and their local and regional counterparts as the socially savvy, energetic, and knowledgeable multilingual comprador Yusuf Kanoo would turn his hand to anything commercially favourable, oddly enough, the majority of those international pearl dealers were French Jews, such as Léonard Rosenthal (1874-1955), Jacques Bienenfeld (1875-1933), and Solomon Pack (Date of birth unknown), who forged not only strong business relations with their Arab counterparts, but also strong enduring friendships in the Gulf and throughout Arabia; two prime examples of these friendships stand out: the first is between Abdulrahman Bin Hassan Algosaibi (1880-1976), the famed transnational well-travelled pearl merchant based in Bahrain from the Najd region of central Arabia, and Albert Habib, the affable, fluent in Arabic Paris-based pearl merchant and nephew of Léonard Rosenthal, who, like many others during the 1930s, struggled with bankruptcy owing to the Great Depression, and for whom Algosaibi generously paid his medical bills following a post-crisis malaise brought about by the abrupt price plunge of natural pearls, causing him to lose most of his sizable fortune, demonstrating the loyalty and support of Algosaibi during hardship and adversity, the other notable friendship was between the international pearl dealer, the benevolent Muhammed Ali Zainal Alireza (1884-1969) of Jeddah, known as "The King of Pearls" in the Arabian Gulf and "The King of Diamonds" in post-World War Two India, when the farsighted Alireza eschewed his pearl trade business altogether after the worldwide collapse of the pearl market in the mid-1930s, as a direct outcome of the Great Depression, impelling him to move aggressively into the diamond trade in India, where diamonds were first discovered thousands of years ago; this opportune move came after his permanent relocation from Paris to Bombay with his small family, just before the German blitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940; diamond was a gemstone he dealt in moderately in the interwar period, as he did not opt for a life of comfortable retirement resting on his past pearl trade laurels, as some of his pearl merchant peers who managed to come out of the Depression unscathed did, but instead, in less than a decade of his highly successful business transition, he became the principal diamond merchant in India and one of the foremost in the world in the 1950s, and David Bienenfeld (1893-19?), the younger brother of the Jacques mentioned above, who was forsaken and shunned by most of his friends, particularly those from the bourgeoisie French business elite, after he lost almost all of his wealth and that of his family due to the Great Depression of 1929, except for his noble Muslim Arab religiously conscientious business partner and close friend Alireza, who stood by him and his family steadfastly until the end, Alireza was renowned in the Arabian Gulf for the earlier pearl-related sobriquet, for he was perceived as a bearer of good fortune by local pearling communities, as he, together with his other collaborative distinguished pearl merchants of French Jewish friends, typically the 'Rosenthal Freres' (Rosenthal brothers) operating from offices in the same building on Rue La Fayette in Paris, was responsible for purchasing nearly half of the per annum pearl produce of the entire Gulf spanning from Kuwait to Dubai in the 1920s, while the rest was bought either by the Banyan Indian merchants who frequented the Gulf many decades before their Western counterparts or sold by local Gulf merchants in Bombay (Mumbai) directly, dispelling the recently propagated and deliberately Western media-manufactured myth of imagined animosity between the followers of the two Abrahamic faiths, aiming to give credence to the ongoing destructive colonial legacy of the Sykes-Picot agreement in the modern Middle East, and also in some fringe, largely unrecognised polemical academic Western circles of the intractable ancient discord between predominantly Arab Muslim majority in Muslim-governed polities on one side, and particularly followers of other monotheistic religions on the other, these are Jews and Christians, as Jews, Muslim Arabs, Arab Christians, non-Arab Muslims, non-Arab Christians, and, in some cases, Mandaeans and Zoroastrians, with a special dispensation for Hindus and Buddhists, coexisted peacefully under the collective term of "Dhimmīs" (protected people) status Islamic jurisdiction, derived from the singular dhimmi (Arabic: ذمي) meaning "protected person" this jurisdiction was initially intended according to the Qur'anic text for the people of the covenant or the monotheistic people of the book, specifically Jews, Christians, and Mandaeans, even though these scriptures are Islamically deemed interpolated or corrupted sacred texts before including other religious groups in the aftermath of the century-long Arab Islamic conquests following the death of prophet Muhammad in 632 AD, considering that this jurisdiction pervaded throughout the mediaeval Islamic world golden age, in the 8, 9, and 10th centuries, and subsequent centuries, and even during the two tumultuous bloody centuries of the Crusades, stretching from Muslim Iberia all the way to Central Asia and later centuries in the Ottoman Empire, where tens of thousands of Spanish Jews fled the torturous persecution of the dreadful inquisition court under Catholic Spain after the fall of the only remaining Muslim stronghold of Granada in 1492, the last bastion of tolerance, culture, learning, and diversity in the Iberian Peninsula to the safety of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, as for the so-called friction between Muslims and Jews, it is a newfound phenomenon that began to rear its ugly head when British imperial designs for the Near Eastern legacy of the Ottoman Empire converged with Zionism, a late nineteenth-century Jewish nationalist ideology strongly influenced by emerging nationalist movements in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and concurrent European settler colonial experiences involving the forceful mass displacement of native populations in the Americas, Africa, and Australia, leading to the ominous Balfour Declaration of 1917, culminating in the violent genocidal bloodstained establishment of the state of Israel, thirty years later, in the years 1947 and 1948, displacing and ethnically cleansing the majority of the Palestinian Arab indigenous population and their rich deeply rooted and nuanced cultural heritage in its wake, with unequivocal and unwavering Anglo-French support at all levels and from the bulk of the Western bloc until the mid-1960s, when the steering helm of the Middle East was taken over by the new mighty American-led Western alliance thenceforth, creating an unduly artificial and ephemeral schism in the primordial cradle of civilisation and monotheism in the fertile crescent and Arabia amongst adherents of two of the three major Semitic monotheistic closely related Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam ever since, other than the significant foreign international pearl dealers previously described, there was one notable indigenous exception from the Arabian Peninsula and the only Arab of the lot during the heyday of pearls, represented in the interwar period by the earlier mentioned, the venerable Hijazi (from the Hijaz region of western Arabia), cosmopolitan, multilingual, intermittently residing in Paris with his second English wife Ruby Elsie Jackson (1919-1973?), the mother of his three daughters Aminah, Hafsa, and Mariam, pearl dealer Muhammad Ali Zainal Alireza, a member of the prominent transnational Persianized Arab trading family Alireza of Jeddah, widely regarded for his extraordinary largesse and numerous philanthropic charitable works throughout the Arabian Peninsula and beyond, most notably, his invaluable progressive contributions to the eradication of pervasive illiteracy and ignorance in Arabia and other regions of the Muslim world through the proliferation of formal modern education for both genders, encompassing the entire twelve-year curriculum, constitute his most enduring legacy, where he established the first formal, comprehensive charitable school in Jeddah named "Alfalah" (Success) at the tender age of twenty-one in 1905, followed by a similar institution in the holy city of Mecca in 1911 and complemented by a network of akin charitable schools for both sexes by the same name in Bombay, India, Dubai, and Bahrain in the first three decades of the twentieth century, with the schools in existence now being the ones in Jeddah and Mecca, while the others were closed down in the 1950s after being superseded by government-funded formal school education, Alireza was also the only merchant from Arabia to own both a flat on the world-famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris and a house in the chic Cleveland Square in London in the 1920s, in addition to the aforementioned periodic visits of the Paris-based pearl tycoons, Bahrain was regularly visited by well-known international jewellers, such as the acclaimed French jewellers of the house of Cartier and their representatives, as well as representatives of other prestigious Western jewellery houses, including the American Tiffany & Co, who frequented the Gulf on pearl purchasing expeditions, with a special focus on Bahrain, the regional pearl trade centre, with its exceptionally well-stocked pearl oyster beds, the source of its unparalleled rare-hued coveted pearls attributed by environmental experts to the unique undersea freshwater springs found in the shallow waters of Bahrain, a phenomenon exclusive to this archipelago on the western shores of the Arabian Gulf, giving it its then Gulf advanced economic position and international fame; however, it is worth noting that in the early twentieth century, natural pearls were priced internationally in French francs, as Paris was the undisputed international pearl trade centre during the golden age of pearls, when pearls were valued more than fourfold the price of diamonds in world markets owing to their rarity and natural shape, especially after the discovery of the South African diamond mines until the 1929 Wall Street stock exchange crash, precipitating a catastrophic, slow, remorseless onslaught of a global decade-long economic depression, coinciding with the introduction of the much cheaper Mikimoto Japanese cultured pearls and the discovery of oil in the Gulf, beginning with Bahrain in 1932, the Arabian Gulf centre of the pearl fishing industry, and followed in the next few years by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, supplanting the quasi-feudal industry of pearl fishing's gruelling, low-paying vicious circle of servitude indentured labour, and the time-consuming, with prolonged health risks such as blindness and deafness, particularly for pearl divers, who often had lower life expectancy than the rest of the crew members due to their primitive, sparsely clad protective diving gear, suggesting it gave little protection from the months-long detrimental exposure to the sea salinity and hazardous predatory marine creatures, followed immediately by the Second World War, delivering the final death blow to the already severely weakened reeling pearl industry by the protracted Great Depression, as if the timing of these calamitous events had conspired in a preordained twist of fate, resulting in a disastrous collapse in pearl prices from which it would not recover for several decades, effectively bringing an end to the seasonally highly organised and regimented centuries-old pearl fishing industry with its ancient rich cultural traditions of the in-part husbandry industry of dhow boat shipbuilding and its various supplementary traditional crafts and folklore, featuring boat crew folk dances and the soulful, melancholic sea shanty bard songs transmitted orally from one generation to another, performed by deep-voiced, highly skilled, mostly illiterate singers in the Gulf, this once colossal industry, employing at its zenith in the 1920s around a third to half of the able-bodied male workforce across the Arabian Gulf, has since the late 1990s transformed into an occasional immensely financially rewarding experience resembling a solitary treasure-hunting pastime, on top of being an equally rewarding tourist attraction for some fortunate scuba diving tourists)

The two excerpts below are from two different sources; the first is slightly edited, from an archival file of the British colonial Arabian Gulf Residency in Bushehr, Persia (Iran), covering the period from the 1st to the 31st of March 1912, pertaining to the timeline of the visit of Jacques Cartier to Bahrain, a tiny section of the stupendous detailed, file consisting of miscellaneous news reports received by the Gulf Residency (the 'Political Diary' of the Residency) relating to various areas of Persia (Iran) and the Arabian Gulf, for each month from November 1911 to December 1920. The reports were compiled by the Political Resident in the Arabian Gulf (Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Zachariah Cox) or, in his absence, by the Officiating Political Resident, the Deputy Political Resident, or the First Assistant Resident. (There are discrepancies between the diary of Jacques Cartier and the said report in terms of the exact dates of Cartier's arrival and departure and the unveiling of his unrealised intended final destination on his second extended Arabian Gulf trip) while the second excerpt is a citation from the book "Cartier: Jewellers Extraordinary", by Hans Nadelhoffer, which is part of the author's description of the Oriental trips of Jacques Cartier particularly those to the Arabian Gulf and his adoption of some of the local business customs and practices during those trips.

The following two brief paragraphs provide a first-hand British archival summary of Jacques Cartier and his travel companions' trip to the Arabian Gulf in March 1912.

A young Frenchman, Monsieur Jacques Cartier, arrived with two companions, Monsieur Maurice Richard, also a Frenchman, and Mr. J. S. Sethna, a Parsi Indian by the Arab Steamer "Tynesider" on March 13th. They came to the Agency to get an order of exemption for the quarantine at Kuwait. When they learned that this was impossible, they determined to stay in Bahrain until the "Tynesider" returned from Basra. They were put up by Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair to whom they brought recommendations from Bombay Arabs. They left for Bombay on the return of the ship on 1st April.

Monsieur Cartier represents the firm of Cartier of Paris and London (175 New Bond Street) and his visit was professional. He cultivated the acquaintance of the local Arab merchants and is said to have brought pearls to the value of Rs. 25,000. He informed the Political Agent that he might return to Bahrain for the pearl season of 1913. Others say that his companion, Mr. Sethna previously dealt in pearls on his own account and will be sent to work for the firm here.

The edited citation below is from the book "Cartier: Jewellers Extraordinary" by Hans Nadelhoffer.

Jacques Cartier was the firm's special expert on pearls, and it was he who accompanied the sales assistant Maurice Richard on various journeys to the Arabian Gulf and to India. In accordance with Oriental custom, he would sit cross-legged in his negotiations with local traders, and he learned the customs, languages, and habits of the various nations that he visited. Two of his journeys were recorded in the form of a diary and various other reports.

www.google.com.bh/books/edition/Cartier/xnKpjh1gkqgC?hl=e...

Epic Mickey WIP by Alex Kelley

10

I'm relaunching my Lego Mickey project from the ground up, this time "officially" as Epic Mickey and designed with Oswald-compatibility in mind. Still need to design the top/back of the head. This guy stands 7" tall without the ears as opposed to his larger predecessor, which is closer to 8" or 9" without the ears. I think this will end up being much more streamlined and playable than the original.

I could use your help though. I assumed the light silver "shoulder armor" piece used on the stomach/back came in black, but was sorely disappointed when I checked Bricklink. Can you recommend any other Bionicle/Hero Factory/Technic/hybrid pieces with similar connections that come in black? This is the closest I've found:

www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=59577

⛧⛧ Aylani For HotDrop Weekend Sale!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

23

Hi Culties & Spookies, More Weekly Sales for your shopping pleasure!

★ Item ★ The Aylani

★ Rigged For ★ Lara ★ Legacy Female ★ Reborn ★ MaitreyX ★ Kupra ★ Gen-X ★

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

Engine start by US Air Force

7

Staff Sgt. Noel Jones, a loadmaster assigned to the 36th Airlift Squadron at Yokota Air Base, Japan, prepares to board a C-130H aircraft during Exercise COPE SOUTH at BAF Base Bangabandhu, Bangladesh, Jan. 24, 2015. COPE SOUTH helps cultivate common bonds, foster goodwill and improve readiness and compatibility between members of the Bangladesh and U.S. Air Forces. (U.S. Air Force photo by 1st Lt. Jake Bailey/Released)

⛧⛧ Mishi for So Kawaii Sundays!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

28 1

Hi Culties & Spookies, time for even more sales for your Sunday Leisure!!

★ Item ★ The Mishi sockes are cute and simple with garters on one side and fishnet on the other to make your outfit unique!

★ Rigged For ★ Legacy F ★ Reborn ★ Kupra ★ Gen-X Curvy ★ Lara ★ Maitreya X ★

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

Elektromagnetisch geprüft: Der neue Opel Astra im Elektronik-Labor by opelblog

Auf dem Weg zur Serienreife wurde der neue Opel Astra in den speziell ausgestatteten Räumen des Opel EMV-Labors geprüft bis alle elektronischen Systeme von Infotainment über Sicherheit bis Assistenz störungsfrei funktionieren. Mehr im Opel-Blog: www.opel-blog.com/?p=16413

RPLL and the Monterra #2 by David Madrid

GLONASS compatibility means better and faster satellite navigation ability for the Monterra. Pretty much spot on.

⛧⛧ Tiana for K9 Weekend Sale!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

25 2

Hi Culties & Spookies, Time to kick off your weekend shopping just right!

★ Rigged For ★ Reborn ★ Legacy Female ★ Kupra ★ Lara ★ Gen-X ★MaitreyaOG

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

Lands End Trail—Sony RX1 by Justin Kern

6

thegoldensieve.com

A good thing continues

Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.

The A7/r game-changer?

In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.

The RX1 is smaller and more discrete

This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.

The D800 has important functional advantages

On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.

Okay, so what is different from the last review?

For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.

My “be-there” camera

The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.

The family camera

I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.

Where to go from here.

So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.

Wrigley Building reflected in Pioneer Plaza—Sony RX1 by Justin Kern

6

thegoldensieve.com

A good thing continues

Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.

The A7/r game-changer?

In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.

The RX1 is smaller and more discrete

This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.

The D800 has important functional advantages

On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.

Okay, so what is different from the last review?

For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.

My “be-there” camera

The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.

The family camera

I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.

Where to go from here.

So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.

New handle on my 2 cup Bialetti coffee maker by Paul Downey

2

I bought this second hand in El Rastro, in 1990 for a couple of hundred pesetas. I still use it every day, periodically replacing the seal. The new handle was £2.99, this one was actually too big, so I fitted the smaller one I bought at the same time just in case. Backwards compatibility is brilliant.

"Wind" Light Double-Gauge Diesel Railtug Mk. XXXIX by Beau Donnan

24 5

Built on a chassis nearly identical to the Storm, the Wind was an armored diesel locomotive designed with a profile low enough to permit super-firing. If super-firing was not a concern, temporary weapons could be seated on the deck’s mounting rings.

Play Features:

-L-Gauge compatibility (concentric curves and offsets up to 22.5º)

-Backup battery for prolonged motive power or for supplying connected cars

-Control battery output by turning smokestacks

-Opening gearing access hatches

-Differential gearing visible through deck grate

⛧⛧ Kiarra for K9 Weekend Sale!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

15 1

Hi Culties & Spookies, Time to kick off your weekend shopping just right!

★ Item ★ The Kiarra booties are nice and sturdy with the right saying to express yourself with!

★ Rigged For ★ Reborn ★ Legacy Female ★ Kupra ★ Lara ★ Gen-X ★

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

Samsung Premium Series 7 Slate Tablet 11.6 inch by aron maeda

Samsung Premium Series 7 11.6 inch Slate Tablet/Laptop with Docking, Intel Core i5 Processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, HDMI, Dual Webcam, Bluetooth, Windows 7 Professional (Certified Refurbished)

Samsung Premium Series 7 11.6 inch Slate Tablet/Laptop comes with The Microsoft windows 7 Operating System enables you to run all your favorite office software.

You can share files with co-workers without any compatibility problems. And our Samsung touch interface gives you easy, instant access to all your programs.

Exclusive Fast Start Technology When inspiration hits, make sure you have a laptop computer that can keep up. With Samsung's Exclusive Fast Start Technology, close the lid to enter a hybrid sleep mode, then simply open it to be up and running again in as little as 2 seconds.

A Full PC in a Sleek Form Factor Samsung Series 7 slate Pcs provide the power and speed of a full-size PC, yet they are only half-inch thick and weigh less than a pound. They are an incredible relationship of power and design.

SuperBrightTM Screen As the world's largest manufacturer of LCD panels, our ability to provide the sharpest, clearest image is unsurpassed.

Our SuperBrightTM technology is the latest example, giving you a brilliant screen that is 36% to 50% brighter than conventional screens and displays up to 16 million colors. Every picture, video, website and document will look completely beautiful.

Optional Bluetooth Keyboard and Dock For those times when you prefer a a regular keyboard, we offer an optional Bluetooth keyboard. And an optional dock enables you to quickly and easily connect to an external monitor, printer, MP3 player, camera and other USB devices.

Touch it. Type it. Write on it. Offers a wide variety of user interface, including a wireless keyboard, digitizer pen, touchscreen interface and slate PC dock, for optimum convenience and improved productivity.

So you can simply touch, write, or type to take lecture/meeting notes, create documents/reports, give presentations, research online or enjoy a world of vibrant entertainment.

This Certified Refurbished product is manufacturer refurbished, shows limited or no wear, and includes all original accessories plus a 90-day warranty.

This Item is Certified Refurbished

This Certified Refurbished product is tested and certified by the manufacturer or by a third-party refurbisher to look and work like new, with limited to no signs of wear. The refurbishing process includes functionality testing, inspection, reconditioning and repackaging. The product ships with all relevant accessories, a minimum 90-day warranty, and may arrive in a generic white or brown box. Only select sellers who maintain a high performance bar may offer Certified Refurbished products on Amazon.

Technical Details

Brand Name: Samsung

Series: samsung 700t

Item model number: 700t

Hardware Platform: PC

Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, upgradable to Windows 10 Professional 64-bit

Screen Size: 11.6 inches

Display Screen: 11.6-Inch Superbright Plus 10-Finger Sensing Touch Screen Display

Screen Resolution: 1366 x 768

Max Screen Resolution: 1366 x 768

Processor: Intel Core i5-2467M Processor with 3M Cache, Dual Core, 1.6GHz Base, up to 2.3 GHz

RAM: 4 GB SDRAM DDR3

Memory Speed: 1600 MHz

Hard Drive: 128 GB SSD

Graphics Coprocessor: Intel HD Graphics

Chipset Brand: Intel

Number of USB 2.0 Ports: 1

Processor Brand: Intel

Processor Count: 2

Computer Memory Type: DDR3 SDRAM

Hard Drive Interface: Serial ATA

Wireless: 802.11abgn high-speed reliable wireless LAN

Bluetooth: Yes

1 x Microphone Jack, 1 x Headphone Jack, 1 x HDMI

Micro SD Card Reader: Yes

Webcam 2.0 MP HD (Front), 3.0 MP HD (Rear)

Docking Station included (Just the docking stand, no keyboard)

Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 11.3 x 3.8 inches

Power Source: AC

Voltage: 110 volts

Average Battery Life (in hours): 4 hours

Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Date First Available at Amazon.com: January 12, 2016

Compare Prices Samsung Premium Series 7 11.6 inch Slate Tablet/Laptop with Docking, Intel Core i5 Processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, HDMI, Dual Webcam, Bluetooth, Windows 7 Professional (Certified Refurbished)

Read More Customer Reviews Samsung Premium Series 7 11.6 inch Slate Tablet/Laptop with Docking, Intel Core i5 Processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, HDMI, Dual Webcam, Bluetooth, Windows 7 Professional (Certified Refurbished) reviews-tablet.com/p6aukd-c3/

Country Road by madams4921

10 1

Taken with an old 55mm f1.8 Super-Multi-Coated Pentax Takumar Lens on a K100D Super. Gotta love pentax for backward compatibility!

⛧⛧ Moonie Heels For G.O.A.T66 Sale!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

37 1

Hi Culties & Spookies, Time to kick off your weekend shopping just right!

★ Rigged For ★ Reborn ★ Legacy Female ★ Kupra ★ GEN-X ★ Lara ★ MaitreyaX

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

⛧⛧ Darkness for Hot Drop Weekend!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

28

★ Item ★ The Darkness stompers are badass and would be great for everyone!

★ Rigged For ★ Reborn ★ Legacy F/M ★ Kupra ★ Lara ★ Gen-X ★ MaitreyaX ★ Jake ★ Gianni ★ Kario ★

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

⛧⛧ Tula for Crafty Weekend Sale!!! ⛧⛧ by Cult/ocult The Darker Alternative

32 1

Hi Culties & Spookies, More Weekly Sales for your shopping pleasure!

★ Item ★ The Tula heels are sexy and have lovely detailing that makes dressing to impress easy!

★ Rigged For ★ Reborn ★ Legacy Female ★ Kupra ★ Lara ★ Gen-X ★

★ Remember to always try the DEMOS!★Check for Body Type & Body MOD Compatibility★

★ Comes with a Color Control HUD for changeable color options

★ Cult LM ★ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cult%20Coven/129/75/33

★ Cult's Social Media Links ★

Parnassia - Pas open om 12.00u - geen personeel by Marten Kuilman

4

Fujifilm FinePix Z100fd test

Published Jul 26, 2007

Buy on Amazon.com From $198.00

In addition to the Z10fd, Fujifilm has announced another slim and stylish yet feature-packed digicam. Shoehorned into the 19.8mm (0.8 in) shell of the 8 megapixel Z100fd we find a 5x zoom, Face Detection, intelligent red-eye removal and CCD-shift stabilization. This frankly gorgeous little camera is also available in four two-tone color schemes including 'Tuxedo Black' as pictured here - just the ticket for a night on the town.

Fujifilm today announced the launch of the 8 megapixel FinePix Z100fd, the latest addition to its popular range of ultra-slim, metal-bodied, high performance compact digital cameras. Available in four stunning colour schemes the Z100fd is sure to be a hit with anyone who cares about their image as much as they care about the images they shoot. Despite being only 19.8mm thick the FinePix Z100fd is packed with state-of-the-art technology and advanced features including a 5x optical zoom lens, Fujifilm’s acclaimed Face Detection system, intelligent red-eye removal and CCD-shift image stabilisation. Dual xD-Picture Card and SD/SDHC compatibility gives users the freedom to choose from a wide range of high capacity memory cards.

Designed for the most demanding style-conscious buyer wanting a truly pocketable camera without compromises, the FinePix Z100fd features a totally redesigned metal body that is guaranteed to turn heads whenever and wherever it is used. From the unique ‘diagonal slide’ lens cover, to the cool illuminated ‘Z’ logo, to the eye-catching two-tone colour variations, the FinePix Z100fd’s refined styling and high quality finish set a new, luxurious standard. The FinePix Z100fd will be available in four sophisticated, subtle two-tone colour schemes; Shell Pink, Satin Silver and Cappuccino Brown , plus Tuxedo Black, a striking black special edition with a contrasting white sliding cover panel. The slender design is almost totally flat, meaning the camera can be carried in a shirt or jacket pocket despite offering the power and versatility of a 5x optical zoom.

The FinePix Z100fd features a large high-resolution 2.7 inch, 230,000 pixel LCD screen, which has a reinforced glass coating for scratch-free durability. A new micro thumbnail view (showing 100 shots on one screen) and new control wheel make sharing the largest collection of images a pleasure.

Of course style is nothing without substance, and the FinePix Z100fd’s body may be slender, but it is packed with powerful features and advanced technologies designed to make getting perfect pictures – shot after shot - easier than ever. The FinePix Z100fd boasts an impressive 5x optical zoom lens covering a useful wide angle to telephoto range equivalent to 35-177mm on a 35mm camera. To avoid the problems of camera shake at longer focal length this is also the first Z series model to feature CCD-shift image stabilisation . To further reduce the chance of blur spoiling shots in low light the FinePix Z100fd also features sensitivity settings up to ISO 1600, allowing natural images that retain the atmosphere of evening events to be taken without the use of flash.

For users who prefer to use flash the FinePix Z100fd boasts Fujifilm's Intelligent Flash system, which sets the power output to achieve natural foreground illumination with balanced background exposure. Intelligent Flash results in visibly more pleasing, natural looking photos, avoiding the harsh lighting effect that can occur with traditional in-camera flash. For times when a decision about lighting could mean a missed photo opportunity, the FinePix Z100fd's Natural Light plus Flash mode takes two photos in quick succession, one with flash and one without. Both photos are then displayed side by side for quick comparison so users won’t miss the moment fiddling about with flash settings.

The FinePix Z100fd makes perfect portraits simple with Fujifilm's Face Detection technology. Face Detection works by triangulating eyes and mouth, using an algorithm to optimise focus, white balance and exposure for up to ten faces in a single frame. A green square surrounds the face of the primary subject on the camera's LCD screen, whilst white squares identify up to nine other subjects. Movement tracking keeps the camera 'locked on' to its subjects until they move out of the picture. The technology works irrespective of the subject's position in the frame, and is not confused by spectacles.

The FinePix Z100fd is among the first of Fujifilm’s compact digital cameras to offer automatic red eye removal, advancing the company’s acclaimed Face Detection system one step further. The FinePix Z100fd uses the system to find and instantly correct any red eye from every face in the frame. The FinePix Z100fd’s red eye removal system is not confused by lips or red coloured jewellery, as some other systems can be, as it works in tandem with Fujifilm’s Face Detection system to identify eyes and nothing else. Letting the camera do this retouching is so much quicker and easier than struggling at home with a paintbrush on a PC!

The FinePix Z100fd’s 16 scene modes include ‘beach’, ‘party’ and ‘fireworks’ for optimum photography, no matter what the event. A redesigned graphical user interface and control layout ensure that the powerful feature set remains easy to use even for the novice digital camera user.

Driving the FinePix Z100fd is Fujifilm’s unique Real Photo Technology (RPT). The guiding principles behind RPT are simple; to set the highest possible standards for overall image quality, to expand digital photography opportunities and to give users fewer wasted shots.With the human eye as the ideal, Real Photo Technology cameras are designed from the ground up to capture ‘real’ photographs with stunning quality - giving users the power to capture the moment exactly as the eye sees it, no matter how challenging the shooting conditions. Adrian Clarke, Fujifilm's Director of Photo Products, said: "The FinePix Z100fd is the perfect ‘social’ camera for the user looking for a combination of classic styling and cutting edge features. We believe that consumers wanting a super-slim camera shouldn’t have to make compromises on image quality or features, and with the Z100fd they don’t.”

FinePix Z100fd features at a glance

Ultra slim (19.8mm thick) styling with two-tone all metal body

5x optical zoom lens (35-177mm equivalent)

CCD-shift image stabilisation

Face Detection Technology and automatic intelligent red-eye removal

54MB internal memory plus xD-Picture card, SD and SDHC compatibility

ISO 100-1600 sensitivity at full resolution

Wide view 2.7-inch high resolution screen

Verve Coffee Roasters, Santa Cruz, CA—Sony RX1 by Justin Kern

5

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A good thing continues

Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.

The A7/r game-changer?

In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.

The RX1 is smaller and more discrete

This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.

The D800 has important functional advantages

On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.

Okay, so what is different from the last review?

For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.

My “be-there” camera

The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.

The family camera

I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.

Where to go from here.

So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.

Narae60 N60S by bimong11

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Kre-O Review (3) - Compatibility by ToyWiz with JD & Bebs! - The Dynamic Duo!

10 3

I put together a few combos to show how they work with Lego and Brickarms.

You can see the notes on the pics, but I'll add that the compatible parts fit like they were made for each other. They're also very high quality, smooth and glossy. The bandolier is a more flexible type of plastic and fits the Lego torso like a glove. Unfortunately, it is too wide on the edge for the figure to put it's arm down though!

The set itself is fun and comes with another odd figure and a weapon you can build that "fires," though I've not built it yet.

But all in all, this is a really inexpensive set that comes with great accessories you can use with Lego minifigure customs. The night-vision helm rocks, those grenades are awesome and the rest of the accessories function perfectly.

Bebs

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Lahaul and Spiti district

The district of Lahaul-Spiti in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh consists of the two formerly separate districts of Lahaul and Spiti. The present administrative centre is Keylong in Lahaul. Before the two districts were merged, Kardang was the capital of Lahaul, and Dhankar the capital of Spiti.

Kunzum la or the Kunzum Pass (altitude 4,551 m; 14,931 ft) is the entrance pass to the Spiti Valley from Lahaul. It is 21 km from Chandra Tal.[1] This district is connected to Manali through the Rohtang Pass. To the south, Spiti ends 24 km from Tabo, at the Pare chu gorge where the road enters Kinnaur and joins with National Highway No. 22.[2]

The two valleys are quite different in character. Spiti is more barren and difficult to cross, with an average elevation of the valley floor of 4,270 m (14,009 ft). It is enclosed between lofty ranges, with the Spiti river rushing out of a gorge in the southeast to meet the Sutlej River. It is a typical mountain desert area with an average annual rainfall of only 170 mm (6.7 inches).[3]

Flora and fauna

Lahaul valley in winter

Mountain peak in Lahaul and Spiti district

The harsh conditions of Lahaul permit only scattered tufts of hardy grasses and shrubs to grow, even below 4,000 metres. Glacier lines are usually found at 5,000 metres.

Animals such as yaks and dzos roam across the wild Lingti plains. However, over-hunting and a decrease in food supplies has led to a large decrease in the population of the Tibetan antelope, argali, kiangs, musk deer, and snow leopards in these regions, reducing them to the status of endangered species. However, in the Lahaul valley, one can see ibex, brown bears, foxes and snow leopards during winter.

[edit]People

Mother and child in near Gandhola Monastery. 2004

The language, culture, and populations of Lahaul and Spiti are closely related. Generally the Lahaulis are of Tibetan and Indo-Aryan descent, while the Spiti Bhotia are more similar to the Tibetans, owing to their proximity to Tibet. Fairer skin and hazel-colored eyes are commonly seen among the Lahaulis.

The languages of both the Lahauli and Spiti Bhutia belong to the Tibetan family. They are very similar to the Ladakhi and Tibetans culturally, as they had been placed under the rule of the Guge and Ladakh kingdoms at occasional intervals.

Among the Lahaulis, the family acts as the basic unit of kinship. The extended family system is common, evolved from the polyandric system of the past. The family is headed by a senior male member, known as the Yunda, while his wife, known as the Yundamo, attains authority by being the oldest member in the generation. The clan system, also known as Rhus, plays another major role in the Lahauli society.

The Spiti Bhutia community has an inheritance system that is otherwise unique to the Tibetans. Upon the death of both parents, only the eldest son will inherit the family property, while the eldest daughter inherits the mother's jewellery, and the younger siblings inherit nothing. Men usually fall back on the social security system of the Trans-Himalayan Gompas.

[edit]Lifestyle

The lifestyles of the Lahauli and Spiti Bhotia are similar, owing to their proximity. Polyandry was widely practiced by the Lahaulis in the past, although this practice has been dying out. The Spiti Bhutia do not generally practice polyandry any more, although it is accepted in a few isolated regions.

Divorces are accomplished by a simple ceremony performed in the presence of village elders. Divorce can be sought by either partner. The husband has to pay compensation to his ex-wife if she does not remarry. However, this is uncommon among the Lahaulis.

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood. Potato farming is common. Occupations include animal husbandry, working in government programs, government services, and other businesses and crafts that include weaving. Houses are constructed in the Tibetan architectural style, as the land in Lahul and Spiti is mountainous and quite prone to earthquakes.

[edit]Religion

Kunzum Pass between Lahul & Spiti

Ki-Gompa Spiti

Most of the Lahaulis follow a combination of Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism of the Drukpa Kagyu order, while the Spiti Bhotia follow Tibetan Buddhism of the Gelugpa order. Within Lahoul/swangla, the Baralacha-La region had the strongest Buddhist influence, owing to its close proximity to Spiti. Lahoul/swangla has temples such as Triloknath , where pilgrims worship a certain god in different manifestations, notably in the form of Shiva and Avalokiteshvara where Udaipur is a puritan temple. This bas-relief, of marble, depicts the Buddhist deity Avalokiteshvara (the embodiment of the Buddha's compassion) in a stylized seated position; Hindu devotees take it to be Shiva Nataraj, Shiva dancing. This image appears to be of sixteenth century Chamba craftsmanship. It was created to replace the original black stone image of the deity, which became damaged by art looters. This original image is kept beneath the plinth of the shrine. It appears to be of 12th century Kashmiri provenance . Much of the art thieves are active in this remote belt because of neglected gompas and temples.

Before the spread of Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism, the people were adherents of the religion 'Lung Pe Chhoi', an animistic religion that had some affinities with the Bön religion of Tibet. While the religion flourished, animal and human sacrifices were regularly offered up to the 'Iha', a term that refers to evil spirits residing in the natural world, notably in the old pencil-cedar trees, rocks and caves. Vestiges of the Lung Pe Chhoi religion can be seen in the behaviour of the Lamas, who are believed to possess certain supernatural powers.

The Losar festival (also known as Halda in Lahauli) is celebrated between the months of January and February. The date of celebration is decided by the Lamas. It has the same significance as the Diwali festival of Hinduism, but is celebrated in a Tibetan fashion.

At the start of the festival, two or three persons from every household will come holding burning incense. The burning sticks are then piled into a bonfire. The people will then pray to Shiskar Apa, the goddess of wealth (other name Vasudhara) in the Buddhist religion.

In the Pattan belt of the valley in Lahoul most population follows Hinduism,but counts for 14 percent of the total and they are called swanglas. The fagli festival is celebrated between February and March all over the valley. This festival is a new year festival and closely precedes beginning of tibetian and Chinese calendar. Notable is the Pattan people are the late settlers in the valley around 1500 A.D. and have broad highlights and have distinct language on the likes the central Asians,chamba, pangi, pashtoons and uyghurs. This belt is known for the convergence for chandra and bhaga rivers to form Chenab.

[edit]Tourism

Ki Gompa

The natural scenery and Buddhist monasteries, such as Ki, Dhankar, Shashur, Guru Ghantal and Tayul Gompas, are the main tourist attractions of the region.

One of the most interesting places is the Tabo Monastery, located 45 km from Kaza, Himachal Pradesh, the capital of the Spiti region. This monastery rose to prominence when it celebrated its thousandth year of existence in 1996. It houses a collection of Buddhist scriptures, Buddhist statues and Thangkas. The ancient gompa is finished with mud plaster, and contains several scriptures and documents. Lama Dzangpo heads the gompa here. There is a modern guest house with a dining hall and all facilities are available.

Another famous gompa, Kardang Monastery, is located at an elevation of 3,500 metres across the river, about 8 km from Keylong. Kardang is well connected by the road via the Tandi bridge which is about 14 km from Keylong. Built in the 12th century, this monastery houses a large library of Buddhist literature including the main Kangyur and Tangyur scriptures.

The treacherous weather in Lahaul and Spiti permits visitors to tour only between the months of June to October, when the roads and villages are free of snow and the high passes (Rothang La and Kunzum La) are open. It is possible to access Spiti from Kinnaur (along the Sutlej) all through the year, although the road is sometimes temporarily closed by landslides or avalanches.

Buddhist Monasteries in Spiti: Spiti is one of the important centers of Buddhism in Himachal Pradesh. It is popularly known as the 'land of lamas'. The valley is dotted by numerous Buddhist Monasteries or Gompas that are famous throughout the world and are a favorite of Dalai Lama.

Kye Monastery: Kye Monastery in Spiti is the main research center of the Buddhists in India. Near about 300 lamas are receiving their religious training from here. It is oldest and biggest monastery in Spiti. It houses the rare painting and beautiful scriptures of Buddha and other gods and goddess. You may also find rare 'Thangka' paintings and ancient musical instruments 'trumpets, cymbals, and drums in the monastery.

Tabo Monastery: Perched at an amazing altitude of 3050 meters, Tabo Monastery in the valley of Spiti is often referred to as the 'Ajanta of the Himalayas'. The 10th century Tabo Monastery was founded by the great scholar, Richen Zangpo, and has been declared as the World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The monastery houses more than 6 lamas and contains the rare collection of scriptures, pieces of art, wall paintings -Tankhas and Stucco.

Flora and fauna of Spiti Valley: The valley is blessed with the good population of snow leopards, ibex, Himalayan Brown Bear, Musk Deer, Himalayan Blue Sheep etc. which serves as the boon for the wildlife lovers. There are two important protected areas in the region that are a home to snow leopard and its prey including the Pin Valley National Park and Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary. Surprisingly, due to ardent religious beliefs, people of Spiti do not hunt these wild animals.

Apart from the exotic wildlife, the Valley of Spiti is also known for its amazing wealth of flora and the profusion of wild flowers. Some of the mot common species found here include Causinia thomsonii, Seseli trilobum, Crepis flexuosa, Caragana brevifolia and Krascheninikovia ceratoides. Then there are more than 62 species of medicinal plants found here.

Adventure activities:

To- do-Trials: For trekkers, the Spiti Valley is a paradise, offering challenging treks to explore the new heights of the Himalayas. The treks takes you to the most remote areas including the rugged villages and old Gompas followed by the exotic wildlife trails. Some of the popular trekking routes in the area includes Kaza-Langza-Hikim-Comic-Kaza, Kaza-Ki-Kibber-Gete-Kaza, Kaza-Losar-Kunzum La and Kaza-Tabo-Sumdo-Nako. Please note that you carry all the necessary things before out for the trekking tour to Spiti. Tents, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, heavy woollens and sunglasses are a must.

Skiing: Skiing is the popular adventure sports in Spiti and is popular in India from the past few years. The amazing snow clad mountains with the added advantage of inspiring heights are enough to allure the adventure spirits of the avid skier, providing all the thrill and fun attracted to the sport. People from all around the globe come to experience this enthralling adventure activity.

Yak Safari: The most exciting of all adventure activities in Spiti is the Yak safari. You can hire the Yak to see the flora and fauna of trans-Himalayan desert. It is, in fact, the lifetime opportunity that you won't find anywhere else so easily. Apart from this, horse safaris are also conducted in this area.

Sources en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahaul_and_Spiti_district

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