650-660), _ad Episcopos Catarensium_, which
Assemani interprets of the Christians in Socotra and the adjacent coasts
of Arabia (III. 133).[1] Abulfeda says the people of Socotra were
Nestorian Christians and pirates. Nicolo Conti, in the first half of the
15th century, spent two months on the island (_Sechutera_). He says it was
for the most part inhabited by Nestorian Christians.

[Professor W.R. Smith, in a letter to Sir H. Yule, dated Cambridge, 15th
June, 1886, writes: "The authorities for Kotrobah seem to be (1) Edrisi,
(2) the list of Nestorian Bishops in Assemani. There is no trace of such a
name anywhere else that I can find. But there is a place called Katar
about which most of the Arab Geographers know very little, but which is
mentioned in poetry. Bekri, who seems best informed, says that it lay
between Bahrain and Oman.... Istakhri and Ibn Haukal speak of the Katar
pirates. Their collective name is the Katariya."]

Some indications point rather to a connection of the island's Christianity
with the Jacobite or Abyssinian Church. Thus they practised circumcision,
as mentioned by Maffei in noticing the proceedings of Alboquerque at
Socotra. De Barros calls them Jacobite Christians of the Abyssinian stock.
Barbosa speaks of them as an olive-coloured people, Christian only in
name, having neither baptism nor Christian knowledge, and having for many
years lost all acquaintance with the Gospel. Andrea Corsali calls them
Christian shepherds of Ethiopian race, like Abyssinians. They lived on
dates, milk, and butter; some rice was imported. They had churches like
mosques, but with altars in Christian fashion.

When Francis Xavier visited the island there were still distinct traces of
the Church. The people reverenced the cross, placing it on their altars,
and hanging it round their necks. Every village had its minister, whom
they called _Kashis_ (_Ar._ for a Christian Presbyter), to whom they paid
tithe. No man could read. The Kashis repeated prayers antiphonetically in
a forgotten tongue, which De Barros calls Chaldee, frequently scattering
incense; a word like _Alleluia_ often recurred. For bells they used wooden
rattles. They assembled in their churches four times a day, and held St.
Thomas in great veneration. The Kashises married, but were very
abstemious. They had two Lents, and then fasted strictly from meat, milk,
and fish.

The last vestiges of Christianity in Socotra, so far as we know, are those
traced