"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٣‎٨‎٢] (١٧٨٢/٥٢٥)

382
Kuwait
harbour.
Bar of the
Shatt-al-
'Arab.
rest; but, to avoid exciting- the suspicions of the Persian delegate, no
separate large scale plan of it was made.
Early in 1903 a resurvey of Kuwait harbour was advised by Com
mander Kemp, Senior Naval Officer in the Persian Gulf, and his proposals
having received the support of the Government of India, were sanctioned
by His Majesty's Government. In the summer of 1904, under a new
mail contract, British steamers began to call at Kuwait; and in November
of the same year the survey there was begun by the Royal Indian Marine
Ship Investigator," immediately after she had finished her work at
Bushehr. The operations were interrupted, however, by an outbreak of
beriberi on board, which attacked 34 out of a crew of 70 and necessitated
the return of the vessel to Bombay on the 12th December. The " Investi
gator " was at Kuwait again at the end of February 1905, but the survey
of the harbour could not be finished before the end of the season, nor was
it finally completed till two years later. In the course of the survey steps
were taken to ascertain whether the boat harbours of the town, which were
dry at low water, could be improved ; but it was found that no improve
ment could be made without extending the existing breakwaters for a
distance of a quarter of a mile seawards, a process of which the results
could not be expected to justify the expenditure involved. The operations
led, however, to a fuller knowledge of the advantages of Bandar Shuwaikh,
a well sheltered anchorage about 3 miles west of the town. In May 1905
the Government of India sanctioned the construction at their own expense
of an improved beacon on Ras-al-Ardh, to serve as a guide to vessels
entering Kuwait Bay, in replacement of a private beacon which had been
erected there by the British India Steam Navigation Company. The
British survey of Kuwait harbour was not allowed by the Turks to pass
without objection, and their protests in this case were accompanied by
reckless misstatements of fact and by imputations of political intrigue.
In July 1904 it was suggested by the Naval Commander-in-Chief
that the positions of some buoys laid down by the British India Steam
Navigation Company, to mark the entrance of the Shatt-al-'Arab should
be altered, and that the charge of the buoys should be undertaken for the
future by the Government of India. Accordingly, in April 1905, the
buoy on the bar and two inner buoys were moved by the " Investigator "
rt er to the eastward to indicate the actual deepest channel; but the
Government of India, fearing international complications, declined to
take over the buoys from the British India Steam Navigation Company,
though the latter were willing, and even anxious, to transfer them to
Government on certain conditions.
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