'Arabia. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 90' [‎63] (78/148)

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Arabia]
PORTS 63
Malay States, and large numbers from Java, Africa,
Persia, Afghanistan, &c. The use of the Hejaz Rail
way has reduced the number of those brought in
Turkish ships to about one-tenth of its former total.
Besides being the great pilgrim port, Jedda is a
port of supply for central Arabia. The outstanding
feature of its trade is the enormous excess of
imports over exports. This is largely due to the
necessity of supplying the pilgrims, but also for
the requirements of the Hejaz, which itself produces
little. The value of the total trade of the port
in 1913 was stated to be £1,482,000, but these
figures may be exaggerated.
In 1912-13 Jedda was visited by 287 steamers, with
a total tonnage of 615,842 tons. Of these 222 were
British, 39 Russian, and 26 Dutch. In 1911-12 the
total was 322, as against 374 in 1910-11, when the
tonnage was 643,198.
Manama, on the island of Bahrein, is scarcely more
than an open roadstead, protected on the south, but
exposed to north-east, north, and north-west winds.
iVessels of 19 ft. draught can only get as far as the
outer anchorage, 4 miles from the town; smaller vessels
can reach an inner anchorage 2 miles nearer. At low
tide, however, not even boats can reach the shore, and
passengers and cargo have to be conveyed by donkeys
for a quarter of a mile. Landing arrangements as late
as 1911 were very bad: goods were exposed to the
weather and there were long delays in delivery; but
in that year the control of the harbour arrangements
was entrusted to a Hindu, and a jetty and stoi ing 1 shed
were built. Manama is the outlet of the large Bahrein
pearl trade, on which account it has been made a port
of call for steamers between Bombay and the Gulf; it
is also an important distributing centre for goods
from India and other countries to El-Katr, Katif, and
Okwair. From the two last-named places goods are
sent on to the oases of Katif and Hasa and to southern
Nejd. This trade is done entirely by boat, and exact
statistics cannot be obtained,