‘Administration Report on the Persian Gulf Political Residency and Maskat Political Agency for 1896-97 (Foreign Dept serial no. 92). Calcutta: Supt. Govt. Printing, 1897 & Appendices to the Administration Report on the Persian Gulf Political Residency and Maskat Political Agency for 1896-97’ [‎222v] (12/31)

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ADMINISTRATION REPOUT ON THE PERSIAN GULF The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. POLITICAL
met by calling in a part of the copper and fixing the rate provisionally at 30
Shahis for the kran.
His Eoyal Highness Hissam-es-Sultaneh, who, at the close of the year
1895-96, was appointed to the Governorship of Bushire and the Gulf Ports,
proceeded in a very leisurely manner to the seat of his authority, not arriving
at Bushire till the middle of June.
Complaints were made by the mail steamer agents of extreme difficulty
and delay in the discharge of cargo in September, followed by a joint protest
by all the British firms against the injury thus suffered.
In January the Indo-European Telegraph Station at Reshire, 5 miles from
Bushire, was the scene of a serious mob outrage. After some premonitory
menaces, a mob consisting of several hundreds, of whom many were armed
with guns, rushed to the destruction of the ,bench marks of the recently
completed longitude operations, close to the main building. Resistance was
out of the question, and the mob, after effectingjthe wreck of these marks, pro
ceeded to the tidal observatory by the sea, where they similarly destroyed the
tidal level record. The outrage which was instigated by the Syeds was in pur
suance of a vulgar superstition, that these record marks had been the cause of
the deficient rainfall. At the close of the year the mutilated scientific records
were formally replaced.
In the early cold weather the appearance of the plague at Bombay neces
sitated the adoption of quarantine precautions. The resources of the Persian
Government were unequal to the inauguration of efficient measures, and the
onus devolved on this Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. . Quarantine was eventually placed on a
satisfactory and efficient footing at Bunder Abbas, Lingah, and Mohammerah
for which the services of Assistant Surgeons were lent by the Government of
India, as well as at Bushire.
Kishm Island was visited by a terrible calamity. On the night of the 11th
January an earthquake laid the town in ruins, only two musjids and three or four
other buildings being left standing. Sixteen hundred bodies were reported to have
been recovered from the ruins, besides those of strangers which were not identi
fied. Shocks were felt as far as liingah to the west, and on the neighbouring
Island of Larak where some loss of life was also reported.
9.—PERSIAN BALUCHISTAN AND MEKRAN.
At Charbar there was serious and long-continued trouble regarding rival
claims to the subsidies paid by the Telegraph Department, in consideration of
protection for their land line. The superior provincial authority at Bampur,
being itself at one time contested and in doubt, the subordinate local Chiefs
who are the recipients of the Telegraph subsidies, were in conflict in regard to
the title to the payments as derived from one or other of the contending
superiors. The position was by no means an easy one for the Telegraph
Superintendent, on whom the rival demands were constantly pressed. The
matter was shortly afterwards settled for the time, by payment for the half-year
up to June 1896, being made to Mohamed Khan, one of the claimants, whose
title seemed to be the most in orde^ In February of 1897 there was a recrudes-
cence of the same dispute, and it was necessary, in order to avoid the risk of
mischief, to make the next payment to another candidate, who appeared to
have substantial support.
10.—SLAVE TRADE.
An increased activity in the slave trade has already been commented upon
above. r