'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎34r] (65/72)

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aole emporium of Indian commerce, distributing over all Syria and Arabia, by means of
caravans, the silks and muslins, gold and silver brocades, and innumerable other products
of Hindustan, with Bahrain pearls, Mocha coffee, Persian shawls and precious metals, Java
spices, and European commodities from many a sea and port. Enough to enrich it, its
own yield of dates, exported in large quantities annually to London, to be turned, as is
believed, into the famous Revalenta Arabica, and patent foods for cattle. The whole sur
rounding country also is fertile ; and although, owing to moisture of the atmosphere conse
quent on vicinity of the sea, the climate is depressing to Europeans, on the indigenous
races these influences seem to have rather the opposite effect. Avoiding as usual the
native town, the European merchants have planted their places of business close to the
river. There, too, the English Consulate, and the Customs House, key to the fiscal
resources of all Irak. The roads directly opposite give anchorage to numerous steamers,
while forming the head-quarters of the two small gunboats used by the Osmanli in support
of their land operations for the extension or consolidation of their power towards Central
Arabia. This casual reference to an important subject is nearly all the notice that can
here be bestowed on it. What the Jabal Shammar Chief Muhammad Ibnu'r Rashid is at
Hayil, his kinsman and rival Abdu'llah-bin Faisal—acknowledged head perhaps at the
present time of the Wahabi faction—is at the capital of Najd, Riadh. Within the spheres
of both these desert lords alike Turkish influence, if it exist at all, is very shadowy. The
famous deserts, called Nufudh, formed of shifting sand which encompass Najd proper as
with a fiery lake effectually exclude invaders, making it perhaps of less moment for the
Najdian districts that, owing to Turkish expansion over their eastern seaboard, they are
now almost completely cut off from the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . What mainly concerns civilised
powers in connection with the expansion or occupation last referred to is the obstacle it
interposes to the check of slavery and putting down of piracy. Untamed chiefs, whose
status not long ago was little better than that of robbers by land and sea, and whom any
one strong enough might chastise, have now become, at least nominally, subjects of a
central government, the Sublime Porte, too remote, or too apathetic, to control them. The
question of how far within Turkish limits England's concurrent maritime jurisdiction
admits of being maintained is, however, one of those the discussion of which seems always
to suggest more difficulties than it solves, and further reference to it is therefore best
avoided. Only time can disclose what the tendency or results will be politically of the
measure already once or twice alluded to, whereby, not for first time in its history,
Bussorah has been made into a separate Pashalik, including, besides Bussorah proper
Mutasarrifships of Amarah, Muntafik country, and A1 Has^..* One curious thing is that the
last named, or most southerly, of those divisions is called in official nomenclature " Najd,"
a territory from which it has now become as dissevered politically as it always was geo
graphically. The assertion of Turkish supremacy along eastern littoral of Arabian penin
sula from Fao, its older, to Ujair, its present limit, dates from 1871. In that year the
Amir of Riadh, the abovementioned Abd^ullah, invited the then Wali of Baghdad (His
Excellency Midhat Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. ) to side with him in a family quarrel. The usual result followed.
Districts including Katif and Has4 having been taken possession of by the Turk, in
Abdullah's name, and not without his assistance, were quietly added to the Sultan's
dominions. To this day an Ottoman official bearing the misleading designation of "Muta-
sarrif of Najd" has his head-quarters at Hufhuf, principal town of Hasa, with a garrison
of two hundred regular Turkish infantry (furnished from Baghdad) at his back.
Whatever the political results, whether present, or merely anticipated, of the setting
up of a Bussorah Pash5.1ik, a good deal of inconvenience seems to attach itself to the new
arrangement from the administrative view point For while a separate head, or Wali, has
been given to the Bussorah executive as a whole, several of its branches, such as Customs,
Posts, Telegraphs, and all the tribunals, have been left subordinate each to the superin
tendent of the corresponding bureau at Baghdad. One consequence is, as the latter
again is independent of the Baghdad Wali, and answerable only to Constantinople, if
for example, the Bussorah Customs House become disorganised, and if—no improbable
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