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‘Report on the administration of the Persian Gulf Political Residency and Muscat Political Agency for the years 1876-77.’ [58r] (114/125)
The record is made up of 57 folios. It was created in 1877. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
a®
AND MUSCAT POLITICAL
AGENCY
An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent.
FOR THE YEAR 187G-77.
working- classes are comparatively free. Scurvy has been observed prin
cipally amongst the pearl-fishers, who have to live a greater part of the
year on dates and dried fish, and also amongst Indian pilgrims on their
way back from Mecca.
Sanitation. —Considering the general character of the people, their
ignorance of some of the simplest and most essential hygienic laws, and
their great aversion to innovations of any kind, it is not to be wondered
at that there exists no public system of sanitation in Muscat or the neigh
bouring towns and hamlets. Notwithstanding this, most of the large
streets generally present a respectable appearance, are clean and free from
any offensive odour, which is to be attributed entirely to the practice which
obtains amongst the Arabs principally, both inside and outside the town,
of cleaning the portions of the streets in the immediate neighbourhood of
their houses. The Beloochees, on the contrary, would seem to take a
delight in raising mounds of dirt and filth of all kinds in the imme
diate vicinity of their habitations, and as all their little hamlets are
built within an easy reach of large and open graveyards, for which
they seem to have a particular liking, the air around and inside
their huts is extremely vitiated, and the stench almost unbearable,
especially m close weather. The conservancy outside the town is of the
most primitive nature, but owing to the great heat of the sun and its
power of rapidly drying up the excreta, it does not seem to affect the
health of the people in any particular way. Inside the town the
system of cess-pits exists, the stink from which, when the air is stao--
nant, is offensive and injurious. They are occasionally opened up for
the purpose of cleaning and disinfectants, such as common salt and lime,
put in. In some houses a large quantity of ashes and salt are thrown
into the pits every or every other morning. This large accumulation
of decomposing excrementatious matter in the subsoil would lead one
to suppose that it would be a fertile source of disease inside the town,
but that such is not the case is due^ in a great measure to the wells'
which supply the drinking water, being situated outside the town, and
also to the fact of the ground-floor rooms of most of the houses in the
town being generally uninhabited. In Muttrah this cess-pit svstem does
not exist; conservancy there is either of the primitive nature mentioned
before, or the close proximity of the sea renders the immediate removal
or excreta more practicable.
Fop u la t ion .—Owing to the maritime position and importance of
Muscat, and its being the modern capital of the province of Oman its
population presents great variety and fluctuation. Politically and com-
mercially speaking, Muscat may be supposed to include the large town of
Muttrah, with its spacious harbour and the villages and hamlets in its
neighbourhood, and the small towns of Kalbu, Riam and Sadab There
are no means of determining the exact population, but it may be roughlv
guessed to be about 40,000. This number may be considered to be the
, population, but there is a constant fluctuation which is principally
observed amongst Bedouin-Arabs and Indian and other pilgrims.
,, Of the fixed population, by far the largest portion is composed of
he African races, and the mixed race of Africans and Arabs, the former
being pnnc.paUy represented by Negroes, whose number may be stated to
exceed ten thousand. I he pure Abyssmians are few in number, compared
About this item
- Content
Administration report of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. 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. and Muscat Political Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. for 1876-77, published by Authority at the Foreign Department Press, Calcutta [Kolkata], 1877, and forming part of the Selections from the Records of the Government of India, Foreign Department (no. 138). The administration report is based on reports sent by the Officiating Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. (Lieutenant-Colonel William Francis Prideaux) and the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. at Muscat (Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Barrett Miles) to the Government of India. The report is preceded by a copy of a letter sent by Prideaux to Thomas Henry Thornton, Officiating Secretary to the Government of India, dated 15 June 1877, which enclosed the submission of the original reports to the Government of India (folio 8).
The report is organised in a number of sections and subsections, as follows:
Part I: Administration Report for 1876-77 – General (folios 8-10) signed by Prideaux, and arranged under subheadings as follows: 1. Oman; Petty independent chiefdoms (2. Oman Coast); 3. Bahrain [referred to as Bahrein throughout]; 4. Nejd [Najd]; 5. Bassidore [Bāsa‘īdū]; 6. Persian Coast; 7. Government of Fars; Bushire (Dashtee, Bunder Abbass [Bandar-e ʻAbbās], postal, judicial); Establishment (political, medical, naval); slave trade.
Part II: Administration Report for 1876-77 – Memorandum showing the number of Returns accompanying the Trade Report of the 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. , Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. (folios 11-45), comprising thirty statistical tables containing data on the import and export of commodities into and out of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. during the official year 1875-76. The tables contain data for Arabia, Persia and Turkey in Asia, and specifically data on vessels and trade at Bushire, Bandar-e ʻAbbās, Lingah [Bandar-e Lengeh], Bahrain and the Arab coast. There is an index of the statistical tables on folio 11.
Part III: Administration report of the Political Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. , Muscat, for the year 1876-76 (folios 45-48), prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Barrett Miles, Her Britannic Majesty’s Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. and Consul at Muscat. The report is arranged under the following headings: political; resources and trade (production, agriculture, industries, fisheries, trade).
Part IV, prepared by Miles (folios 49-55) comprises six statistical tables containing trade data relating to Muscat: average tonnage of vessels entering and leaving the port of Muscat; imports and exports, listed by commodity; and contrasted statements on vessels and imported goods.
Part V, Medical Topography of Muscat (folios 55-62), by the Muscat Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. Surgeon, Atmarim Sadashiv Jayakar. Jayakar’s report is arranged under the following headings: geology; climate; water supply; food; sanitation; population; dwellings and streets; prevailing diseases; malaria and malarial fevers; typhoid fever; smallpox and measles; cholera; dysentery; scurvy; rheumatism; phthisis pulmonalis; bronchitis; purumonia; organic diseases of the heart; dyspepsia, colic and diarrhoea; hoemorrhoides [haemorrhoids]; diseases of the liver; hypertrophy; diseases of the kidney and bladder; diseases of the brain and insanity; diseases of the eye; diseases of the skin; leprosy; ulcers; dracunculus; venereal diseases; syphilis.
- Extent and format
- 57 folios
- Arrangement
The report is arranged into five parts (I-V). Part I is arranged into numbered sections (1-7) and numbered paragraphs (1-35). Part II is arranged into numbered tables (1-30). Part III is arranged by subject headings and subheadings, part IV by lettered tables (A-F), and part V by suhheadings. There is a contents page at the front of the report (folios 6-7), which lists the report’s contents by part and major headings, and refers to the report’s internal pagination sequence.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: There is a foliation sequence, which is circled in pencil, in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. of each folio. It begins on the first folio, on number 1, and ends on the last folio on number 62.
Pagination: The volume contains an original typed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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- Reference
- IOR/V/23/29, No 138
- Title
- ‘Report on the administration of the Persian Gulf Political Residency and Muscat Political Agency for the years 1876-77.’
- Pages
- front, front-i, 2v:62v, back-i, back
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence