'Diary of a Tour in the Persian Gulf and in Turkish Arabia December 1906, by Lieutenant-Colonel Malleson Assistant Quarter Master General, Intelligence Branch, Division of the Chief of the Staff.' [‎8v] (16/46)

10
At Sea : head of Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ;
292/fc December 1906.
This diary was last written up on 7th
December. On the 8th we were obliged to
leave the hospitable S. S. Dumra and go
off to the quarantine station, a by-no- Quarantine Station, Basra,
means inviting looking place on the river’s
edge. On arrival there with our servants
and baggage we found two small rooms in
a brick cottage allotted to us. The outlook
on arrival was not inspiriting. The place,
crowded with pilgrims from Bahrein and
elsewhere, was in a highly insanitary con
dition. This was bad enough, but the
absence or illness of the cook of the estab
lishment was worse. Either starvation or
a diet of dates and rice confronted us.
A letter hastily sent to the British Consul
or elicited the reply that cooks were imposs
ible to get in Basra, but that the Consul
was urging the quarantine doctor to do
what he could for us. In the meanwhile
the inhabitants of a third room in our
house, a pair of cosmopolitan Jews bound
to Bagdad on business, kindly invited us
to join their meal which had been prepared
for them by an Arab cook sent by local
friends. This we gladly did, and in the
discussion of the pilau which formed the
piece de resistance of the menu it appeared
that our hosts were father and son. The
former spoke only Arabic and Hebrew
and was in business at Cairo with agencies
elsewhere. The son spoke French and
a little English, and, after a visit of inspec
tion to Bagdad, was going to settle down
in Manchester, the predominance of which Manchester and Mesopotamia
City in Bagdad trade became apparent
to us later. After this meal we strolled for
some distance down the river bank. The
island on which the quarantine station is
situated has a river frontage of some three
miles or more. Its other face consists of
t a creek, which, leaving the main river
opposite Basra, joins it again some three
or four miles lower down. The surface of
this island, like all other land within easy
distance of the Shatt-el-Arab, is given up
to the cultivation of the date palm, of
which, apparently, there are several scores
of different varieties, though to the non
expert all look exactly alike. The irriga
tion of the land is carried out by means
of sluices in the bund which lines either
bank of the Shatt-el-Arab, a good deal of
the land being below high-water mark.
This point is worth noting as it would
always be feasible, in the event of military
operations, for a good deal of the country
to be either actually inundated or else