'THIM DAYS IS GONE' [‎92r] (183/248)

93
CHAPTER 15
A1 'Arouba
Having driven to Teheran I handed my car over to the buyer,
As ad u 1 1 ah Alam, son of the Sh au k a t - u 1-mu 1 k and later, as Prime
Minister and Minister of Court, the right hand man of the Shah
and responsible, I believe, by his sage advice for keeping him on
the Peacock Throne for as long as the peacock could take it.
It was then the trans-Irani an railway to Khorramshahr ,
accompanied by a party of young Norwegians who had escaped from
occupied Europe and were on their way to join the Allied forces:
a night or two in Khorramshahr as the guest of Ronald Daubeny,'
the Consul, and a tour of the then biggest oil-refinery in the
world at Abadan - now a ruin; finally a flying-boat from Basra to
Bahrain where I met my new boss. He was Teddy Wakefield (later
Sir Edward Wakefield Bart. M.P.) and one of the most competent
and intelligent officers in the Department, but unfortunately a
new-comer to the Arab countries and unfamiliar with the Arab
mentality (not that I was much more so, although my sojourn in
Baghdad and Basra had given me a slight inkling and my stay in
the Trucial Coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. was to give me infinitely more.)
There was a tendency amongst Indian Political Officers
transferred from a princely state in India to an Arab Shaikhdom
to fail to grasp the fundamental difference between the two.
The Indian States (apart from the few maritime ones) were
surrounded by British India; they had mostly been defeated at
some time or other by British arms; their Rulers had been taught
to play cricket and polo; and, if not educated in England, had
been to a Princes' College run on British public school lines
(except that the number of polo-ponies and personal retainers
that pupils could bring with them was restricted!). None of this
applied to the Gulf States - except that their capitals, situated
on the sea-shore, were at the mercy of guns of the British Navy.
The railway line from Bombay to Delhi crosses 38 state frontiers,
and the line, and the enclaves An area of land belonging to one country and entirely surrounded by land of just one other country. set apart for the residence of
railway employees, was policed and administered by the government
of India. The accession of a new ruler was conditional upon the
approval of the government, and his continuance in the rulership
depended upon the adequacy of his administration. One political
agent in the 1920s, Colonel Daly, had conceived it his duty to
a Pply these principles in Bahrain and was much execrated for his
pains, although in the long run his influence was probably
beneficial. J
* Sorry to intrude this exotic word but it encapsulates Arabia,
Arabic and Arabism and has no English equivalent.