'THIM DAYS IS GONE' [‎107r] (213/248)

108
CHAPTER 18
Kuwait
After a winter,
Po1itic al Agent,
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. .
i n ch arge of the
pieasant
Bahr ain ,
It was s omet hin g ,
relations, not on ly
foreign affairs to the
Mub arak had, in fact,
British Protectorate but
British protected state'
enough but unexciting, as Assistant
news came of my posting to Kuwait as
at the age of 32, to be put
with the Government of India
of an independent (well,
position of this degree of
expected until one was well
local rank of major and was
same as that of the Shaikh)
semi-independent because in
signed an exclusive treaty
Government binding himself not to give, sell, or
territory to any other power and to entrust*his
but with the rest of the world,
semi-independent) Arab state, for a
responsibi1ity could not normally be
into one's forties. I was given the
entitled to a salute of 11 guns (the
on official Naval visits. Kuwait was
the early 1900's Shaikh Mubarak had
with the British
lease any of his
management of the British Government,
asked that his state should become a
this was not acceded to and it was 'a
but not a British Protectorate!
I made my way there by flying to Basra, and there boarding the
agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. launch and making the 100 mile journey down the Shatt Al
Arab and across the open sea.
We arrived at dawn to see a low mud-built town stretched along
the sea-shore. There were hardly any buildings of more than one
storey, and prominent among the 1 arger ones were the Political
Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. and the Shaikh's pal ace at the eastern end of the town
The Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. had offices on the ground floor and living guarters
above, consisting of a large drawing-room, dining-room, study
and four bed rooms each with a bath-room with - for the first time
in my service the marvel of water-borne sanitation! There was
a minimum of furniture, mercifully no telephone, electric light
and fans (but no air-condition i ng); however the house was built
in the shape of a new moon with the concave side facing
North-west so as to capture as much as possible of the relatively
cool North-west wind. In fact it amounted to much more palatial
accommodation than any I had previously been privileged to
occupy. a
As it was spring, the Shaikh and all the notables were out
camping in the desert to enjoy for a few weeks the brief flush of
grass and wi1d-f1owers , drink fresh camel's milk, and make believe
they were bedu again. They weren't, of course. Only a small
minority of the population could trace an authentic desert
origin. The majority had immigrated from Persia (whither, guite
possibly their forbears had migrated originally from the Arab
3 h ore) Iraq, Nejd, (the heart-land of Saudi Arabia) and Syria.
hat had brought them to Kuwait was the opportunity for trade in
a - more or less - free port,within easy smuggling distance of
Iraq, Persia, and Saudi Arabia.