File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎87r] (182/834)

COLONEL HAMILTON'S JOURNEY TO NEJD.
In the following report, dated Zilfi, October 27, 1917, Lient-
Colonel Hamilton gives further details of his journey to Nejd
(see Bulletin 73).
“ I left Kuweit on the evening of October 9, after saying
goodbye to Sheikh Salim at his palace at 4.30 p.m. Our first
camp was at Sirrah wells about two hours distant from Kuweit.
My .party consisted of the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. Arabic writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. , Khan
Sahib Mulla Abdullah ibn Abdulillah, and the camel escort under
Abdul Aziz ibn Hassun with five Bedouin rafiqs and three camel
drivers. For additional security Sheikh Salim provided me with
six rafiqs from his own Bedouin guard. I took with me a
Portuguese lad of sixteen years of age, one of my boatmen, Ali,
and a negro sent by the Sheikh of Muhammarah. We were a
party, therefore, of twenty souls, and had with us thirty-one riding
camels, thirteen of which were lent by His Excellency the
Sheikh of Kuweit. The party was on the same scale as that which
I arranged for Mr. Storrs in June last and was, I consider, a model
in size and composition ; in size because it was strong enough to
repel small gangs of marauders, and in composition because
composed of rafiqs from the tribes of Ajman (two sections),
Shammar (two sections), Dhafir Muteir (two sections) and
Anazah.
We were somewhat delayed by the Shakra caravan, which
Sheikh Salim wished us to go along with as far as Safah, and
we did not leave Suleibiyah, thirty-four miles from Kuweit on the
boundary of the Sheikh’s territory, until October 13. The pace
of the caravan was so slow that I decided to leave it, and we
made for the wells of A1 Qara’ah which we reached on October 17
at about 9.15 a.m. This march from Suleibiyah should not take
more than four days for a good-moving party with baggage, and
we were greatly delayed by trying to keep in touch with the
Shakra caravan.
At Qara’ah, and camps between it and the Safah wells,
were about 300 Shammar tents under Idhar ibn Radhi, a young
man of about twenty-seven years of age, who came m to see us
while we were resting under canvas during the middle hours ot
the day before we reached the wells. Ajman and Shammar are
now camping between Zubeir, Jahrah, Kuweit and up to the
edge of the Qasim Dahanah, where the Muteir are concentrated.
Alder halting practically two days at Qara’ah to rest the
camels we marched to Gayyiyah wells on the early mornnig ot
October 23, the fifth day out from the last camping place _ Here
we were met by Watban el-Dawish (of the Muteir), his son,
Riddan, and his cousin, Mohammed ibn Fahad el-Askar. We
were anxious to cut short our stay at Gayyiyah hearing that
Feisal el-Dawish, head of all the Muteir, was at Artawiyah and
had joined the Wahabi brotherhood, called Ikhwan. Artawiyah
is a hotbed of Mohammedan bigotry just now, and there is no