Ext 1569/42 'Tours of the Political Agent, Bahrein' [‎5r] (9/14)

that we were able to eat, we passed on to i <, u l 1airsh a few
minutes run to the north. Fere we found the .'lhaikh,
Mohammad bln Hamad, a youn,^ man aged about 26 years, awaiting
us outside his fort, which Is situated amo^nn the date
groves some 2 miles from the sea. After the usual ceremo
nies were over, I had © frivate talk with the Shaikh in the
presence of Felly and Abdur Rezzaq. I detailed the recent
outrages committed by Mir Barkat, culminating In the attack
on the Shaikh of Kuwait's H f*ki Dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. " and explained that the
British Clovernment were determined to stamp out this gang,
who were known to be working from F*ujairah territory, and
that his co-operation in this was expected. The Shaikh was
quite frank and said that Mir Barkat had been living there but
was now in Persia with his gangf his women folk were still
in Fujairah, near the fort. Fe said that there t.ere many
Baluchis living on t.ha Batinah and that some of them were
bad characters and had been troubling the Arabs recently.
He had heard of and regretted the attacks on the Has al
Khai. ah boats. He asserted that he would try and arrest
Mir Barkat and any of his gang if they returned for the
women and in any case he would prevent them living in his
territory again.
7. I think this is all that can be expected of a compa
ratively minor Shaikh in the circumstances. There are
largo numbers of Baluchis settled on this coast and some of
them are bad characters and carry arms. Arabs as a rule do
not care to come into conflict with them if it can be avoided.
I enquired whether the gang had left any dhows behind but
the Shaikh said there ^as only one which was unseavorthy and
broken. Possibly this wes true as the gang would naturally
have taken away their best boat.
There /-