'DIARY OF A TOUR IN THE PERSIAN GULF AND IN TURKISH ARABIA, DECEMBER, 1906 (WITH MAP)' [‎7r] (13/106)

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in these waters and exported exceed a
million pounds in value. They are no
cheaper to buy here than in Bombay,
though. Indeed, the latter place is con
sidered the better market. The British
India Company make a good thing out
of the pearl business charging one per
cent, on the value for transit to Bombay.
As the total weight carried is a matter of
pounds only, these freights, apart from risk,
are very profitable. A number of sail
ing vessels came off to meet us at Koweit,
and a few passengers embarked and dis
embarked, but we got away within an hour
of arrival, and then headed for the Turkish
town of Fao, at the head of the Gulf and at
the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab. The sea
was again pretty nasty, with a strong
southerly gale blowing, but by lunch time
we had covered the intervening sixty odd
miles and were ploughing through the mud
and sand which cover the bar at the en
Fao.
trance of the estuary. Regarding this
bar I shall have more to say later. There
after we halted opposite Fao to land
letters, a matter of a few minutes only.
The place is uninteresting. A telegraph
station, post office, and a few mud huts
and a grove of date palms comprise the
visible portions of the hamlet.
The Indo-European Telegraph Company
have a station at Fao. The cable end is
landed to the west of the river and does
not enter the Shatt-el-Arab at all. The
land-line to the north is owned and worked
by the Turks. The poles seen were of an
inferior type. Some are of cast iron;
where these had been broken, sticks re
sembling hop poles had been put up. The
line as far as Basra runs along the right
bank of the river and is liable to constant
interruption. There is also a Turkish quar
antine station at Fao, and the usual farcical
routine was religiously gone through in con
nection with the few letters we landed.
The Shatt-el-Arab.
Here and for many miles up, certainly
a hundred or more, the banks of this great
river, which from Fao to Muhammerah is
from 1,200 to 800 yards wide, are merely
±- *
deposits of alluvial silt a foot or so above
high water level. They are fringed with
a belt about | mile wide on either side of
date palms, a low and unpicturesque tree,
but one on which the prosperity of these
regions very largely depends. At intervals
there are small mud huts in groups of two
and three. On the river itself, there is
Muhammerah.
plenty of traffic so far as native boats are
concerned, but it cannot be said that the
scenery is anything but uninteresting. In
the evening we reached Muhammerah, a
rather mean-looking place. We anchored