"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٦‎٢‎٣] (١٧٨٢/٧٦٦)

623
accompaaied by 100 boats and the whole fighting- strength of the Za'ab
tribe, proceeded to the same destination by sea. The Q.asimi land forces
under the Shaikh's sons were unable to force the mountain defiles, and in
the end they also were conveyed by boat to Dibah. The war, at first local,
shortly became general; for the Shihuh of Kumzar and other places now
put to sea to pursue the boats of the Qawasim, or to carry assistance to
their kinsmen at Dibah; and the Qawasim, on their part, began
to attack the Shihuh, wherever found. In one instance a Kumzari
Batil, which happened to put into Khor Fakkan, was seized by
the people of that place, who killed eight of the crew and made the rest
prisoners. At length in January 1857, when this state of matters had
lasted apparently about a year, the British Political Resident, Captain Felix
Jones, called upon Shaikh Sultan-bin-Saqar to desist from sending troops
and warlike stores by sea; and the Shaikh, with a bad grace and not
without an attempt in 1858 to obtain cancellation of the orders by a direct
reference to the Government of Bombay, ultimately submitted. It was
part of the Shaikh of Sharjah's case that the Shihuh were his rebellious
subjects, whom he must be allowed full liberty to coerce ; but the Resi
dent at this time believed that the allegiance of the Shihuh was due, and
had, unless in exceptional circumstances, hitherto been rendered, to the ruler
of Masqat,* and that the object of Shaikh Sultan-bin-Saqar was simply
to subdue the tribe wrongfully and by force of arms to his own
authority.
In 1859 the British Political Resident visited Bakhah, Khasab,
Kumzar and other principal points on the coast of Ruus-al-Jibal in
a steam frigate, of which the appearance created a great sensation
among the unsophisticated barbarians of the country, and obtained
the release of some Qasimi prisoners who had been captured from boats
at sea by the Shihuh. As to the political status of the country, the
impression which he derived from intercourse with the people was that
they had a predilection for the Government of the Saiyid of Masqat
and were animated by an implacable hatred of the Qawasim. It was
evidently in the course of this tour that Captain J ones, as described
in the general history of Trucial'Oman, obtained at Khasab the sur
render of a pirate whom, as a subject of Masqat, he at once handed over
for execution to Saiyid Sa'id.
Tour of the
British Resi
dent along
the coast of
Ruus-al-Jib-
al, 1859.
Two offences against security at sea, committed in 1859 or Minor events
1860 by inhabitants of Bakhah, were, as related in the history of
Trucial ; Oman, settled direct by the British authorities with the local '
Shaikh; but in 1863 Colonel Pelly, the Resident in the Persian Gulf,
on receiving a complaint from the Shaikh of Khasab that his village
of Ghassah had been burnt to the ground by a boat expedition
from Kumzar, referred the parties to the Political Agent at Masqat,
at the same time reporting to the Government of Bombay that both
Khasab and Kumzar belonged to the Sultanate proper of 'Oman.
* It is not clear whether this opinion refers to the whole of^ the Sl^ihuh or only
to those, probably of Bai'ah, between whom and the Qawaaim the disagreement
originally arose.