Page 599 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

things are fairly easy, I suppose the after season rush has not yet begun. In the afternoon we motored out to a village
called Draaz to see if we could get any china. It is on the coast but a mile or two back from the sea, they make sail
cloth there, one of the only local industries. We were met by one of the leading men in the village and went through
the village to his house, a nice one set among the palm gardens. All the village turned out to see us as they very
rarely have any Europeans going there. The women seemed tremendously interested at seeing M. Sat on an open
roof and drank coffee and talked to the people and had a look at the china which they had produced, a very poor lot
of junk, mostly old English kitchen plates of a hideous kind. There were about two of those bowls and a few blue
ginger jars which are quite attractive. Motored back in the dark. Parke and Walker came in before dinner. W had
had a wire from D.G. saying he would go and stay with him if I permitted, which I did. Usually he comes to stay with
us when he comes back from leave, hence the message. The village we went to is curious as built among deep
hollows and sandhills with date palms growing among them apparently without any water at all. Parke had had
rather a trying interview with Todd who wanted him to give him a Police certificate to be able to comply with some
regulations for exporting coffins. It is really very odd the way he is going on about all this business, in such a
desperate hurry all the time, if there was no other reason this alone is enough to make people talk a lot.

Thursday 2nd October

Office and then went down to the Customs as de Grenier came back on the down mail. Waited a long time before he
came ashore. He arrived in a bright blue shirt, a pair of yellow trousers and a sort of terai hat, really a most comic
sight. He was on the same boat as Bienenfeld and Shaikh Mohamed and the school inspector and all the teachers.
He seemed very well and in very good form. He held a sort of reception in the customs for the staff and a lot of
people came in to see him, Parke and I were there. In the afternoon he came for a drive with us and then went to the
palace to dine with the Shaikh. Guzdar came across in the evening, he has had no more instructions about the Todd
case from Bushire. Hot day.

Friday October 3rd 1930

The school inspector, who returned on the down boat, came in to see me in the morning to report on the teachers
who he brought down from Syria. He seems to have done quite well over them and has got them for less than they
pay which I expected we should have to give them. Went to the Bank, Bienenfeld and his cousin, a young man called
Freund, a Pole, were there. Bridge. Quite a lot of people at the Bank. Walker and de Grenier came to dinner with us,
D.G. was very interesting about his journey home, he went all over the place and seems to have visited most of the
capitals of Europe. For the time being he became a musical enthusiast and went to operas in Vienna, Berlin etc. He
seems very well, he had also been to stay with Parke's mother in Dorsetshire. Rather warm weather again. The
school teachers lost all their baggage, it was left behind on the desert as the lorry broke down between Damascus and
Baghdad. Very awkward for them, they have had to borrow clothes, there are five men and four women.