Page 765 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

two merchants themselves, Kanoo was in the know but we pretended to think he was responsible and
talked harshly to him so that the other fellow should be the more alarmed. The Shaikh came in while we
were talking about some letters that had to be written by him about our customs. We have now been
given temporary tariff autonomy which is a step in the right direction but with the proviso that any changes
must be notified to the Resident four months before being introduced. At the same time we are asking
permission to impose the 10% tax on luxuries and 15% on tobacco and liquor which I tried to get six months
ago. Freund called in the evening, he is going down to Bombay on the next mail, I am sorry as he is a good
Bridge player and a nice little man. Much cooler in the evening.

Tuesday [22 November]

Didnt go to the Muharraq Municipal meeting as I was so very busy in the office. At the range before
breakfast, the men are doing quite well up there. The Shaikh and Sulman, Abdulla and Rashid came in in
the afternoon, Abdulla came early and as I was having my hair cut I sent James into the drawing room to
entertain him. They seemed to get on very well together and he was very amused by James doing all the
rifle exercises which he sees at the fort with his toy gun. The Shaikh was in very good form. Then we all
went across to the Agency for a farewell party given by the staff of the Agency to Prior, quite a good little
show in the big office. The Shaikh gave Prior a photograph of himself in a silver frame, my idea, as a
keepsake, Prior seemed very pleased with it. There was a real strong shamaal and very cold, quite a gale
blowing. I like the cold weather. In the evening we had a big dinner party for Prior, it was a sort of joint
affair shared by all the people here, it was a great success, everyone's cook appeared and each one made
his best dish so the dinner was really good. After dinner we played rather rowdy sort of charades and
danced a little and then played consequences and "murders" altogether a good show and went with a great
swing. I had masses of pink and red oleandar in the drawing room and on the dining room table, which was
two put together, vases of white oleandar and a very pretty yellow flowering tree rather like laburnam.
There was a lot of talk before and feeling about where people were to sit but we solved it fairly well by
dividing everyone up and putting Prior in the middle of the table. It is a matter that is considered of much
importance here.

Wednesday [23 November]

Went up to see the school in the morning, I have been meaning to for several days, spent about an hour
there, it seems to be doing well and quite good attendance. Had a long talk to Steele about telephones, as
usual people are hanging back having promised to take them in, myself I find it a great boon but as the two
boys at the Exchange are new to it there are sometimes rather funny effects. At home in the afternoon but
very few people came as I suppose they were all tired out after last night's party which did not finish till
about 1.30, afterwards some of them went round to the Bank and then to the Fort and kept it up till the
morning. Before our at home we went to a show in the Municipal Garden, a sort of tea party given by the
two councils for Prior. It was quite a good show, coffee, speeches and sweets and Prior produced Abdel
Rahman's Khan Bahadur medal which the Shaikh invested him with. Yusuf Kanoo was very comic and
insisted on putting it round Zayani's neck himself, almost as if it had been bestowed by Yusuf Kanoo, not