Page 77 - Gulf Precis(VIII)_Neat

PART III—CHAPTER XIV.
59
report mentions that since the Arabs had obtained possession of the island of
Bahrein, they had furnished themselves with vessels that could carry on direct
traffic with India and that they had commenced to import direct a large number
of Indian and European goods from India to Jabarrah and Katif without landing
them at Maskat.
When Captain Malcolm reported* on the trade between Persia and India in
i boo, most of the trade of the Persian Gulf
•Append!* H. to the Selections, 1600—1S00.
vrith India or Africa or the Red Sea still
passed through Maskat. The commerce of Maskat was considerably interfered
with since about 1803 to 1821 by the Joasmi and other Arab pirates. After the
suppression of piracies in the Gulf, the piratical Arabs seem to have turned into
active traders and from the reports which are quoted in Chapters VII and VIII
{ante) it appears that the Arabs of the southern shore of the Persian Gulf as well
as of Maskat carried on a large portion of the traffic between India and the
Persian Gulf.
In 1863 Colonel Pelly reported that the trade of Maskat State was in a
partially transition condition owing to the division of the Imamship into two
separate Sultanates of Zanzibar and Maskat under the arbitrament of Earl
Canning.
In his reportf, dated 19th June 1869
fQuoted in Chapter XII o! this Prdcii.
Colonel Pelly writes:—
8. Muscat must, for the present, be excepted from the category of flourishing ports.
Her impoverishment is due in part to frequent revolution and intertribal feud; in part to the
fact that her position was formerly of more importance when it was the point where cargoes
were exchanged between the native craft of the littorals and square-rigged vessels ; and in
Dart also to the circumstance of the separation of the combined state of Zanzibar and
Muscat into two distinct States—a circumstance which naturally tended to reduce the sea­
borne traffic and communication between these two outhing portions of one Sultanat. But
even in regard to Muscat, it should be borne in mind that, while the total of her trade is
sadly reduced by the unsettled political condition, this falling off has been felt more by the
Native merchants than by our British Indian traders residing at Muscat. There are, I
believe, only two or three Native Arab merchants still doing business, or even residing in
Muscat; the rest of such trade as there is, is in the hands of Hindoos and Khojahs,
The condition of her trade with the prin­
{Prepared from Appendices F. (33)“(37)*
cipal countries during last 30 years is shown
in the following statement

i