Page 406 - Records of Bahrain (3) (i)_Neat

396 Records of Bahrain

under Turkish rule.The tribesmen ropllod tlmt they hod de­
cided not to aooept Mo(tho Mudlr'o) advia^ao thoy mlqht
thon perhaps lo^so thoir possession* In 8iihrain,Tho Uudlr
oftorwords procoodod to the ruined fort on the west uldo
of the island,and ran up the flaq.He then told the Howasir
that ho did not ask of them anything, except to run up nnd
lower the tfln# ovory day at ounrlue and sunset,and when thoy
all loft the Island to return It to him In OJalr.The Downs lr
declined to comply with this request, and moot of them re-
turned to bahraln soon after the Mudlr*b departure,
6, I landed on Zokhnunlya on the 18th March,and
Hf
found that there woe only one bont^fisherman on the beooh.
The men,hahraln subjects, were llvinq in two or three tem­
porary mat hute at the southern extreialty of the island
and wore en*«v?ed in fishing for sharks,swordfish etc,,
The dilapidated fort on the west side of the
island was* uninhabited,but I noticed that a Turkish flfvj
was rolled up and attached to the bottom end of the halyard
and fastened tlcrht to the mast,The island Is absolutely
devoid of trees nnd brnkiuh water id only obtainable in
A
small quantities from shallow pits in the hollow^ of the
sand nounds.
7, From Zokhminiya I proceeded straight across the
boy of iiahrain to Horror Island,whore the Dovmsir have tv/o
similar winter villa.jes,I!oro I found in one locality a
collection of 40 lnrqe huts under the authority of p< cousin
of the tribal principal yhalkh.Thie individual, Wsa bin
Ahmad JJOslrl is also related by marriage to Shaikh Rua bin
All,and he told me that he had at first thought that the
Launch vms a Turkish gunboat,a visit from whlah they quite
expected to receive,He also told me that Zokhnunlya woo un­
doubtedly a possession of the Ohief of JJahrain,but that the
Dowaslr regarded Hawnr as their own independent territory,
the ownership of this island having been awarded to the
tribe by the Kivsl of Zubara more then 100 years aqo#in a
written decision v/hich they still preserve.
The contestin'* tribe named A1 bu Tobdio now
apparently extinct,but as the Kasl of Zubara was in those
days an offioiftjTbf the A1 Khalifa,the island would suem to