Page 361 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

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1928

Sunday 15th Jan.

Spent the whole morning seeing callers. A Persian from Muharrak with a proposition about pearl brokers, out of which
he would make a large sum & pay Govt 15000/- a year, also a long complaint about the Beladya moving the taxi stand
from near his coffee shops. Ghaus came & stayed hours discussing the question of the cinema & censorship, also
d
Yusuf Fakroo, with a grievance against the Secretary of Muharrak Biladya and Ah bin Khamis with various stories.
Didnt get any work done & altogether rather a tiresome morning. Also interviewed a boy sent from the school as a
possible clerk, found he didnt read & write English well enough, also the Arabic teacher.

Went out to Idari in the afternoon & saw the work on the water channel which is getting on very well. I
only hope it wont leak at the bottom. We are mending an old water channel about a mile long built many hundreds of
years ago, & apparently never repaired since.

Monday 16th [January]

Court. Tennis at the mission. Very stormy looking but no actual rain.

Tuesday 17th [January]

Very busy with an accumulation of work to do so didnt go to the Biladya meeting but wrote letters & did office work
the whole morning. The Agency want a report on the year 1927. It is so awkward having to do it as our calendar is the
Arabic one & entirely different months & years. Worked in the garden in the afternoon. Smith came in. Planted out a
lot of seedlings, stocks, cosmos & chrysanthemums. Hope they do alright. Dinner party at the Parkes. A moderately
good dinner but not very much of it. All the non mission people there. Afterwards a very good performance by an
Indian conjurer imported from Karachi. He was really wonderfully good. He did the famous mango tree trick,
producing a mango tree from nowhere. The best of his sort that I have ever seen.

Wednesday [18 January]

Went along to the Biladya before breakfast & saw the Secretary, went over the various things at yesterday's meeting.
After breakfast, rather belated, went to a meeting at the Shia Kadis to discuss building the school. Tried to persuade
them to alter the site to a place in reach of Manama as well as the outside villages but they wouldn't agree. Stayed
about two hours discussing it. They were really very sensible about it. Seyed Ednan looked much better than when I
last saw him. He has a little Meglis with one side open into a closed yard in the town quite close by. Spence came to
see me about the site for oil store at Swafieh, there is a lot of bother about it. I kept him waiting over an hour but really
I couldnt help it. Went over to the Agency with him afterwards. Rain in the afternoon. Tea and Bridge at Mespers.
Rainy day & very gray & depressing looking.