Page 474 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

472

1929

eating food without any profit. Played Bridge afterwards. Quite cool out on the veranda. Quite a lively party. Mrs
Straker admitted that her mother has aspidistras in her drawing room, she would!

Friday August 30th 1929
Hot morning. Went out to the end of the Agency pier and took a photo of a big pearling boat with its oars working.
Went in to see Sadiq Hassan who told me that the R.A.F. had wired asking me to put them up. Went to the Bank and
had a game of Bridge. Motored round the place in the afternoon. Hot day and damp. All the boats are coming in for
Safieh.

Saturday [31 August]
Went out in the evening with Seyed Seddiq to see the ground which Kozaibi has pinched. Abdulla Kozaibi met us and
we found a big crowd of Bahranis on the place all very excited at the idea of their cemetry being interfered with. Went
round the ground and showed them the boundaries which are quite plain. Abdulla got quite hysterical with annoyance.
The Bahranis walked along behind him making rude remarks about him and Ibn Saoud and Negdis in general. Abdulla
said he would move back to his proper boundaries. Drank some coffee with him in his garden and then went for a
drive. It will do the Kozaibis good to get a bit of a reverse. They had no right to take the ground and must have known
what they were doing. The mail arrived.

Sunday [1 September]

Shaikhs Abdulla and Mohamed and Sulman came in the morning and we held another inquisition on the affairs of Ali
bin Khalid. I enjoyed it. They treated him as if he was a naughty school boy or an imbecile. We have decided to take
over all his property as he is not capable of looking after it himself. He is a most awful little creature not I think all
there. He had sold a garden worth Rs 15,000 for Rs 5,000 to one of The Shaikh's sons, this sale we have cancelled.
Talked to Shaikh Abdulla about the new Inspector of Schools who we are getting from Beyrout, a married man with a
wife who is a trained teacher and whose grandmother was English. She sounds quite a find. In the afternoon I went
out in the car. Met Pack and Bienenfeld and Habib all in cars looking for their cook who had gone off saying he was
ill, apparently three cooks suddenly refused to work and as Pack had a dinner party he was very worried about it. He
eventually borrowed the Strakers one. Dinner at Packs to celebrate his son's birthday. A very good dinner and a very
lively one. Habib and Ben Simon were extremly amusing. Everyone got very bright indeed and some of them made
speeches, after dinner we motored out to the Portuguese Fort, pitch dark as no moon. A very pleasant party.
Foreigners do these things so well.

Monday [2 September]

Court. Went up to see the Shaikh in the evening. He didnt have anything much to say. He is bothered about the
management in his house and thinks his servants are cheating him, of course they are and always have been, its nothing
new. Very pleasant up on the roof and quite cool. The Shaikh talked about Paris, he has no opinion of it and said that