Page 577 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

Thursday [24 July]

Customs in the morning. Walker came in to talk about the Mohamed Sherif case, it seems that he is wanted
by the Bombay Bank in connection with a matter of £10,000. Altogether he seems to have got away with
about £20,000 and now they wont be able to lay hands on him as the Persian Government will do nothing to
help them. Went out in the new car in the afternoon to see the work on the aerodrome. They have made a
big white circle and put up marks on two hillocks which were considered dangerous. It seems to be a very
good job. Dined with Major Holmes, he had quite a big dinner party, all the English people but none of the
Mission. Played Bridge, we are both doing badly this month, it is curious how ones luck alters each month.

Friday [25 July]

Had breakfast with Holmes. He is going up to Kuwait and then I think to England. He really is not the age to
stand Bahrain in the summer, or the build being very fat and rather short or breath always. As Prior was
away there was no tennis at the Agency so in the afternoon we motored with Holmes along the Rafaa road to
the site of the new well. James had a bit of a temperature, I think it is all because he is teething. The
weather is getting hotter.

Saturday 26th [July]

Court. Motored out to one of the Shaikh's gardens with the puppy in the afternoon. It is very pleasant out in
the gardens, the one we went to might in places be a bit of an English wood as besides the palm trees there
are a lot of big tamarind trees which look very like European trees. Saw the place where the water supply
has been repaired, the garden is much better now. The fault of most of the gardens here which belong to
the Ruling Family is that they take everything out of them and never put any thing into them, they drain
them. The Shaikh is the only person who ever spends anything on them. They are really not "gardens" but
plantations of date trees with some other trees mixed in them. Very hot evening. On the way back we
motored through several of the Bahrain villages and in all of them we saw crowds of women and children
going about in processions with burning torches, in one they had a big bonfire and were throwing date
boughs into it. It is apparently a custom at the end of Safer which together with the month of Ramadan is a
month of mourning. It was a very picturesque sight. After dinner the Shaikh sent down a message about a
man who was arrested for debt by the small court, saying that he would stand security for him and he was to
be released. I wrote along to Parke and told him to let the man go. The weather is heating up and lately the
nights have been very hot and very damp. At times the atmosphere in the house in the evening is exactly like
a very hot green house with all the pipes on and a lot of standing water about.

Sunday 27th July

Bower called this morning, he is the man from the African and Eastern Corporation in Basra, they are the
people who have lost most in the Mohamed Sherif case. They apparently have suffered to the extent of