Page 58 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

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1926

Went to the office in the morning, but not much doing there. After breakfast went with Daly in the launch to
Muharraq; met at the quay by the Amir & Sheikh Abdulla's car. The tide was out so we were carried to the launch at
this end in a chair which was made about 20 years ago for Lord Curzon when he visited Bahrain, at that time it broke &
he got a ducking, & being very pompous he was very angry about it! At Muharraq we got onto donkeys & rode ashore
from the launch. Lots of people everywhere all looking very smart in their new Eid clothes. A misty gray day &
though I took my camera I got no pictures. Drove first to old Shaikh Isa's house, the old deposed sheikh. He is about
80, an obstinate old party with a white beard & reminds me of a retired nursery governess. Sheikh Abdulla & Hamed
were there too, the three sat in a row, on chairs, along one side of the room, we sat opposite. Polite conversation,
coffee, & rosewater. Talked most of the time about coffee. Sh Isa discussed where he had met the best & finally
agreed that it was at Mecca. It is really comic to hear them talking together - so intensely polite and formal. Then to
call on Sheikh Mahomed, the other brother; he is the scholar of the family, an insignificant looking man with
spectacles, very mischievous though & a great oppressor of the poor. He received us in his "Meglis" an enormous long
room which he built after visiting Cairo, at the far end a few chairs & a table with cigarettes. His three sons came in, I
liked the looks of one of them but not the others. Coffee & rosewater as usual, conversation mostly about smoking &
silver work. Then to Sheikh Abdulla's, his is the best house of the three. He is far the most intelligent of the family, &
the biggest rogue. He talked politics, about the strike, bolshies, & about his time in England. He went once before, in
1918, & stayed a fortnight at the Savoy, & owing to some mistake or bad management there was no one detailed to
look after him! He seems to have enjoyed being there very much. Motored back to the quay, & got home by lunch
time.

Went to tennis at the Spences in the afternoon. Spence, as usual, talked "shop" the awful little American dentist, a
protegé of the Missionaries, was there, a dreadful creature. Pennings asked me to let him one room in the Sheikh's
office as a dental parlour. The idea! Played one sett, afterwards had a driving lesson from Daly in the car. Really I
have no sort of feeling for driving - or engines or machines, & hate going at all fast, however its a very easy car to
drive, fortunately.