Page 101 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

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ARAB TRIBES.
protection, on the condition of assigning to him one-fifth of the value
of all captures.
The Imaum made two different attempts to reinstate the Joasmee
Chief in his hereditary possessions, but failed to accomplish that object;
and Shaikh Sultan, with some of his tribe, has since resided atShargah,
and occasionally at Lingah. Hussan bin Rehma is now in charge of the
Government of Ras-ool-Khyma, conjointly with his brother Ibrahim bin
Rehma, and it is said that one or other of the brothers always commands
in every fleet that goes out on a piratical cruise. They are first
cousins to Sultan bin Suggur, the legitimate Chief of Ras-ool-Khyma,
but devoted to the Wahabee power.
Next to the Wahabee power, the State of Muskat appears to have
contributed, by its injudicious policy, to the insecurity of the Gulf.
Their history proves that the Muskat Arabs were the first power in that
quarter that prosecuted piracy, but they have abandoned it since 1736.
Whenever the Government, however, has been efficient since that
period, it has engaged in petty wars, in the prosecution of views of
ambition which it has never been able to accomplish. With the most
powerful fleet in the Gulf, and the means of protecting Oman against
internal invasion if properly applied, the Imaum has been unable to
check the depredations of the Wahabee Joasmees ;—the Joasmees have
maintained their independence against every attempt on the part of the
Imaum to reduce their country. Equally unable has he been to reduce
Bahrein, or to retain it when reduced, the Arabs possessing that island
feeling themselves fully competent, as they manfully assert, and deter­
mined to defend it against attack by the Imaum, or any other Native
power in the Gulf. The prosecution of those views on the part of the
Imaum, leading to combinations among the Arab States either to promote
or counteract them, and the general warfare that invariably ensued,
have led to attacks on British vessels, and to check the trade of the Gulf.
In respect to the Uttoobee Arabs, I am disposed to think that the
account of their origin and establishment as a commercial tribe of
Arabs at Zobara will place their character in a very favourable light.
As long as their power enabled them to oppose the Wahabees, they
abstained from acknowledging allegiance to them. Inevitable necessity
drove them to seek that protection : they did not, however, resort to
that alternative, until after their offer to retire from their possessions on
the main to Bahrein, provided the British would protect them, was
declined. They cannot be charged with having committed a single
act of piracy ; they did not admit and promote the disposal of pirated
property, until they found a renewed engagement, which they were
anxious to enter into with the British, entirely disregarded. Self­
existence compelled them to acknowledge a power, whose preponderance