Page 377 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

JOASMEES. 333

tribe), who, also acting on the offensive by land, intercepted and carried
off a caravan of fifty camels, laden with dates from Brymee.
Pressed by famine, they fitted out three boats,* manned with five
hundred men, and secretly despatched them to sea by night. Twenty
vessels of the blockading squadron went in pursuit, but unable
to come up with them, returned after three days to resume their
position off Aboothabcc, reinforced by some additional vessels
from Bussora. The blockading squadron was not without its difficulties
and privations : provisions and water had to be brought from Ras-ool-
Khyma and Lingah, and each individual being required to send for
his own food, great suffering was experienced.
Both parlies, therefore, tiring of these protracted hostilities, and dis­
posed to come to an arrangement, a peace was
a. d. 1834.
easily effected, though the mediation of Ma­
homed bin Guzeeb, the Lingah Chief, on the condition that Shaikh
Khalecfa bin Shakboot should give up all the boats and property his
people had captured since the commencement of the war; and the
blockading fleets were withdrawn.
The Wahabces were desirous of befriending the Beniyas in this
quarrel, but the threats of their representatives at Brymee proved
insufficient to overawe the Joasmee Chief (whereby a decrease of the
power of the sect at that time may be argued), and had the effect only of
restraining the Bedouins from affording any assistance to Hussein bin
Rahmah, who had been despatched into the interior to raise troops for
the purpose of cutting off the communication with Aboothabec by land.
At the period of the disturbances in the Imaum’s dominions, owing
to the aggressions of his relative Humood bin
a. u. 1835.
Azan, Sultan bin Suggur proceeded with a large
fleet to his possessions of Khorc Fukaun and Dubba. Although
formerly requested by the Imaum to assist his representatives in Mus-
kat in any quarrels with their neighbours, it was evident that, far from
any intention to exert his power and influence in favour of His Highness’
relatives, his sole object was to avail himself of the state of affairs to
benefit and promote his own interests, at the expense of either party.
The proceedings of his fleet, however, were not confined to depreda­
tions upon the boats belonging to Soliar and its dependencies, as the
enemies of the Imaum, whose interests he pretended to serve, as also
upon the property of the subjects of the Muskat Government, his ally,
but were extended to acts of a decidedly piratical nature, upon the
vessels of individuals having no concern or connection whatever with
the contending parties. For these of course he was compelled by the

* For the proceedings of theso vessels, vide Sketch of the Beniyas,