Page 60 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

18 PIRATE PORTS.

greatly shortened. All merchandize pays here ten per cent, date
grounds and agricultural produce generally twenty per cent. It can
' boast of only forty or fifty dwellings. Hence to JDareyah six days
during two of which no water is procurable. y •

Kateef, &c.
From Ogair to Kateef two days. This is a considerable seaport town,
whither merchandize is brought for the interior of Arabia. A strong
fort defends the town and port, and from fifty to sixty villages are
scattered, at some distance from each other, containing individually
about two hundred houses. From Ogair to Kateef the inhabitants are
Arabs of the Uttoobee tribe; and thence to Grane is a sandy tract of
country, inhabited by Baddoos. The territory intervening between
Huailah and Kateef is called Beri Gattar. From Kateef to Fantas, near
Grane, is half a day. From Grane the district is called Adan, and is
inhabited by Baddoos ; opposite to which lies the island of Jarim, on the
banks of which the Amaeer tribe of Arabs fish for pearls from spring
to autumn, and during the rest of the year lead a pastoral life.
The tribes inhabiting the Pirate Ports are allied, by common descent,
to those Arab families who subsist under the Persian Government, on
the opposite shore, at the ports of Tahiri, Aseeloo, Naabund, Congoon,
Nakheeloo, Cheeroo, Charak, Sertes, Mogoo, Bastion, Shinas, Lingah,
and Koong. Of these stations, Charak has shown itself most hostile to
us ; the rest are comparatively innocent ; which in them, and indeed
in every petty tribe of the Gulf, results rather from weakness and a
dread of our power than from a deficiency of inclination to a life of
piracy, or a conviction of its lawless character.
Of the coast on which these ports are situated, and their islands,
Captain Seton, formerly Resident at Muskat, speaks as follows :—Of
those islands in the Persian Gulf which are known to our navigators,
the greater part have wood, water, an telopes, and wild goats ; they have
also verdure in the rainy season, and in some of them the Natives
weave a coarse cloth of cotton. Surdy has large plantations of date
trees, some wild apple and banian trees, with water, and firewood.
Polior has few date trees, but a great abundance of wild thorn for
firewood, and some water. Bomosa is less fertile than the two above
mentioned, but possesses in a small degree the produce indigenous to
the other two islands. All of them are frequented by the inhabitants
of the opposite coasts, who are left undisturbed in their possession.
Koong, Lingah, Shinas, and Mogoo are close to one another, and
under the conlrol of Guzeeb bin Sawood bin Guzeeb, nephew of Sultan
Suggur, of Shargah. From Mogoo to Charak is governed by Abdoo
of the Joasim Chieftain.
Rahman bin Suggur, not, however, the son