Page 112 - Records of Bahrain (1) (i)_Neat

102 Records of Bahrain

BAHREIN. 107

together with Ins occasional capture of the Bahrein trading vessels,
proving that lie has not abandoned his hostile designs, arc not calculated
to give confidence to the refugees.
Six large Buggalows (not including those belonging to the authori­
ties), thirty to forty of the size employed in the Gulf trade, and from
five hundred to six hundred pearl boats, probably make up at the
present time the shipping of this once extremely commercial and fertile
island; wliioh, according to a rough estimate formed by Major Wilson,
then Resident, numbered, in 1829, twelve large vessels, the property of
the Chief Shaikh Abdoolla bin Ahmed, and the other Shaikhs, his
relations, mounting in all about fifty guns; twenty-one large merchant
vessels now in Bahrein ; five hundred common fishing and cargo
boats; and fiftocn hundred pearl fishing-boats.
The bulk of the population of Bahrein, which is entirely distinct
from the Uttoobccs, who arc Soonccs, consists of the aboriginal inha­
bitants, professing for the most part the Shcca tenets of-the Mahomodan
faith. These are greatly oppressed, and held in a most degraded slate
of vassalage by their Ultoobcc masters, of which some conception may
be formed from a.remark by the same authority (Major Wilson) in 1829,
that cc the enormities practised by the Uttoobces towards the original
inhabitants of Bahrein far exceed what I have ever heard of tyranny
in any part of the world.”
ft may not be out of place here to notice the positive.assertion made
by Shaikh Abdoolla bin Ahmed to the Resident, on the latter’s visiting
Bahrein in June 1839, that " there arc many parts between the islands
and the main where neither Buggalows nor ships would be of any
service in preventing a large fleet of boats from making its way across
in the course of a few hours.” He added, that “ in the time of Shaikh
Nasir, lie had himself successfully attacked Bahrein in this manner,
although his antagonist possessed a strong naval force, but which could
not be;made available.”
This assertion, however, requires confirmation, as well from the late­
ness of the discovery of the important fact it disclosed, as from the
circumstances arising out of his policy at the time, as connected with
the Egyptian commander, ICorshid Pasha, having rendered it the
interest of the Ultoobec Chief to make it.
Esai bin Tarif and Bushirc bin Ramah, after their successful attack
upon Bahrein, removed with their dependents to Biddah, a dependency
of that island, upon the Gutlur Coast.
Esai and his tribe, numbering about a thousand men capable of .bear­
ing arms, possess three large Buggalows (one copper bottom), which trade
to India; five Bulccls, each from eighty to a hundred tons; eleven large
Butccls and Buggalows; and about a hundred and thirty pearl boats.