Page 659 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

657

1931

important secret news which was very interesting. In the afternoon we attended a party in the Municipal garden given in my
honour, an awful affair, the sort of thing I always dislike intensly, the Shaikh attended and all the notables and there was the
usual supply of highly coloured drinks and speeches to which I had to reply, all the English and American community
appeared and the head man from the oil field who seemed quite a decent fellow. In the evening the Shaikh gave a dinner party
at the Palace, mostly European, in my honour. It was a pleasant affair, he is really wonderful the way he adapts himself, his
manner and his attitude on these occasions is admirable and he never seems at loss as to how to behave. Mrs Steele, the new
Engineer's wife was there, she is quite pretty and looks very young though she has been married for ten years, but her accent is
simply awful. After dinner we went along to the de Greniers and played Bridge, rather a hot evening, or it may be that one
feels it hot after being at home for six months. The Shaikh looks pretty well and seems in very good form, he asked much
about the political situation in England and I was able to tell him the results of the election which we got from telegrams on the
boat. He met Baldwin when he went to England and always takes a sort of personal interest in him. Out here the man whose
name is best known among all English politicians is Lloyd George, I never know why. I hear that Hedgecock, who was the
new Adviser to the Sultan of Muscat, has left after six months of endless rows with the local Government, the Sultan's son and
the Government of India, they are in a bad way and very nearly bankrupt and like all these eastern rulers the Sultan wont
economise. The pearl trade is very bad, though they have sold all this years pearls they have still last season's catch on their
hands, all very worrying. The de Greniers have made their house look quite nice but of course nothing like ours which is
easily the best furnished and the best arranged one here. M heard from young Morland, at Lamberhurst, who we vaguely
invited to come here on his way to India, saying he was arriving on the 26th and would stay a fortnight, I have never met him
so hope he will be a success, his people live next to her aunt and are the big people of that neighbourhood. All the Arabs are
very depressed at the financial position out here, and so am I!

Friday [30 October]
Spent the whole morning in the house arranging things and unpacking, it takes some time to get everything tidy though the
house is wonderfully clean and except some curtains having been eaten by mice nothing is injured. Tennis at the Agency in
the afternoon, played very badly as I am out of practice, didnt get much at home this year. There seemed such a lot of people
at the Agency, there were two Turks who have come here on a sort of tour of the Gulf where they are cadging money from the
various Shaikhs and chiefs, one is a grandson of the late Sultan of Turkey and calls himself on his card Imperial Ottoman
Prince so and so, a fat nasty looking man with a very red nose who lives at Nice and told me he played Baccarat very well, the
other is Jamal Pasha quite a distinguished Turkish general who was a big noise in the Turkish Tripoli war in 1912 when the
Italians were fighting the Turks in north Africa, later he was with the Senussi fighting on the Western Desert of Egypt against
the English, when I was out there, and since then he has been King Ibn Saoud's Minister of War in Arabia, but now he seems to
be doing nothing. I liked him and it was interesting talking about the Western Desert which he knew very well. Jamal Pasha
talked french and I got on quite well with him.

Saturday 31st October

Court in the morning, all just as usual. Rather warm in the court. I thought that the Baharna looked unusually wretched and ill
fed, probably owing to the bad season this year. In the afternoon we went out and paid calls on all the Europeans in Manama,
leaving cards, they were all out except Mrs Hakken and the Steeles, we stayed some time at their house but Mrs Steele rather
annoyed me by talking so much about having so little furniture. She is a very common tiresome young woman, if I had seen