Page 715 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

1932

then as I said I would drive him back in my car. He talked incessantly, quite intelligently and with a complete lack of shyness,
like the modern young man, he told me all about his affairs, his marriage and many other things. He writes a lot and said if he
retired from the Navy he could keep himself on his writing, but, as he said, awful tripe, mostly for cheap magazines which I
had hardly heard of. He never writes under his own name. I was quite interested by him but wished he did not stay so long.
Altogether a very oily day.

Sunday [24 April]

Dull gray day, warmish. Fort before breakfast and then Police Station. Shaikh Sulman came to court very hoarse, said
he had had a bad cold but now recovered. Called on Shaikh Ali bin Hassan at Senobis in the afternoon, he had a lot of
people who wanted to see me to complain about the Wakf Committee, rather annoyed at them being there as I dislike
deputations without warning, stayed till sunset. Holmes left. Dined with Ham, Prior and the Steeles were there, a very
gloomy party, sat and listened to very bad gramaphone records after dinner and left early. A certain Indian Seyed, a
sort of Mullah, arrived on the boat and I let him land, he had been refused admission once some years ago, he was in
the house of Farook when we came here and used to make a noise all night, as there did not seem to be anything
definite against him and he had a proper passport I saw no reason for keeping him out. Later several people came to
me and said he was a bad person and practised magic specialising in dope for women supposed to attract men. Told
them that if anyone had real information on the subject he should report it to the Police. He is living near the Wireless
with the Baluchis who are special followers of his. Ghulum is being married. The lady lives behind the Shia school.
He had quite a show. I saw it in the distance.

Monday [25 April]

Court. Cold day. The weather is queer, one day really hot the next quite cold. In the afternoon I went over to Sitrah
with Said Ahmed and Mohamed Dweyger. We went from Essex Point, as the tide was out we walked out to the sea till
we could get to a tiny little fishing boat and then we all crowded into it, it was a tight fit, there was a good wind so we
got across quite well and were met by donkeys on the other side, they have some very fine ones there. Rode right
across the island to one of the villages where people had been summoned to see about electing a new member for the
Wakf Committee, there were about a hundred Baharna, all very friendly. We sat in the open and had a long talk with
them, Mohamed Dweyger made a speech, quite impromptu and very good and then we found that the people didnt
want to make any change but were all satisfied with the present man, which was really quite satisfactory. Rode back to
the sea and got a bigger boat but as the tide and the wind were both against us we took a very long time getting back
and did not reach the shore till well after dark. It was really cold in the boat coming back and the water was very
chilly. After dinner I had Shaikh Abdulla to call, he stayed a very long time but was quite interesting. I made coffee in
the coffee machine but as usual he said it was very bad coffee. As it happened it was too weak. Heard a good deal of
local gossip from him which was useful. He said the best coffee should be cooked by an Iraqi, pounded by a Hassawi
and done something else with by some other nationality, I doubt if this is often done.