Page 772 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

the admiral and the S.N.O. as well. We danced and played Bridge. The Lochs did the party quite well but
she had entirely forgotten to see about any gramaphone records for dancing so I had to lend her mine. I
played Bridge, but very bad Bridge. In the evening we had the Russells and the Skinners to dinner to meet
Bentinck, quite a good party.

Sunday 18th December

Fort in the morning and then court. The Admiral was having a lunch party but as there was a very bad
shamaal and sea very rough he put it off, we should not have gone at any rate. In the early afternoon I
went to another sort of meeting in the Shia Matem about Shaikh Isa. It was very wet in the town and all the
roads thick with mud. The meeting was quite well done and not as long as the Sunni one which I attended
on Friday. The Matem is a sort of village hall where they hold meetings and Muharram celebrations.
Various people got up and made speeches or recited poems about Shaikh Isa. I am quite sick of hearing so
many lies about his virtues, he was really a very tiresome old man and was deposed because he was so
incompetent and so unfair to the Shias. The Matem was a very picturesque one with arches all round and
very handsome carved wooded pillars supporting the roof. At the Sunni meeting there was a very offensive
Iraqi Seyed who made a very anti English speech, this was afterwards reported to me so I told Loch about it
and we had the man arrested without warning and put on the boat and packed off. I only wish I had done
this to him before as I had heard some rumours of his speeches about the place. In the afternoon we took
several of the men off the ship down the bazaar and afterwards they all came in to tea with us, one man I
specially liked, a marine officer called Chator who had been ten years in the Sudan but after the time I was
there. He knew a lot of men who I knew there. They all seemed very interested in seeing the place. In the
evening we dined at the Agency, rather a dull party and as usual a very inadequate dinner. We did not play
Bridge but just sat and talked. The admiral is extremly nice but older than we expected having heard that
he was the youngest admiral in the navy.

Monday 19th [December]

Fort in the morning, it rained on and off most of the day, the streets are in a terrible mess. Court but
finished early as we went out to lunch on the Hawkins. The sea was quite smooth and it was all very nice.
We lunched at a huge long table in the Admiral's rooms, there were about twenty people and several of the
officers. The lunch was excellent and a marine band played outside all the time. I liked the band almost
more than any part of the show. After lunch we did a tour of the ship and looked at all the guns, but that
part of the show I found very boring. My boy Hamood smuggled himself onto the launch and saw over the
ship with Bentinck's servant who was in our house with him. He was very thrilled and we heard him telling
the other servants all about it all the rest of the day. He was very impressed by the Band, never having
heard a real military band before or any other band. After tea we went to the D.Gs and played Bridge, they
turned the ship's searchlights onto the town after dark, but only for a short time so we didnt see much of
the show. James has a cold and is taking a day in bed and much enjoying it.

Tuesday 20th December