Page 819 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

Office all day. Tennis in afternoon, a lot of people & two RAF, one of them, Arnold, had been in Egypt &
Sudan & I found him interesting to talk to. Adam Freund is leaving tomorrow for Paris, by air, & has bought
nothing. The pearl market is in a bad way, there are no buyers & nothing doing at all. The big Hindu
merchant who bought a lot last year is not coming & when this was known prices dropped 20%. Went to
Shia Wakf meeting. M played tennis, the first time since the Spring. It is now quite cool & pleasant to play.

Thursday 28th [September]

Really delicious weather. Fort in the morning. I am very short of men now as there is a lot of fever about,
malaria. Office. The old Shia Kadi came to call, he sits & makes complimentary speeches for ages on end, so
tiresome, one doesnt know what to say, but I like the old man & he has a very lively twinkle in his one eye &
sees a joke. Customs & Police station. Played golf after tea, sun sets very early now, before six, so it is
difficult to know how to divide the afternoon.

Friday 29th [September]

Various people came round in the morning, a practice I dont encourage on Fridays as it is my one day off.
The outer buoy has disappeared, it is very strange. There have been no storms yet within a week two buoys
have gone & now the entrance to Bahrain is not marked at all. I suspect the Persians who are quite capable
of doing this especially knowing about the naval visit next week. Even with the buoys the harbour is very
dangerous & without them it is almost impossible for ships to get in if they dont know it. Went for a long
drive in the afternoon, to Yatim's garden, where I had a bathe, & then round by Aali. We had tea above Lozi
on the top of the hill where there is a very beautiful view across the palm groves to the tombs with the Jebil
in the distance. Very cool evening though a hotter day as there was no shamaal. Took down a fence in the
garden to let in more air. The trees have grown so big that the garden is rather cramped.

Saturday September 30th GHUFFAL (close of the Diving season)

Didnt go to the Fort, worked in the office. Hotter day, no wind. Court. Sh Sulman talked about the matter of
the buoys & also suspected Persia. He said we, England, are to blame as we do not take a strong tone now-a-
days and nothing but firmness will do with Persia. The Arabs all think we are very weak nowadays in the Gulf
& it is doing us a lot of harm. Slept in afternoon as I was very late last night. I expected to go out opium
raiding but my informer didnt come though I waited till midnight. Fahad al Bassam came to tea, he was
interesting & discussed the probability of war between Ibn Saoud and Imam Yazlah of the Yemen, the latter is
better equipped with modern arms etc but Ibn Saoud has more men. He told me the Shaikh of Kattar had
returned from his visit to Bin Saoud loaded with presents, motor cars, slaves and rifles. The whole pearling
fleet came in in afternoon, we hired a launch & all went out to meet it, M, James & Nannie. A wonderful
sight, there were a couple of hundred huge sailing boats sailing gently in all crowded with men. I took my
camera but it was too dark, such a pity as its a most unusual chance. The men all waved at us & James
enjoyed it enormously. It was a lovely sight, the dark blue sea, rose coloured sunset and all the white sails
just touched with pink, sometimes we got a silouette of a ship between us & the sunset, with all the men
looking like cut out black paper. Unfortunately they had a bad gear. At night one saw a long line of lights