Page 31 - Arabian Studies (V)

Lieutenant Wyburd’s Journal
of an Excursion into Arabia

Penelope Tuson

During the 1820s a combination of political and economic factors
led the East India Company to modify its former entrepreneurial
role in the Gulf in favour of the development of peaceful diplo­
matic relations with the rulers and tribes in the bordering areas,
particularly those on the Arabian side.
The reason for this change in emphasis was the growing preoccu­
pation of officials both in Calcutta and London with the question
of communications between England and India and, more specifi­
cally, the protection and development of overland routes. The stra­
tegic importance of the Gulf area in this context had been brought
into prominence during the Napoleonic wars, and a continuing
desire to keep the Gulf waters safe for British shipping was the
motivating force behind the expeditions against the Qawasim
between 1806 and 1820. After the conclusion of the General Treaty
with the shaykhs of the Arab maritime ports in 1820, the Company
became increasingly involved in affairs in eastern Arabia and for
the first time made positive arrangements to obtain information
about the balance of political power there.1
At the same time the development of steam navigation
introduced the possibility of much faster communication between
England and India and its cause was immediately taken up, first at
Bombay by Mountstuart Elphinstone and Sir John Malcolm and
later at East India House by Thomas Love Peacock.2 The investiga­
tions initiated by these men and by other enthusiastic supporters of
steam shipping in the decades after 1820 produced an unpreceden­
ted number of surveys and reports on the Red Sea, the Euphrates
and Tigris valleys and the Arabian shores of the Gulf. The most
important surveys were carried out by officers of the Indian Navy,
or Bombay Marine as it was called before 1830, and were submitted
firstly to the Government of Bombay, who were responsible for the

21