Page 33 - Arabian Studies (V)

Lieutenant Wyburd's Journal of an Excursion into Arabia 23

‘Abbas, carrying letters of introduction from the Sultan of Muscat
and, with some difficulty, there he acquired horses. From Bandar
‘Abbas he proceeded northwards in a leisurely fashion, stopping en
route at Tarom to hunt deer and examining archaeological remains
at Darab in the company of the Vice-regent whom he describes as
his ‘old friend’ Mirza Muhammad Khan. Finally he reached Shiraz
by which time he had run out of money and was forced to apply for
funds to the Acting British Resident at Bushire, Samuel Hennell.
Having sorted out his financial difficulties he then adopted the
guise of a ‘Georgian mussulman’ wishing to visit Mecca and
proceeded through Ka‘ab territory to Basrah. On arrival he disco­
vered that Kuwait and Muhammarah were infected with plague and
therefore decided to survey the Karun river instead of proceeding
into Najd. By the time he reached Baghdad, after witnessing a
spectacular murder of revenge among the BanI Lam which he
describes in lurid detail, the plague had caught up and he was
forced, so he says, to remain there for another two months. He
then returned to Basrah, intending to set out this time for Najd via
Zubayr and Kuwait but again ran out of money and had to return
to Bushire.5
In spite of Wyburd’s seemingly inefficient manner of proceed­
ing, the Resident at Bushire, D.A. Blane, reported favourably to
Bombay and recommended that he should be allowed to continue:
‘In dress and manner he has attained considerable resemblance to
the people of the country through which he has to travel, and
although hospitality be one of the virtues on which the Arabs parti­
cularly pride themselves, the uniform good treatment and absence
of all suspicion or scrutiny regarding either his papers or property,
as described by him in conversation, are most remarkable, and
must be in a great measure attributed to the peculiar talent above
noticed’.6 As a gesture of his good intentions Wyburd submitted a
preliminary report on the information he had gathered on the tribes
of the Tigris and Euphrates.
In September 1832 he finally set out for Najd, travelling again
through Basrah and on to ‘Uqayr, Hufuf and Bahrayn where indis­
position forced him to abandon his researches and return to
Bushire. From Bushire he submitted to Bombay the report printed
below on his travels in eastern Arabia, with the accompanying
chart of the Hasa Oasis.
Wyburd’s later and better known exploits are described by C.R.
Low in his History of the Indian Navy (London, 1877). In 1835 he
was sent by the British Envoy at Tehran on a mission to Khiva and,
almost predictably, disappeared. Ten years later it turned out that
he had never reached IGiiva but had been seized en route by the