Page 238 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 6 -10

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29C SULTANATE OF KOWEIT

structure surrounding a court; a central mass of irregular buildings ;
and the serai, built by an architect of Baghdad, with high reception
halls surrounded by corridors with great open arcades. The better
houses of Ivoweit arc of plastered stone, but the great majority
have mud walls, and are of only one storey, with a parapet round
the flat roof ; they are usually built about interior courts. The
mosques, of which there arc about 30, arc of plain appearance,
with low rectangular minarets ; the chief mosque has a large
portal on the N. side not without some pretence to dignity.
As eastern cities go, Ivoweit is a well-kept place, though some
parts suffer from uncleared refuse, and it is badly ofF for water.
- ■.
In 1914 it was decided to establish a condensing-apparatus, an
alternative scheme for boring artesian wells having been rejected.
The town has hitherto depended on supplies brought by sailing-boats
from the Shatt el-‘Arab (see p. 28G), but great inconvenience resulted
whenever these boats were weather-bound. Drinking-water is also
obtained from wells 4 miles away, and the Sheikh’s private supply
is carried from the wells of Qasr es-Sirrah and Mishrif in the tract
of Qra'ah.
It has been already stated that almost the whole population of
the principality is concentrated in the town (see p. 2SG). The great
majority of the inhabitants are Arabs, but there are about 1,000
Persians, and some 200 Jews, while negroes, slaves and free, number
some 4,000. Nearly all the people are Sunnis, but the Mecca
Pilgrimage, now made only by sea, is said not to attract more than
50 persons in the year. The Arabs of Ivoweit are not of a robust
type, but usually of slender build and sickly complexion. The
men wear the ordinary dress of the sedentary Arab with a kafiyah
of red and white, the women black veils and mantles, with a
bright-coloured skirt sometimes displayed beneath. A curious
feature of life in the town is the emergence after sunset of innumer­
able beggars, mostly children, who besiege the houses for morsels
of the evening meal, and are seldom sent away empty.
The chief occupations are maritime (p. 286) ; there is no agri­
culture nor cultivation, all vegetables and similar produce coming
I from Jahrah. Retail traders comprise dealers in Bedouin require­
ments, leather-workers, haberdashers, tailors, goldsmiths, tinsmiths,
date-merchants, grocers, and druggists.
2. Jahrah, a large and important village of town rank near the
foot of Koweit Bay, 20 miles by road W. of Koweit. It is the chief,
and almost the only seat of agriculture in Koweit territory, and
caravans to Basra, and Boreidah via Hafar, pass through it'' The
permanent inhabitants are chiefly cultivators of Nejdi extraction,