Page 12 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

appreciation for Oriental antiques, especially china, which both he and I
son, aged seven, Abdulla bin Jabr, the Shaikh’s secretary, and Major
Frank Holmes. Abdulla was a strikingly handsome Arab of the Dawasir collected. He was one of the few people in Bahrain, when we first arrived,
tribe whose good looks any film star would have envied. He dealt with who seemed to speak our own language and, as we got to know him
better, wc liked him more. The discovery of oil in the Gulf was due to
the Shaikh’s confidential affairs.
^ The Dawasir Arabs came to Bahrain in 1845 and settled at Budcya, Frank Holmes; from the very first he never wavered in his belief that
on the west coast, where they became rich and powerful. They owned a there was oil in Bahrain.
After leaving the town we drove along a narrow twisting road
fleet of pearling dhows and many divers, who were virtually slaves. They
were fine-looking men, tall, handsome and arrogant, and they terrorized bordered by date gardens. The sun was setting and the palm trees were
the villages in the neighbourhood. They were more or less independent silhouetted against a lemon-coloured sky. Beyond the gardens we crossed
and had opposed the appointment of Shaikh Hamed as Deputy Ruler. open desert, then climbed a hill through a vast area of ancient burial
But when they found that, with the support of die British, he was deter­ tumuli. From the top wc saw Jebel Dukhan, the Mountain of Smoke, in
mined to enforce their submission they secretly made plans to leave the centre of the island, looking quite impressive from a distance, although
Bahrain. One night the whole tribe embarked in their strips, with their only 450 feet high. The Shaikh’s house, in the foothills, was a straggling
divers and their possessions. They crossed to Saudi Arabia, where they i group of buildings standing whitely in the desert without a vestige of
were well received. Their big houses at Budeya were left empty and soon vegetation around it. My impression of the place that night was that there
they fell into ruin, giving the place the appearance of an ancient deserted were animals everywhere, tethered camels feeding on bundles of lucerne,
town. Later, the Government persuaded other Arabs to settle there' and donkeys, wandering goats, silugi hounds lying on the ground and hobbled
now Budeya has a school, a water supply, electricity and a police station; horses in the background. The varied smell of animals, with camels pre­
close to it is the Government Experimental Garden. A few of the Dawasir dominating, combined, with the scent of wood fires and a waft of incense,
remained in Bahrain and Abdulla was one of them. to produce an aroma which took me back to nights in camp on the
Frank Holmes, a New Zealander, was drilling artesian wells for the Western Desert.
Government. He represented a small British company, the Eastern and_ Standing in the moonlight, at the door of a building, I saw a tall,
General Syndicate, which had a concession from the Shaikh for exploring impressive figure, plainly dressed in white robes. On his shoulders he wore
the oil possibilities of Bahrain. He was not the ordinary type of concession- a white ‘bisht’—cloak—made of fine wool, on his head a Kashmir shawl,
hunter, he reminded me of a Somerset Maugham character—I wonder held in place by a golden fillet. The moonlight glinted on the gold scabbard
whether Somerset Maugham minds so many people being described as 1 of the dagger in his belt and on the signet ring which he wore on his right
like characters in his books! Holmes had lived in all parts of the world hand. His leather sandals were embroidered with coloured silks. The day had
and could hold one absorbed for hours by his real-life stories of people not yet come when Arabs took to wearing shoes and Europeans took to
he had met. Outwardly he was the bluff, Colonial type, but his manner wearing sandals. As we approached Daly said to me, ‘This is Shaikh Hamed.’
concealed great ability and skill in dealing with Arabs. He spoke no He was a handsome man with good features and fine hands, lively
language but his own but he got on very well with.the Bahrain people, dark eyes and a complexion no darker than a southern European. He had
who did not mind his habit of shouting at them and slapping them on the a black beard. Later I discovered that he dyed it every fortnight. The dye
\
t back, which they would have resented from anyone else. ) used to give him a form of hay fever and on those days he was rather un­
approachable. He walked towards us and greeted us warmly. Turning to
He was a heavily built man with a sun-bumed face and very blue
eyes, who always wore a hat, and a waistcoat under his coat, even in Daly he said, ‘So this is my Adviser.’ Then, taking my hand, he said, ‘We
summer, and carried a walking-stick with which he prodded his driver if welcome you to Bahrain and hope that you will be happy here.* Much
he drove too fast or too slowly. He used to say that he gave his servants to my relief I found that I had no difficulty in understanding him, or being
extra pay on condition that he could use his stick in this way; certainly understood. As he walked slowly up the steps into the room he asked
they were all devoted to him. He had a varied fund of knowledge about about our journey and how we had fared on the trip.
literature, natural history, the Bible, astronomy and geology and a great I never saw Shaikh Hamed make a hurried movement, except when
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