Page 13 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

out hawking, for to be slow and stately was considered compatible with and branded ice cream arc provided. Negro servants and Arab youths
the dignity and position of a Shaikh. A young Khalifah Shaikh who, when
quite a boy, became Amir—Governor—of a town on the death of liis
father, once told me how difficult it was to comport himself in the way
which his older relations considered suitable. When he succeeded his
father he was constantly told that he should walk more slowly, that he
should not laugh or show too much interest in people who talked to him,
he should assume a slightly abstracted air and should at all times try to
behave exactly as his father did, though the father was an elderly, old-
fashioned gentleman. This was twenty-five years ago, but the older Arabs
still have very set ideas as to what is seemly for a Shaikh to do—in public. into the dumpling. There were brittle sheets of bread, as thin as card­
We sat down, on the carpeted floor, in the ‘maglisl—reception-room
—which then appeared to me quite impressive. It was forty feet long but
rather narrow, as no steel beams were used in buildings. When Shaikh
Isa, the Shaikh’s father, heard that people were importing steel beams to
carry roofs he was quite upset as he considered it a dangerous innovation.
He was very conservative and it was said that he disapproved of mules
because their creation was contrary to nature. The walls of the room were
decorated with arabesques cut in the plaster, which was made from
gypsum, an art which unfortunately is dying out in Bahrain. Doors and
window shutters were made of carved teak wood from India, and the
ceiling consisted of mangrove poles with a criss-cross of split bamboos
above them, then matting, and on top a thick layer of mud.' Reinforced
concrete was still a thing of the future in Bahrain. We leant against large,
hard cushions, in white cotton covers. In later years these covers were
usually decorated with embroidery which was taught in the girls’ schools.
Several beautiful silugi hounds sprawled on the carpets and the Shaikh s
favourite bitch, Hosha, which accompanied him everywhere, even on
official occasions, lay at his feet.
The Shaikh called out ‘Gahwa’—coffee—a servant at the door re­
peated the word, someone outside called out ‘Gahwa’ and a voice in the
*
distance, more faintly, echoed the word. After a pause it was brought in
by an old black servant, a descendant of slaves. A very little coffee was dined with the Shaikh. His knowledge of the East was based on journal­
poured from a brass beaker into small china cups, without handles. It was
rather thin, flavoured with cardamom and cloves, unlike any other coffee.
Three cups was the most that should be taken; to shake the empty cup
indicated that another fill was not required.
The dinner was typical of hundreds of meals which I subsequently
enjoyed, but it was very different from the meals to which one is invited
nowa days when chairs and tables, knives and forks, fruit imported by air
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carried in the food in big copper trays balanced on their heads. After
rinsing our hands in water poured by a servant from a tall copper ewer,
we sat round a circular palm-leaf mat, on the floor. I was accustomed to
sitting cross-legged, but for people who are not agile, or women in tight
or short skirts, it is an awkward, inelegant affair.
On a mound of rice there were two sheep, roasted whole, stuffed with
rice, full of currants and almonds. In the sheep were whole chickens, with
hard-boiled eggs inside them. The Daly boy asked how the chickens got
into the sheep, like King George III who wondered how the apple got
board, bowls of stewed meat, heaps of brown dates, a wooden bowl,
ornamented with brass nails, full of sour milk with lumps of. cream
floating on it—one fished out the cream with a piece of bread—and plates
of cornflour pudding, with a flavour and scent like hair-oil.
It was a silent meal. Arab meals are regarded as occasions for eating,
not for conversation. The Shaikh threw a few joints of meat to his hounds,
when they pressed nearer; Hosha was usually given a whole leg of mutton,
which she ate in the corner. When each person had eaten enough he got
up with a murmur of thanks, washed his hands and was given a few
toothpicks, slivers of bamboo. If the mutton was stringy this was a very
necessary attention. People unaccustomed to Arab meals find it difficult
to squeeze rice into balls and convey it to their mouths without dropping
it, but one soon acquires the knack of eating without implements and at
least one can ensure that one’s hands are clean, which is not always the
case with knives and forks.
After dinner I began to take out my cigarette-case, but Daly signed
to me not to do so. Shaikh Hamed never smoked. Any kind of smoke
seemed to affect him; if he was in a garden where there was a bonfire he
would move away from the smoke holding his headcloth pressed over his
face. Nobody smoked when he was present.
Soon after the oil company was established an important oil magnate
istic inaccuracies in the American Press. ‘Will the Sheek give me the
sheep’s eye?’ he asked me. ‘No, it’s most unlikely,’ I said. ‘It’s not done in
Bahrain.’ But he kept on talking about it. The Shaikh asked me what his
guest was saying, so I told him. ‘Does he really want to eat the sheep’s
eye?* said the Shaikh. I replied, ‘He seems to wish to.’ The Shaikh pulled
one of the heads from the dish, gouged out the eye and handed it to the
American. The oil magnate was delighted; he swallowed it whole and, I
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