Page 117 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

army in India. They took the road from Bushirc in the direction
of Shiraz, stopping at some of the villages which were under the
control of the Shaikh of Bushirc, whose authority was very exten­
sive. The weather had become hot, so they usually rode at night,
staying during the day at a village. Much of the country through
which they passed was very different to the harsh, barren shores
of the Gulf. The air at night was scented by many flowering
shrubs; there was a continuous concert from the bulbuls, Persian
nightingales, and fireflies sparkled among the vegetation. Their
pleasant rides through the country were only disturbed when
they came near villages and were surrounded by packs of half­
wild dogs.
The first village at which they stayed is called by Loch ‘Ali-
shangu’; it consisted of‘a few miserable huts, and some thatched
hovels enclosed in a palm branch fence’, which was a caravansarai
which the travellers to and from Bushirc regarded as ‘an absolute
luxury’. Loch was impressed by the industry and skill of the
Persian peasants ‘who, contrary to the Arabs, arc fond of culti­
vation’, although plundered and oppressed by the landlords. The
dislike of the coast Arabs for any form of agricultural employ­
ment is still one of their characteristics. In Bahrain, the cultivators
are the aboriginal Shia Arabs, it is almost unheard of for a Sunni
Arab to work in a garden or a date grove. In the villages which
they passed, Loch found that it was the custom of the landlord to
take one-third of all the produce as rent, but in addition to this, he
extracted large gifts in kind, and sent much of his stock - horses,
sheep and cattle - to be kept and fed by the tenants, without
any payment. The tyranny and robbery by the landlords, had
brought the country to ‘a miserable state of. almost utter ruin’.
On the second day, they stayed at a house belonging to Bruce
near the village of Borazjan. It was a fertile neighbourhood with
gardens and orchards irrigated by an underground water channel,
which brought sweet water from some springs in the distant hills.
These underground channels, qanats, which were described by
Strabo eighteen centuries ago, are much used in Persia, and were
at one time, the chief water supply for many of the gardens in
Bahrain. But in Bahrain, most of them have been allowed to
fall into disuse, and gardens are now irrigated from artesian wells,
which are allowed to flow continuously, with the result that the
water table all over the islands is falling rapidly.
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