Page 118 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

The local Shaikh and his retinue came to visit Bruce. The
three Englishmen sat on the verandah and the Shaikh and his
party sat on the ground in a semi-circle facing them, entertained
by a well-known itinerant singer. At one moment, he kept
everyone in roars of laughter at his unseemly songs and jokes, the
Persians, unlike the Turks and the Arabs, do not mind laughing
loudly - the next instant, he would draw tears from his audience,
singing of the past glories of Persia, and the deaths of ancient
heroes. Loch had no opinion of Oriental music, which he men­
tions with distaste more than once in his diary. Of this singer
lie says: ‘but if they were pleased with their music, God pity their
cars!’ To him, it seemed that the singer’s main object was ‘to see
how long and how hard lie could remain on one note, at the same
time having a constant quaver in his voice’. Bruce told Loch a
story about Sir John Malcolm’s visit to Bushirc a few years pre­
viously. There was a band on board the ship in which Malcolm
travelled, so ‘to please the natives’ when they arrived at Bushirc,
the band was sent ashore to give a public performance at which
the audience of Bushiris ‘with one accord exclaimed “How
hideous, how horrible!
The unfortunate singer who performed for Loch and Bruce
was blind. During one of the revolutions in Persia, his eyes had
been put out. He was at one time a wealthy and important man
but, since he was blinded, he made his living as an itinerant singer,
dependent on the charity of his fellow-countrymen. Persians
used frequently to blind their political enemies. There is a story
of a European woman who, when visiting the ladies in one of the
Persian royal households, saw a little boy walking about with his
eyes blindfolded. She asked him what was the matter with his
eyes. He told her he was learning to walk about without seeing
because, when he grew up, he would probably have his eyes
put out. This habit was not unknown in the Gulf. About
thirty years ago, two or three Arabs came to Bahrain from one
of the Trucial Shaikhdoms for medical treatment by the American
Mission doctor. He could do nothing for them, for each of them
had had his eyes burned out with a hot iron.
From Borazjan the party went on to Dalaki, another village
which belonged to the Shaikh of Bushire. The inhabitants had
revolted against the Shaikh, owing to his oppressive measures,
and extreme severity, but on the day of Loch’s arrival, the Shaikh’s
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