Page 138 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

Shaikh Nasr, in about 1765, became a Shia, and married a Persian
lady, ‘in hopes of being appointed Admiral of the Persian fleet’
- according to Niebuhr. But the marriage did him no good,
for he became ‘odious to his subjects and to his neighbours, and
his children are no longer counted among the Arabian nobility*.
The Bushiri Shaikhs had accumulated much wealth, for the
port which they controlled was the only one of importance on
the Persian coast though, as Buckingham said, ‘as a seaport,
Bushirc had no one good quality to recommend it’. In Loch’s
time, it was a busy place, visited every year by about twenty
merchant ships from Bengal and Bombay, and by trading vessels
from Basra and the Gulf ports. But trade was crippled by over­
whelming pressure and exactions. The merchandise, when
landed, was carried by mule caravans over the mountains to the
interior of Persia. All along the route, those who were in a
position to oppress the people beneath them, took their toll. The
Shaikh, to satisfy the rapacity of the Prince, and to fill his own
treasury, fleeced both the merchants and the minor Shaikhs to
whom he farmed out towns and villages. The lesser Shaikhs in
their turn, extorted as much as they could from the impoverished
peasants. From the ‘vacillating and tottering Persian Govern­
ment’ at the top, down to the village headman, there was corrup­
tion, persecution and oppression. Whenever the demands of the
Prince became too outrageous, Shaikh Abdul Rasool threatened to
remove himself and all his followers, and the people of Bushirc, to
the island of Kharak, leaving Bushirc desolate. This was a very
real threat, and it deterred the Prince from taking extreme
measures against the Shaikh.
For some time, the Prince of Shiraz had coveted Bushirc, he
planned to oust the Shaikh and to put in his place one of his own
sons. While Loch was in Bushirc, news reached the Shaikh that
the Prince was about to embark troops at Bundar Rig, 120 miles
north of Bushirc, with the object of occupying the island of
Kharak, where the Shaikh had a fortress in which he kept his
treasure. But the plan was not carried out, probably because, as
usual, the Persian authorities were unable to obtain ships.
It was some time after Loch left, that Shaikh Abdul Rasool’s
reign came to an end. After managing for many years to cir­
cumvent the wiles of the Prince, he allowed himself to be per­
suaded to visit Shiraz; perhaps he wanted to sec his son, who was
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