Page 170 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

himself was ill and was ordered to go to Bombay. He travelled
in a ship bound for Muscat, which took seventeen days to arrive
but, having got to Muscat, he went back to Kishm.
Inland from the little port of Sur, about 100 miles south of
Muscat, there was a Bedouin tribe called the Abu Ali. They were
the only Omani tribe to adopt Wahabism, and were, therefore,
intensely disliked by the other tribes, and by the Sultan, against
whom they had been in rebellion for some years. It was reported
to Thompson, and confirmed by the Sultan, that some of the Abu
Ali tribe were engaged in piracy. Thompson had orders ‘to
repel any act initiative of a renewal of piratical outrage’, but he
had been warned that he was to make quite certain that piracy
was being carried out before taking any action and, in any ease,
to confine his operations to the coast. The Sultan asked Thomp­
son for help in suppressing piracy by the Abu Ali.
Thompson sent a messenger, carrying a letter of remonstrance
to the tribe at the place on the coast where piracy was said to have
taken place. The messenger had to swim through the surf to
reach the shore. History docs not relate whether he delivered
the letter, but when he prepared to swim back to the boat, he was
set upon by two Arabs and some negro slaves and hacked to pieces.
Thompson, later, received a message from the Abu Ali, saying
! that they had no wish to quarrel with the British and would hand
over the murderers. The fact that the murderers were with the
Abu Ali was regarded as a proof of the tribe’s guilt - a fallacious
argument. This incident decided Thompson to take action, in
concert with the Sultan, against Abu Ali.
A military expedition consisting of about 3 50 British and Indian
troops commanded by Thompson, and about 2,000 Arabs, under
the personal command of the Sultan, landed at Sur. After a
march of about sixty miles, they arrived within sight of the town
of the Abu Ali, which was surrounded by date groves. The troops
with the British leading, advanced in open column around a date
garden, into which the Arabs had retreated. Suddenly, the whole
enemy force rushed out from the garden and made an onslaught
on the British. Before any orders could be given, the Arabs
were among the British and Indian troops, hewing them down
with their long razor sharp swords, which they wielded with two
hands, lopping off the limbs of their opponents. There was an
appalling slaughter; no quarter was given, the surgeon, who was
146

‘