Page 197 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

Two days later the Eden left Bushirc and after picking up a
pilot at Kharak sailed for Basra. She crossed the bar on the 7th,
meeting very bad weather at the mouth of the Shatt al Arab, and
it was not until the 20th that she anchored in the river some
twenty-five miles below Basra. Loch went ahead in his gig to
ascertain the position, Taylor, who had not asked for the Eden,
did not seem over enthusiastic about her arrival. He told Loch
that the Turkish Governor, with a large force in sixty boats, had
gone up the river to open the way to Baghdad, but since they left
no news had been received so he suggested that the Eden should
remain at anchor, down the river, ‘until the fate of the fleet was
known*.
Loch returned to his ship next day, and for ten days the Eden
lay at anchor. Loch was a sociable man, and he cannot have
enjoyed kicking his heels for ten days with nothing to do, and
nobody to visit, but he made the best of it. Colquhoun, on
Loch’s previous visit, had given him ‘a famous spaniel’, and Loch
and Moffath took the dog ashore several times when shooting.
Taylor had warned them to be careful of the villagers. A few
months ago, the officers from one of the Company’s ships went
shooting, Arabs from a village became ‘most officious in beating
to find game’, which was so successful that all the officers let off
their guns. Immediately, the Arabs sprang on them, wrenched
the guns from their hands and made off, leaving the officers
astounded, and staring at each other. Loch had a double-barrelled
gun, Moffath’s gun was single barrelled, before starting they
agreed that one of them would always keep a barrel loaded. When
they landed, five Arabs hurried to help them to fmd game, urging
them to shoot, but owing to Loch’s precautions ‘they were foiled
in their looked-for spoil’. On the 27th Loch received a letter
from Admiral Sir Richard King, the Naval Commander-in-Chief,
thanking the officers and men of the Eden ‘for their conduct before
Ras al Khaima. The hands were turned up, and the letter was
read to them, to their no small gratification.’ On the same day
Taylor arrived in his snake boat from Basra. He and Loch went
to examine the Haffar Cut, a canal through which part of the
fleet of Alexander the Great proceeded from Susa to Babylon.
All through his diary, Loch shows the greatest interest in the
voyages of Alexander, and his Admiral, Nearchus.
While lie was with Taylor, they passed a camp of water gipsies.
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