Page 204 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

CHAPTER XV

‘Once more upon the waters! Yet once more!
And tlic waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows its rider.’
Childc Harold: Lord Byron - 1788-1824

S 'X N September 5th, Loch was back at Bushirc for the last
Cl |time. It had always been his favourite port in the Gulf,
y mainly because he and Bruce, the Resident, were parti­
cularly good friends, and he enjoyed the hospitality of Bruce and
his family (though he scarcely ever mentions Mrs. Bruce). The
summer had been unusually severe - but then, almost every
summer is described by Europeans in the Gulf as being the worst
that there ever was - and many people ‘had fallen a sacrifice to
coup de soled’. When Rich was in Bushire, shortly afterwards,
his servants complained to him, saying: ‘we can live in fire, as
in Baghdad, but not in an hamannn (Turkish bath)’. All who
had two-storied houses were living in their upper rooms, which
were cooler than those below. Many of the Bushire houses
had ‘badghccrs’, tall, slender towers, with shafts through
which the wind entered and descended into the room below.
The wind towers were only in ‘the dwellings of the affluent,
thereby pointing out the houses of rich men’. In some Gulf
towns, even the barastis had wind scoops, made of matting,
on the same principle as the masonry towers, and equally
effective. These graceful towers, usually painted white, were
a noticeable feature in the Persian Gulf, but since the days of
electric fans and air-conditioning, they are no longer being
built.
The heat was so great that Loch found it impossible to walk
through the streets when the sun was above the horizon, so he
excused himself from calling on the Shaikh, ‘who was prosperous
in health and riches. The Shaikh, in a most civil manner, waited
on me at the Residency.’
Shaikh Abdul Rasool had evidently supposed that Loch was
not returning when, on his last visit, he presented him with a
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