Page 206 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

war. The slippery Shaikh was an adept at turning everything
to his own advantage.
One evening, before they sailed, ‘Old Moffath’ suggested that
they should cool themselves by a bathe in the sea. This seems to
have been quite an unusual thing, for throughout his diary Loch
never mentions bathing in any of the places which he visited. At
sundown, he and some of his officers went down to the shore, but
die bathing expedition was not a success. ‘Judge of our surprise
when on immersing ourselves in the sea, we found the water
much hotter than the atmosphere, but it had this good effect, we
found ourselves cooler when we came out of the water, though
the coolness almost immediately changed into heat, by the slight
exertion of walking the short distance to the Residency.’ In hot
weather, the sea in the Gulf near the shore often reaches a tem­
perature of 90°.
After bidding farewell to Bushirc, Loch paid a final visit to
Muscat. In return for the many kindnesses which he had received
from the Sultan, he sent him a handsome chronometer by the
hand of Moffath, who explained to the Sultan how it should be
used. Moffath returned with a fine Arab sword for Loch, and a
message from the Sultan asking him not to sail before sunset.
The reason for this became apparent when, later, the Sultan sent
on board a beautiful white Arab horse, which had been brought
from his stables in the country behind Muscat. This second gift
of a horse was rather difficult to deal with on board, so when Loch
reached Bombay he presented it to Mountstuart Elphinstone.
Before leaving the Gulf, Loch summed up the position of the
various Shaikhdoms. The most important and prosperous port
was Muscat, whose ruler was now in possession of all his former
dominions. Such was the state of peace at sea, that the Sultan
was now using his ships of war for commercial purposes, carrying
cargo between Muscat, India, Persia and Zanzibar. Loch men­
tions ‘the selfish, tyrannical, misrule adopted by almost all’ with
the exception of the ruler of Muscat* of whom he says ‘there was
every appearance of his government lasting, unimpaired, during
his existence’. This prophesy was to come true for Saiyid Said
reigned until his death on October 19th 1856, ‘when he passed
quietly away when sailing in the sea of the Seychelles’. After
Muscat came Bushirc, where trade was flourishing in spite of the
Shaikh’s efforts to create a personal monopoly of all the trade in
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