Southern Arabia | Page 7

to them in bigotry. If a vendor of intoxicating liquor started a shop on Bahrein, they would burn his house down, so that the wicked who want to drink any intoxicating liquor have to buy the material secretly from ships in the harbour. Many think it wrong to smoke, and spend their lives in prayer and fasting. Church decoration is an abomination to the Wahabi; therefore, in Bahrein the mosques are little better than barns with low minarets, for the very tall ones of other Mohammedan sects are forbidden. The Wahabi are fanatics of the deepest dye; 'there is one God, and Mohammed is his prophet,' they say with the rest of the Mohammedan world, but the followers of Abdul Wahab add, 'and in no case must Mohammed and the Imams be worshipped lest glory be detracted from God.' All titles to them are odious; no grand tombs are to be erected over their dead, no mourning is allowed; hence the cemetery at Manamah is but a pitiful place--a vast collection of circles set with rough stones, each with a small uninscribed headpiece, and the surface sprinkled with helix shells.
The Wahabi would wage, if they dared, perpetual war not only against the infidel, but against such perverted individuals as those who go to worship at Mecca and other sacred shrines. The founder of this revival is reported to have beaten his sons to death for drinking wine, and to have made his daughters support themselves by spinning, but at the same time he felt himself entitled to give to a fanatical follower, who courted death for his sake, an order for an emerald palace and a large number of female slaves in the world to come.
In 1867 the Shah of Persia aimed at acquiring Bahrein, though his only claim to it was based on the fact that Bahrein had been an appanage of the Persian crown under the Suffavian kings. He instituted a revolt on the island; adopted a claimant to the sheikhdom, and got him to hoist the Persian flag. Our ships blockaded Bahrein, intercepted letters, and obliged the rebel sheikh to quit. Then it was that we took the islands under our protection. In 1875 the Turks caused trouble, and the occupation of Bahrein formed part of their great scheme of conquest in Arabia. Our ship the Osprey appeared on the scene, drove back the Turks, transported to India several sheikhs who were hostile to the English rule, and placed Sheikh Isa (or Esau) on the throne under British protection, under which he rules happily to this day.
We went to see him at Moharek, where he holds his court in the winter-time. We crossed over in a small baggala, and had to be poled for a great distance with our keel perpetually grating on the bottom. It was like driving in a carriage on a jolting road; the donkeys trotted independently across, their legs quite covered with water. We were glad when they came alongside, and we completed our journey on their backs.
The courtyard of the palace, which somewhat recalls the Alhambra in its architecture, was, when we arrived, crowded with Arab chiefs in all manner of quaint costumes. His majesty's dress was exceedingly fine. He and his family are entitled to wear their camel-hair bands bound round with gold thread. These looked very regal over the red turban, and his long black coat, with his silver-studded sword by his side, made him look every inch a king.
He is most submissive to British interests, inasmuch as his immediate predecessors who did not love England were shipped off to India, and still languish there in exile; as he owes his throne entirely to British protection, he and his family will probably continue to reign as long as the English are virtual owners of the Gulf, if they are willing to submit to the English protectorate.
We got a photograph of a group of them resting on their guns, and with their kanjars or sickle-shaped daggers at their waists. We took Prince Mohamed, the heir-apparent, and the stout Seid bin Omar, the prime minister of Bahrein. But Sheikh Esau refused to place his august person within reach of our camera.
During our visit we were seated on high arm-chairs of the kind so much used in India, and the only kind used here. They were white and hoary with old age and long estrangement from furniture polish. For our sins we had to drink the bitterest black coffee imaginable, which tasted like varnish from the bitter seeds infused in it; this was followed by cups of sweet syrup flavoured with cinnamon, a disagreeable custom to those accustomed to take their coffee and sugar together.
Moharek is aristocratic, being the seat of government; Manamah is essentially commercial, and between them in the sea is