"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٧‎٤‎٢] (١٧٨٢/٨٨٥)

742
General
Telations.
places after mutual consultation informed the Resident; in reply to a
communication on the subject, that they could not compel their subjects
to place themselves under an emblem so closely identified with Qasimi
traditions and Ghafiri principles. For various reasons it wap considered
expedient not to press the matter at the time.
Apart altog-ether from the question of specific engagements and
their results, the period now under consideration was on the whole an
auspicious one in the history of British relations with Trucial ; ()mau.
For three years, ending in 1899, no Resident visited Trucial 'Oman
in person; but, in the years following, numerous tours along the coast
were made by Colonel M. J. Meade, Colonel C. A. Kemball and Major
P. Z. Cox, the successive Residents, and the foundations of a more
regular and direct intercourse were laid. In these circumstances it
became possible for British officers to pay occasional visits to the
interior; and Major Cox, who, under the auspices of the Shaikh
of Abu Dhabi, had travelled by way of Baraimi from Abu Dhabi to
Masqat in 1902, was able in 1905 to explore the unknown country between
Ras-al-Khaimah and Baraimi and to return to the coast at Sohar.
In 1902, the idea of a formal British protectorate over Trucial
'Oman having been mooted, a close examination was made of the
existing system, which was in the end declared to be perfectly satisfactory.
It was reported by Colonel Kemball, in this connection, that new
chiefs on their succession now generally sought to be recognised by
the British Government, and that his advice, though not authoritatively
given, was generally obeyed and even welcomed in internal affairs.
In the same year the general attitude of the Shaikhs towards the
British power was shown by their observance of the 26th of June as a
public holiday in honour of the Coronation of King Edward; and the
tisit of Lord Curzon, Viceroy and Governor-General of India, to the
Trivial Coast, where, as elsewhere described, he held a Darbar at sea off
Sharjah on the 21st of November 1903, was a further proof of the
confidence and harmony that had come to prevail. At the same
time it should be understood that the Shaikhs of Trucial Oman were
still unprogressive, ignorant, and prone to childish suspicions. Ihe
failure of the Hinawi Shaikhs of Abu Dhabi and Dibai to enforce on
their subjects the use of the Trucial flag has already been mentioned;
and other symptoms of a like nature appeared, in 1906, in the unwilling
ness of the Shaikhs to supply the Resident with genealogical tables of
their families, in the reluctance of the Shaikh of Dibai to agree to the
establishment of a British Indian post office at his capital, and in ohjec-
.■feit,