"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٩‎٩‎٦] (١٧٨٢/١١٥١)

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in excess should be refunded. In consequence of thetse assurances a
scheme which had been prepared for "British consular representation, viz.,
to obtain recognition of the Political Agent in Bahrain as Vice-Consul for
Hasa and to post a native agent under his orders to Qatif, was again laid
aside.
External relations of Hasa other than those with Great Britain,
1871-1907.
(
• ■
Massacre of
Pah rain
Shaikhs
and their
followers
in Hasa,
and British
representa
tions,
1900-04.
The close connection of Hasa with Bahrain, due to the commercial
dependence of the province upon that Shaikhdom, necessarily continued
under Turkish rule. Bahrain was the principality most seriously affected
by the piratical developments, already described, upon the Turkish coast;
and Ilasa was naturally the base from which, as explained in the history
of Bahrain, the lurks sought to assert their influence over those
islands.
One tragic incident, however, unconnected with either of these ques
tions, falls to be noticed here. At the end of 1900 Salman-bin-Di'aij,
a fust cousin oi ■'Isa-bin-'Ali, the ruling Shaikh of Bahrain, proceeded on a
hawking expedition, with his sons Di aij and Bishr and a nephew named
Abdur Rail man-bin- Rashid, to the coast of the Dhahran district in Hasa.
Hie Shaikhs were accompanied by 20 servants and by four Bedouin
Rafiqs; of the llafiqs one belonged to the A1 Morrah, one to the
A3man, and two to the Bani Hajir tribe. In the early morning of the 3rd
of December 1900 the party were suddenly attacked in their camp at the
Bin-'Aqdan well, five miles inland from Dohat 'Ain-as-Saih, by a band
of about 50 Al Morrah Bedouins of the A1 Bahaih section, headed by
Rashid-bin-Maqarih, a chief of the Al Bahaih, one of whose sons had
been killed in the previous year, in pursuance of a blood feud, by
'Amamarah subjects of the Shaikh of Bahrain. Of the Bahrain party
only Bishr, the son of Shaikh Salman, and two of the tribal representa
tives escaped,—alive though not unwounded ; and a Dosiri of Bahrain,
who belonged to a separate hunting party but happened to be in Shaikh
Salman s tent hen the surprise took place, shared the fate of his enter-
iners. On the side of the assailants the leader Rashid with one of his
w as killed, and one or more tribesmen were wounded. Thirty camels
enty liflts ^eie part of the spoil carried off by the Al Bahaih,
" object was probably plunder rather than reprisals—not warranted
in nit, circumstances by any Arab custom—against the Shaikh of Bahraiu.