"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٠‎٤‎٣] (١٧٨٢/١١٩٨)

1043
■SSf?
" Qaim-Maqam/' gave some offence to the Turks ; but it did not affect
the course of the negotiations. A suggestion made by the Willi at
these meetings, that Turkish civil officials and troops should be sent to
Kuwait, was met by Shaikh Mubarak, according to his own subsequent
statement, with a non possumus reply and with a declaration of his
loyal adherence to the connection which he had formed with the British
Government.
Probably in consequence of the services which he rendered upon this Subsequent
occasion, the relations of Shaikh Mubarak with the Turkish authorities g^ikfa 18 ^
at Basrah were, from 1905 onwards, much more friendly. In August Mubarak
1905 the Shaikh subscribed £T450 towards the erection of new Turkish
barracks at Basrah ; and, on the donation being cordially acknowledged, 1905-1907.
he professed devotion to the Sultan of Turkey and promised a further
subscription of £T200. In 1905 a continuous stream of Turkish
military deserters and officials escaping from Najd began to pour into
Kuwait, where they arrived in a miserable plight: they were invariably
fed and sent on to Basrah by Shaikh Mubarak. The number of these
refugees up to March 1906 was about 500 ; in August Fariq Sadiq
Pasha himself came in with an escort of about 150 men ; and at the end
of December some 800 more men, almost the last remnants of the Turkish
army of occupation in Qasim, reached the neighbourhood of Kuwait,
This last body were not allowed by the Shaikh to enter the town, probably
from fear that an occupation might be attempted. For the purpose
of collecting and forwarding this rabble, the Shaikh of Kuwaitis
imprisoned agent, 'Abdul 'Aziz, the conditions of whose imprisonment
had already been mitigated at the instance of His Majesty's Govern
ment, was allowed by the Turks to proceed to Kuwait; and there he
was afterwards allowed to reside in a sort of open arrest, as the property
which he owned in Turkish 'Iraq afforded a sufficient security against his
attempting to escape. From the autumn of 1905 until the spring of
1907 the Turkish official mail between 'Iraq and Hasa was sent by land
through Kuwait territory, instead of by British steamer via Bahrain, as
had hitherto been the rule; but Shaikh Mubarak declined to have
anything to do with the arrangements or to accept responsibility for
the safety of the mails, which in the end returned to the original route
by sea. In August 1906 it was announced that Shaikh Mubarak had
contributed £T500 to the Hijaz Railway fund, but this was not his
first subscription, for he had already, in January ] 904, received the
medal conferred by the Sultan on distinguished subscribers.
After 1905 amicable relations continued to prevail between the Shaikh Subsequent
of Kuwait and the Wahhabi Amir; the former, as related in the history Shaikh** ^
75 a