'Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf. Vol I. Historical. Part IA & IB. J G Lorimer. 1915' [‎1445] (1600/1782)

^ n I
B?e '
' in ofi
"p^ymkiyit.
1 l fc >/■ ;,
lonipfe;
1445
" effect real good in the department lie administers— ' vouloir, savoir, ei
pouvoir ! 'Mid-hat had the first and last qualifications^ but not the second.
"He was a half-educated man/' Mid-hat Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. was at least scrupulously
honest, and the story which represents him as obliged to sell his watch
and chain at the end of his government in order to obtain the means of
returning to Constantinople seems well authenticated.
In the early summer of 187'2 a state of lawlessness existed in Basrah Lawlessness
town more discreditable to the local authorities than even the insecurity ^ asla ^'
which had prevailed in Baghdad city in 1806. It was described as
follows by Mr. Robertson, Her Britannic Majesty's Vice-Consul at
Basrah, writing on the 26th May 1872 to Her Britannic Majesty's Consul-
General at Baghdad :
I have in my late demi-ottioial letters iutormed you of'the almost daily and nightly
occurrence of robberies in and about Busrah during the past two months. On the
night of the 17th instant some 40 or 50 men surrounded and tried to enter Messrs.
Lynch and Company's office. A person next door saw a man trying to break open a
window, and tired a pistol at him. The report brought up a guard of twelve men
stationed near the North gate. The robbers attacked the soldiers, killed two of them,
and went away apparently scatheless.
I wrote to the Acting Muteserif mentioning this occurrence and stating that,
in the event of a house occupied by any person nnder the protection of this Vice-
Consulate being robbed, I should call on the local authorities to make good the
property stolen. In his reply he promises to take all the measures in his power to protect
the property of British subjects, lut denies the Government's liability to refund
the value of property stolen.
Were the thieves who infest Basrah ordinary thieves, coumiitting occasional
robbery by stealth and by eluding the vigilance of a fairly effective police, the Acting
Muteserif would doubtless be quite light in declining to accept extraordinary responsi
bility ; but the existing state of affairs being notoriously the result of feebleness
and indifference on the part of the authorities and of collusion between their subordi
nates and the thieves, 1 trust that, should occasion occur, you will support me in the
position I have taken up.
The robbers are an organised body of about one hundred men. Their Chiefs—
Alwan, Sahein, Mahomed, and Ibrahim Agha—-a Turk from Constantinople, formerly
an employ© in the sarai,—are well known to the police. Yet these men accompanied
by a few of their followers, with arms concealed under their abbas, walk about
Busrah and sit in the coffee houses within the town daily. The police either fraternize
with or affect not to see them, and private persons, being liable to arrest if found
carrying arms, are entirely at their mercy. Of late they have adopted the custom
of sending messages to persons of known means demanding sums of money, varying
from 100 to 500 Shamis, and threatening assassination if their demands be not
complied with. Such is the fear which the feebleness of the authorities has allowed
them to inspire that the sums bo demanded are invariably paid. Khoja Ibrahim
Mukdassi Eysa, the procurator to the French church, called on me this morning to say
that he had received a demand for 100 Shamis and to a.k my advice as to whether
ho should pay it or not. 1 told him not to ; but his fears will, I fancy, outweigh mv
advice.
1872.
■
j -1 'f