‘Koweit [Kuwait]. A report compiled in the Intelligence Branch, Quarter Master General’s Department’ [‎1] (13/66)

KOWEIT.
The name of Koweit,* or rather the alternative name of In t r oductor V
Grane, first came into prominence, for English readers, as the
suggested terminus for the Euphrates Valley railway, projected
by General Chesney. More recently it has again become notori
ous as the coveted terminus of the proposed German railway
from Constantinople to Baghdad.
In 1821-22, it was for a short time the head-quarters of the
British Resident at Basrah, who moved there in consequence of
the insolent attitude of the Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. of Baghdad. It is the only
place of any interest on the Arabian coast-line between Katif
and Fao.
How far inland, beyond the actual shores of the great bay
to which it gives its name, the territory of Koweit extends, it is
impossible to ascertain with anything approaching exactitude.
Not unnaturally, perhaps, the size of his dominions loses nothing
in the telling of Sheikh Mubarak. He claims Safwan to the
north, and Hafr to the west, though he has never received
tribute or revenue from either of these places. On the other
hand, he asserts that the exaction of tribute has never been a
custom of his tribesmen. Probably he considers his territory to
extend as far as he has ever made his power felt, or as far as
he deems it possible to do so. It is perhaps enough, for present
purposes, to consider Koweit territory as extending over a
strip of country round the bay, of undefined width, but within
which no hostile tribe or power could be tolerated by the ruler
of Koweit.f
* The name " Koweit" is an Arab diminutive of the Persian " Kote," and
means a little fort; no doubt a suitable name for the first settlement of an Arab
tribe, driven to find a new home in an unknown country. Another name,
"Grane," which still appears in certain atlases and maps, applies, properly speak
ing, to the whole coast line of the bay, and is derived from its supposed resembl'
ance to the curve formed by a pair of horns,—"Keor" or "Ghern" meaning
born.
| It is interesting to note that the map published by Macmillan & Co., in
1865, in illustration of Falgrave's travel?, shows Koweit territory as extending
some 20 miles south of the southern shore of the bay, 20 miles west of its western
extremity, from whence the boundary runs nearly due north to a point 8 or Jo
miles north of the 30th degree of northern latitude, and thence nearly due east to
the Shatt-el-Arab, striking the latter some 40 miles below Basrah. Colonel Pelly,
in his "Report of a journey to the Wahabi Capital Riadh " (dated 1866), says
"the tract around (the bay) for a radius of about 8 or 10 miles is considered to
belong to Koweit." Elsewhere in the same report he places the land frontier at
''a fort named Malah, 5 hours distant from Koweit," in a south -south -east
direction {i.e., 13 to IS miles from Koweit).