File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎218r] (444/834)

first place the increase of British power is feared, because it is
felt that its ascendency means the disappearance of slavery.
This feeling, however, is confined chiefly to the small upper
class that is rich enough to own slaves. The ordinary Arab
would be little disturbed by the disappearance of slavery, unless
interested leaders stirred things up. There is also a wide-spread
fear that the advent of the British would result in women’s
freedom from the domination of men to a very dangerous degree.
I was not able satisfactorily to investigate the origin of this
surprising feeling.
u On the other hand the people, from the poorest to the
richest, have come ro realize very keenly their economic
dependence on the British power, and when the shortage of
tonnage made it necessary to eat Karachi rice, the German
Kaiser was most warmly cursed by all classes. There is perhaps
no section that prizes the visits of the steamers more than Oman
has learned to do, and which realizes more adequately its
dependence on the Bombay markets both in selling pearls and
in buying rice. It is not too much to say that as far as self-
interest makes an Oriental loyal, the Oman people are thoroughly
loyal, and that the feeling about the slaves is a very small thing
in comparison of their thorough-going conviction of British
power, and of their own dependence upon it.”
ARABIA.
North-West.
Intelligence.
Northern Area.
The Howeitat party, sent south to Mudowara (see p. 243),
arrived there on July 4 and has now returned, reporting that it
found the station and all positions reoccupied in strength. It
did not, therefore, attack. There have been small affairs near
Fareifra on July 4, and near Maan on July 5. In the first a
Turkish reconnoitring party on its way towards Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Hasa was
engaged by Sherif KTasir’s troops and driven back with a loss of
six killed, the Arabs having three wounded. In the second, an
enemy cavalry patrol of five men was captured with its animals.
Maan, according to a deserter, was short of petrol at the beginning
of the month and almost out of aeroplane bombs. It has,
however, only one plane available, and that patched up. It says
a good deal for its pilot, Fehmi, that he flies at all.
The O.C. Maan is evidently beginning to turn out the civil
population of the town, which is both a drain on his supplies and
a potential danger to his defence. Three hundred have come in
to Zeid’s headquarters at Uheida—not a particularly gratifying
accession to Feisal, who probably can make little use of the men