Memoirs of Meredith Worth [‎1v] (2/12)

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The gangway was a hroad plank and the Sheikh negotiated it successfully. However
unnoticed by me, the launch had tilted on the Sheikh r s arrival on board and the
plank had then moved forward. I stepped on it to follow the Sheikh and the
plank and I then dived into the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
One other event sticks in my memory. Sir Philip Sassooh, then a junior
Minister in the U.K. Government, was inspecting airfields and establishments
in the 2 Middle East. I was. asked by the Foreign Office to meet him when he
came to Bahrain and, if possible, to show him some pearly. The leading pearl
merchant in th$ Gulf at that time was Mohcf al Mana from Qatar. He kindly agreed
to bring some pearls to the airfield at Bahrain. When the day came he arrived
with 12 or 13 of the largest and most beautiful pearls. Sir Philip was entranced
and agreed to buy them f£r what seemed a ridiculously small price'. He put them
in his pocket promising to send the money as soon as he returned to London.
Weeks went by without any payment. Mohd al Mana told me th*t had he known that
Sir Philip came from a family of Baghdadi Jews he would have charged him four
times as much. After several reminders to the Foreign Office I was told that
Sir Philip would not pay as he thought thut the pearls were cultured* I pointed
out that it was a criminal offence to bring cultured pearls for sale in Bahrain
and asked the Foreign Office to arrange for the pearls to be drilled by
Cartiers. This was done eventually and the money was at last paid to Mohd al
Mana.
After a year in Bahrain the climate again affected my health and I had to
take long leave in the U.K. I was then transferred in 1935 to Baluchistan as
A.P.A. Sibi and later as P.A. Sibi. Sibi was the winter rendez-vous of the
nomadic tribes, the Ghilzai, from Afghanistan who brought their flocks of
camels, sheep and goats through the Bolan Pass onto the plains of Sind,
reminding me vividly of pictures in my childhood Bible of the Israelites
crossing the wilderness on the way to Jericho. They returned in the earl# spring
and I had to make satisfactory arrangements with the tribes through whose lands
they were to pass for their camps and grazing.
Sibi was deserted after March as the heat became intense. The temperature
had been known to reach 136 degrees in the shade and the locals asked why Allah
had made hell when he had Sibi. The summer headquarters of the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. were
situated in Ztiarat at 8000 feet in the juniper forest. Touring was in the
mountain valleys whidh in the early summer were ablaze with peach, apricot
and almond blossom. The most pleasant time on tour was in the evenings. A large
carpet was spread in front of the tent and round it the P.A., the local Extra
Assistant Commissioner and the village elders sat and gossipped about village
and tribal affairs. It was in the friendly intimacy of these gatherings th&it
one learned what was really happening in the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. and where one was able to
give a few hints about how local living conditions could be improved. But one
had to tread very carefully. I remember a demonstration intending to show that
erosion of valuable top soil could be prevented by contour ploughing. Buckets
or rather goatskins of water poured into the contour drills did not percolate
downwards whilst water poured into the vertical, drills produced a muddy mess at
the bottom. Before the moral could be drawn one old villager said ' Oh we know
all about Ahat. It is how we get our sailaba crops r .
An important duty of the P.A. was to arrange Jirgas to settle local and
inter-tribal disputes.