'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎74] (239/524)

74 REMARKS ON THE TRIBES, & c .
not allowed to enter the town armed ; but they sell at the gate, where
the Chief daily sits and looks on. Koweit may boast of some 6,000
fighting men within its walls; but the policy has been to keep the
peace internally and with all its neighbours. It pays no tribute to the
Ameer Fysul, but maintains friendly relations with him. It receives
no tribute, customs, or revenue from any one ; save small offerings at
the gate, or from merchants, amounting perhaps to 20,000 rials per
annum, and a complimentary present of dates from Busreh in token of
Suzerainty, and for the supposed protection of the mouths of the
Busreh river. The Government is patriarchal; the Sheikh managing
the political, and the Cazee the judicial departments. The Sheikh him
self would submit to the Cazee’s decision. Punishment is rarely inflicted.
Indeed, there seems little government interference anywhere, and little
need for any. When my father was nearly 120 years old, remarked the
Sheikh to me, he called me and said “ I shall soon die. I have made no
fortune, and can leave you no money; but I have made many and
true friends, grapple them. While other states round the Gulf have
fallen off from injustice or ill-government, mine has gone on
increasing. Hold to my policy, and though you are surrounded by a
desert, and pressed on by a once hostile and still wandering set of tribes,
you will flourish.” It is thus under the fostering care of a succession
of common-sense rulers, and by means of a policy wisely originated
and systematically pursued, that an Arab band of pirates appear as the
masters of a thriving port, the refuge of the oppressed, and the
peaceful free home of all. I confess that I looked round with some
thing like amazement at finding such a political and commercial
structure in such a region, and the work of such hands.
132. If Arabs can do all this in the remotest corner of the Persian
Gulf, w hat might not we do if we held its key, gained the confidence
of our neighbours by justice, and forwarded their material interests by
the exercise of those moral qualities and that intellectual superiority
which the civilization of our country bestows on every English gentle
man of common capacity, over an Asiatic?
133. No doubt much of the prosperity of Koweit may be due to
position and to a comparatively healthy climate. It was in ancient
days the point where the sea trade took to caravans or river carriage.
It still maintains its natural advantages, and although I would not re
commend the artificial forcing of trade from its present course, I would