'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎76] (241/524)

x.
76 REMARKS ON THE TRIBES, & e .
137. I was a little surprised to fmd the Sheikh at Koweit well
informed as to distant politics. They took in an Oriental Paris Gazette,
They admired the generosity of our policy towards Turkey, but
wondered we did not do as much for Christian Greece. They thought
90 millions sterling a heavy fee for the tempoiaiy restoration of an
invalid friend. One white-beard said, that with states as with individu
als, when their hour strikes it is of no use for men to alter the clock.
To bind a crumbling government was like darning a Bedouin's coat.
Too worn out to be mended, too rotten to be even washed, it would fall
to pieces in spite of you. They considered our efforts against the slave
trade more humane than successful; and they thought we might spend
the money to better purpose on our own poor, with whose condition
they were unfavourably impressed, as summarized in the Paris
Gazetted*
138. The chief Sheikh was a remarkable man in all respects as lie
sat in the gate, his eyes undimmed by 80 years, and his patriarchal
hands grasping a plated watch of the description commonly known as
warming pan. (I am now sending him a gold watch and chain.) He
never wears shoes; and his feet seem to have been the original of the
Hercules at Florence. He has a voice like a trumpet ; stopping
every now and again with a loud hah, something between that of the
Patriarch of the flock, and the sudden blast and pause in a favourite
polka. His speech recalls the large utterance of the early gods. He
told me that among the heirlooms of his family was an injunction, still
daily religiously observed, to relieve the stranger: a large dinner, in an
allotted hall, is prepared every evening for all wanderers and strangers
who may wisn to share it. The sole restriction is, that arms must be
leit at the gate. Practices like this may perhaps account for much of
the peace, good will, and neighbourhood, and mercantile prosperity of
this town. Charity ; attraction of sorrow ; relief of actual want; these
are sentiments little thought of. Yet they are perhaps beyond all
else, unless justice, the keys of personal power throughout the East.
, n p young 1 . Sheikh asked me why we took so much trouble to protect
lows 10 m puacy- while we ourselves took more Dhows than any other tribe. At
ns, another Sheikh asked if it were true that I was inquiring into the facts of our
recent seizures ? The old Chief sat silent, looking in at his nose with crunched
" !h S l ce . le ^nys round the gnarl of an Olive stump. All evidently awaited
an explanation, which I did not accord.