"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الجزء II. ج. ج. لوريمر. ١٩١٥" [‎٢‎٥‎٧‎٢] (١٢٦٢/١٠٨٩)

2572
al-'Arab which were of doubtful legality * provoked much resentment at
Kuwait, and led to a British protest. In November 1904 the captain m*
of a British vessel, inexperienced in the work of the Persian Gulf, was f •
prevailed on by the Customs authorities at Bandar 'Abbas to hand jfTf,
over some arms brought by native passengers for Kuwait in their i j
personal baggage; his complacency was rewarded by the imposition of '
a fine of 25,000 Q,rans on his ship^ but it was not paid. Finally^ in ^ ^
January 1905, the Bushehr Customs would have confiscated, on board a 8661186
British ship, the military arms of a party of three Turkish officers and i 011 ^
twelve Turkish soldiers belonging to the Hasa garrison, who were ^ ^
returning to headquarters at Basrah ; but the British Eesident was able *6; ti
to transfer the Turks with their arms to a mail steamer for Basrah, under ^
the protection of a British military guard. The British Minister at ittorise
Tehran was privately willing to concede that arms carried as cargo but not iincreai
entered in a ship^s manifest, as well as arms declared to be personal icontrolk
baggage but excessive in number, might be seized in Persian ports on ktini-He
suspicion of being intended for Persia ; but he firmly resisted the claim %alon(
to seize arms consigned to non-Persian ports, and he considered that even mses of
to place such arms under seal while in Persian waters was a vexatious us of cart
and unnecessary precaution.
itration
The trade in Makran,, 1898-1905. into ii
India,
Institution The arms and ammunition trade in Persian and British Makran .
of theTrad notwitllstallL( i iQ g' t ^ e proximity of the Makran coast to the Masqat iUthouo
# market, of somewhat tardy development. The Persian expedition of ?ioii Wag b
1897-98 against the Karwanis, described in the history of Persian iieiyi n ^
Makran, showed that modern rifles were at that time scarce in the leernedt]
country ; but immediately after, or even during the operations^ a more or mi .
less brisk traffic seems to have sprung up. In February 1898 twenty ?0
packets of Martini-Henry ammunition were found in the house of a ^
headman of Pasni in British Makran, and, in the same month, three ■ een . c
Pathans in possession of a Martini-Henry carbine were arrested at
Ormarah in the same district j the offenders in the second case proved to ^
be Powindas of the Dera Ismail Khan District in the North-West ? rs of
Frontier Province of India, who, after making a pilgrimage to Baghdad,
had purchased twenty rifles at Masqat and, in attempting to carry them j
upcountry, had been robbed of all but one by Nausherwanis of Kolwa. ^
At the end of 1901 the number of rifles in Persian Makran was found ^ of
to have increased to a surprising^ extent; some of the chiefs possessed ^ k
Lee-Metfords; and, about this time, a consignment of twenty rifles and i^^aiu
ten boxes of ammunition destined for the chiefs of Gaih and Qasrkand
was seen in transit between the port of Tank and the interior. The bulk ^ case
- —— — ■- "feed pj
ir^ * ■^? ne vessels seized were Persian ; two of thorn even belonged to the ; a
^ Shaikh of Kuwait personally; the seizures were made on the high %. f
waters ln 0ne 01 m0ie instances ^ the vessels were pursued intj Turkish territorial J ^