"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٠‎١‎٢] (١٧٨٢/١١٦٧)

1012
Relations of
Kuwait with
'Arabistan.
British
relations
with K await.
Relations of
Kuwait with
Turkey,
1840-63.
latter and the Turks; and it may have been at this time that, as described
in the history of Najd, he passed near to Kuwait in returning from a
raid upon the tribes of Turkish ; Iraq.
In 18il the Ka'ab Shaikh Thamir appears to have sought an
asylum at Kuwait for the second time, having been expelled from his
hereditary possessions in 'Arabistan by the Persian Governor ol that
province; but he soon migrated to Basrah.
Official intercourse between the British Resident in the Gulf and the
Shaikh of Kuwait appears to have been infrequent; but personal relations
continued on an excellent footing. On his visit to Kuwait in 1863
Colonel Pelly, the Resident, accompanied by Dr. Colvill, arrived at
Jahrah by land from Basrah on the 3rd of March ; the next day he was
conducted by Mubarak—a son of the ruler—to Kuwait, where he
spent a couple of days with Shaikh Subah ; on the 7th of March, under
arrangements made by the Shaikh, Colonel Pelly left Kuwait by sea for
Turkish territory; and he passed two days, on the way there, in the
Khors adjoining Bubiyan Island. Colonel Pelly's remarkable journey to
Riyadh in the spring of 1865 was begun at Kuwait, where he spent
several weeks, including one at Jahrah, in making his arrangements and
awaiting the permission of the Wahhabi Amir. The possible future of
Kuwait as a commercial port and as a meeting-place of sea-borne and
other trade, together with its suitability in certain circumstances for
the site of a British telegraph station or coal depot, were clearly re
alised by Colonel Pelly, who even remarked, with extraordinary pre
science, that Khor ''Abdullah might hereafter become the chief line of
approach by steamer to the commercial capital of Turkish ""Iraq, and that
its head might one day be connected by a railway with the Mediter
ranean. By April 1866 the steamers of the British India Steam Navi
gation Company had begun to call frequently at Kuwait; but their
visits were suspended soon after for political reasons which will presently
be explained.
The relations of other powers with Kuwait were less close however
than those, arising from contiguity, which were maintained by Turkey.
In 1847 the example of the Shaikh of Kuwait was quoted by the Shaikh
of Bahrain in justification of the latter's own avowed intention of placing
himself, in certain conditions, " under the guardianship of the Porte."
In 1863 Shaikh Subah assured the Resident that the rulers of Kuwait
had always been tributary to the Turkish Government; but it w r as ascer
tained by Colonel Pelly, from another source, that the use of a distinctive
flag had at one time been practised by the Shaikh of Kuwait for some