"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٥‎٤‎٩] (١٧٨٢/١٧٠٤)

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The feelings of the more civilised non-Turkish inhabitants of the J^ard^the S
province were * delineated by a British traveller in 1878 as more favour- British Gov-
ahle to the British Government than indicative of fervent loyalty to the
Porte. He remarked :—
men of old Baghdad! families, Musulmans in religion, and Arabs and Christians,
seemed to think that the days of the Sultan's rule were numbered, and that bis inde
pendence was already a thing of the past.
* * * *
I was more than once asked confidentially by good Mohammedans why England did
not come and take possession of the country, and keep it from the Russians ? Every
body, I was told, would be glad of the change, for the conscription and the war-taxes
had made the people very discontented. If England, they said, took over the country,
it would soon prosper ; trade would increase at once ; and there would be no conscrip
tion. I found that the splendour and civilization of Bombay filled a large place in the
popular imagination in Baghdad; and that the trade and prosperity, and fine buildings
of that city, were attributed to the fact that the port of India was under British rule.
The Arabs who visit Bombay every year for purposes of trade are by no means few,
and on their return they give glowing accounts of its wealth and magnificence, which
far exceed, it must be allowed, anything to be seen in the Baghdad of this degenerate
age. To exchange the yoke of the Sultan for that of the British would not be
regarded by the Arab-speaking population of this region as a misfotrune, but rather
the reverse; an I it is the opinion of men who have had abundant opportunities of form
ing a correct judgment that no one, not actually an official or a soldier, would raise
a finger to prevent such a consummation. But it is quite another question whether,
the exchange once made, the nomadic Arab population would long willingly submit to
be ruled by Kaffirs, especially when acted upon from without by accomplished intii-
guers. A British annexation of the country, were such a thing politically possible 01
desirable, could only be made permanent by a tedious war. But our ambition does not
lie that way; aggrandisement in that part of the world would be the last thing to
suggest itself to any English statesman. On that very account I was the moie
struck with the number of the inquiries which were made as to the possibility of the
country being brought some day under British rule. The deduction is two-fold; that
the population has in one way or another acquired a conviction of the mildness and
justice which characterise our sway, and that public opinion is gradually preparing
the way for great changes.
In 1881 Mr. Plowden, the British Resident at Baghdad, was led by
the troubles which then convulsed the Muntaflk country and endangered, jn the
and trade on the Tisrris as well as on the
indirectly, navigation and trade on the Tigris as well as on
Euphrates, to suggest intervention by Her Britannic Majesty s Ambas
sador at Constantinople. Mr. Plowden, remarking that the influence of
the Muntafik might in certain eventualities be of the utmost value to
British interests, and that their friendship was worth an effort to secure,
recommended as a remedy for the existing disorders the re-institution of
Muntafik
difficulty,
1881.
Geary in his Through Asiatic Turkey, vol. I, pages 273-274,
i v!