"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٥‎٦‎٣] (١٧٨٢/١٧١٨)

hi s t
>5
w,.'
'Hi,
'ritisi r : .
fffsaii
Wli'i
1563
weapons and aminunition from every restriction. This ordinance was,
however, abrogated by a regulation made in 1870, and with it all other
existing rules ; and thereafter, though the exclusion of sporting
requisites from the country was not strictly enforced, difficulties were of
occasional occurrence. In 1887 a gun and some cartridges addressed to
Mr. Robertson, the Assistant Political Agent at Basrah, were detained
for a time in the local customs house, but were finally released on an
order from the Minister for Foreign Affairs j and a ritie and ammuni
tion consigned in the same year to Major Mockler, who held the same
post, were similarly treated. In 1891 Lieutenant Stratton, a successor
of Mr. Robertson and Major Mockler, having obtained a pass from the
Wali, ordered 2,000 shot cartridges from India; but they were im
pounded by the Turkish Customs at Basrah for return to the port of
shipment under a regulation prohibiting the entry of loaded cartridges
of any kind into Turkey; Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador at Cons
tantinople informed the Resident at Baghdad, through w r hom the matter
had been referred to him, that no action was possible. Sportsmen in
Turkish 'Iraq thus laboured under an irksome restriction, ammunition
being either unprocurable locally or, if procurable, of doubtful quality.
In 1893 a system of harrassment of British Indian sailing vessels
on the lower Shatt-al 'Arab was initiated by the Turkish authorities;
it, was evidently a part of their scheme for asserting absolute Turkish lngvesselson
jurisdiction over the whole river in which the construction of a fort at the Shatt-al
Fao and the attempted recovery of customs duty there and at Dawasir 98
on goods consigned to Muhammareh were also elements*
In the autumn of 1893, the season for the exportation of dates 1893.
having begun, the Turkish Mudir at Fao began to oblige the crew of
every British Indian sailing vessels proceeding up the river to deposit
in his charge, pending their return seawards, all the firearms m their
possession except four which they were allowed to retain for defence
against pirates • the reason alleged was that surplus arms might be sold
by the owners to natives of the country. Money was also extorted from
the depositors at the time of returning their arms to them. The British
authorities had not been consulted in regard to this innovation affecting
their subjects. . , . (
In the autumn of the following year wholesale blackmailing of 1894-
British Indian craft began. It had for long been a eastern, though an
irregular one, that native sailing vessels from the Persian Gulf, even if
bound for Muhammareh, should stop at Fao and be subjected there to
the requirements of the Turkish quarantine regulations; and it now
Vexatious
interference
with British
Indian sail-