"ملف ٤/١ معلومات عامة بخصوص الكويت والمنطقة الداخلية" [و‎‎١‎٦‎٦] (٤٧٤/٣٣١)

Booms Report 6
directly homewards to Muscat for orders, going into
fuscat only for letters from the merchants in Kuweit:
cargoes are sold at Bahrein, Basra, pr Kuweit, and
sometimes (though rarely) elsewhere, such as Sharja or
some port on the }atar Pensmsular.
A Kuweit boom 1 s typical African voyage works out
something like this.'She goes from Kuweit to Basra early
in September, and is chartered there to load dates at
such and such a freight to Mukalla for orders.These
dates she does not buy; they are bought usually by
the merchants who are her real owners. 7ith the freight
earned by the dates, which is collected at Aden, the boom
then buys salt, rice, tinned milk, sugar, and such things.
Say (as in the Bayan), she has earned about 3000 Rupees
freight on the dates. This then is used to buy cargo for
sale in Africa. She then goes to Mukalla and Shihr and
shins her passengers. The average income from this source,
in a good year, is about 1000 runees. The fare for men
from the Hadhramaut to anywhere in Africa that the booms
visit, is 8 rupees: for women (who are not wanted, and
rarely brought), it is 12. In addition to these ^adhrami,
most of the booms have odd merchants on board, not very
modern Sinbads usually from Sur whose principal merchandise
is Japanese junk bought cheaply in the Crater at Aden, and
whose only business is smuggling. These often decamp from
the ship without paying their fares, and are rarely a
source of any kind of profit. Ror this reason, many
of the older Kuweit nakhodas will not carry them.
The cargo bought at Aden and Mukalla is then sold,
in bits and pieces, down the coasts of Italian hast Africa
and Kenya and Tanganyika. Most of this business is
purely Arab, v/hich is another way of saying that again
the structure of debt becomes so complicated and hopelessly
entangled that it is beyond the conception of the European
how it ever can be straightened out. Cash changes hands
.and with great reluctance, ^
T&Telyk and booms, though time means little to them, wvon
TVp-^L-pcannot always wait about until an Arab merchant