"ملف ٤/١ معلومات عامة بخصوص الكويت والمنطقة الداخلية" [و‎‎١‎٦‎٧] (٤٧٤/٣٣٣)

Booms Report 7
pays. A considerable proportion of the business of each
voyage seems to consist of trying to clear up the debts
of the last, and for this purpose odd mates and younger
sons and brothers (always without passports) are left
at odd places up and do n the coast, while the boom moves
on. These pick up their own ship later, with cash: or
if they don’t they make the best of their way home by
other vessels. (Incidentally they never pay any fares: no
fares are charged, for any Arab ship will carry a debt-
collector for any other.)
The outward cargo finally disposed of, the boom
moves on with whatever funds may be in hand -- and they
are usually sufficient, for after all the Hadhrami pays
cash, and so do odd extra passengers picked up on the
African coast: and some old debts are always settled --
and goes, say, down to the delta of the Rufiji. Here
she buys a cargo of mangrove poles, or at least pretends
to buy her cargo. In actual fact she buys half a cargo,
steals the other half. This is a time-honoured practice
which has been going on, apparently, for centuries.
Previously - prior to the Berman times - the Sultan of
Zanzibar had the cutting rights for this delta,
and under that sort of management the present system
of paying for half the cargo, stealing the other half,
was built up. As far as I have been able to discover,
the Bermans, if they did not find out quite what was
going on, at least became very suspicious, and for a
year or two before the war outbreak of war in 1914 made
the Arab shins load from a central dump at Salale,
under close supervsision. The usual method, and the one
in use now, is to allow the Arabs to move about in the
delta more or less as they like, and only one government
officer - a forester - looks after them. The cutting
rights are now the property of a contracting company
which, since it spends nothing in the delta, itseli
and pays only royalties on what is sold, does not care
to check stealing. The company is represented by one