نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [ظ‎‎٧‎٦‎٣] (١٨١٤/١٥٤٣)

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ejected, retired to tlie interior, whence spntterings of revolt were
occasionally heard till Seyid Turki’s death, and again broke into
flame after his son’s accession. Seyid Tnrki, though not a vigorous
was a mild and liberal-minded ruler; he understood how to manage
the Arab tribes under his control; and he remained consistently
loyal to the British Government, by whom he was made a G.C.S.I.
in 1886, and confirmed in his tenure of a throne which he had, on
the whole, deserved, by an assurance of active support against un
provoked aggression. In 1873 Sir Bartle Frere concluded a treaty
with him, consolidating the previous engagements for the suppres
sion of the slave-trade, abolishing all public slave-markets in his
dominions, and emancipating all slaves who entered his territories.
At the same time his brother of Zanzibar having taken advantage
of the disturbances in Oman to decline any longer to pay his
annual tribute, the British Government, in return for the abolition
of the free traffic in slaves between the African coast and the island
of Zanzibar, charged itself with the payment of the annual subsidy
to Muscat, and to this day hands over to the Sultan the sum of
7,200 rupees a month, or a little over 6,000Z. a year. When
Seyid Turki died in 1888, his second son, Seyid Feysul bin Turki ?
though the son of an African slave, and as black as a Nubian in
colour, succeeded without opposition to the throne. Among Arab
' f tribes there is no law or custom of primogeniture, and no prescrip
tion in favour of the eldest son. Within the limits of the reigning
T ^ 1 family might is right; the strongest hand seizes the sceptre and
wields it. There being considerable doubt, however, as to the
ability of Seyid Feysul to hold his own, he had not at the time of
my visit been formally recognised by the British Government. In
October 1888 he conducted an unsuccessful expedition against an
old pretender to the throne, Ibrahim bin Kais, who still plays the
game of rebellion from time to time while his uncle, the veteran
Abdul Aziz, after a long-repose in the interior, suddenly resumed
activity in 1889. The latter’s rebellion was still undecided while
I was at Muscat, but afterwards ended in the withdrawal of the
pretender from the country. Seyid Feysul had the double ad-
w vantage of youth and possession on his side. He is now (1892)
; y only twenty-eight years of age; and if he exhibits sufficient
^ • tenac ^y to justify the support of the British Government, may
VV) -<& possibly develop the ruling qualities in which some of his pre-
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decessors have excelled. The Wahabi power in the interior
is a
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