Miscellaneous Information Connected with the Persian Gulf, Bombay Government Records. First Edition. Bombay: Printed for the Government at the Bombay Education Society’s Press, 1856.
Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Specialist in Literature at Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Octavo. Original green cloth, paper labels to the spine, and front board. Housed in a plush-lined leather-entry marbled paper slipcase. 6 folding lithographic maps including the very large (580 × 922 mm) area map – “Map of Maritime Arabia with the Opposite Coasts of Africa and Persia reduced from an Original Map by T. Dickinson, Chief Engineer, lithographed in the Chief Engineer’s Office by Huskeljee E, and Kumroondeen E., Bombay 1st March 1856” – coastline outlined in blue, loose in pocket inside the front board and consequently often lacking; together with the “Sketch of Rasool Khymah ”, with hand-colour; “Plan of Bassadore Roads by H.H. Hewett, Midshipman”, similar “Trigonometrical Plan of the Harbour of Grane or Koweit” and “Sketch of the Island of Kenn”, and a large “Reduced Copy of Chart of the Gulf of Persia”, uncoloured; and a folding letterpress census table.
Some very light shelf-wear, spine sunned to brown, and some differential sunning on the boards, Ex-Bath Public Library with the S. B. Miles legacy bookplate in the map pocket, their discreet blind-stamps to the other maps, light toning, one gathering slightly loose, but overall an exception copy, superbly preserved.
First edition of this remarkable, historically important digest of information relating to the Persian Gulf, with particular attention paid to the Trucial States, now the United Arab Emirates: “This volume is a collection of reports received by the Government of Bombay and was designed to serve as a reference book for officers working in the area … Anyone working on the nineteenth-century history of Eastern Arabia and the Gulf comes across frequent references to it … It served as a basic source for Lorimer in his Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia. It contains, however, a great deal more information that Lorimer omitted, presumably for reasons of space. The history of Abu Dhabi which Lorimer dealt with in just over four pages here receives thirty-four” (Robin Bidwell in his introduction to the 1985 reprint).
The period covered was key to the historical development to the region. From the early part of the 19th century, the operations of the Wahhabist Qawasim’s “holy war by sea” on what the British referred to as the “Pirate Coast” had much hindered the use of the overland “Desert Mail” to communicate vital despatches to and from Britain’s burgeoning Indian empire. When a British ship was “captured less than 70 miles from Bombay” in 1818, it was the final straw and a force was sent out to suppress the “pirates” for once and for all. The expedition was a great success, resulting in the capture of Ras al-Khaimah and the other key Qawasim strongholds, and in 1830 with the conclusion of the General Treaty of Peace, binding the local shaikhs to abjure “plunder and piracy”. “However, the British realised that the future security of the Gulf would depend less upon a piece of paper than upon the vigour with which they enforced it. A permanent presence would have to be maintained and to act as policemen both topographical and background knowledge have always been required: the papers printed in this volume were designed to provide this for the men on the spot and for their masters in Bombay”. In this context, the first paper is of particular historiographical interest being Captain Robert Taylor’s compilation of all the then available reliable information on the region, as a sort of “invasion handbook” for the 1819 expedition.
This copy was part of the bequest of the widow of Colonel Samuel Barrett Miles to Bath Public Libraries. For 14 years, Miles was one of the “men of the spot”, serving successively as Political Agent in Turkish Arabia, Consul-General in Baghdad, Political Agent and Consul in Zanzibar, and Political Resident in the Gulf. In his obituary in the Geographical Journal Miles was commended for his “unrivalled knowledge of the Arab … few political officers anywhere have brought to their work such a profound knowledge of orientalism and such indefatigable energy and patience in collecting vast stores of information by personal research or observation”. An outstanding provenance for what is a superb copy of this highly elusive, foundational text for the study of the Gulf in the modern era. It is difficult to imagine a better copy.
