Half way down the Persian Gulf, off the east Arabian coast, between the peninsula of El Katar and the Turkish province of El Hassa, are the islands of Bahrein.[33] This name was formerly applied to the entire triangular projection on the coast between the salt-sea of the gulf and the fresh water flood of the Euphrates; hence its name Bahr-ein “the two seas.” But since the days of Burckhardt’s map the name is restricted to the archipelago. The larger island is itself often called Bahrein, while the next in size is named Moharrek—“place of burning.” The Arabs say that this was so named because the Hindu traders used it for cremating their dead.

The main island is about twenty-seven miles in length from north to south, and ten miles in breadth. Toward the centre there is a slightly elevated table-land, mostly barren. Twelve miles from the northern end is a clump of dark volcanic hills, 400 feet high, called Jebel Dokhan, “Mountain of Smoke.” The northern half of the island is well watered by abundant fresh-water springs, always lukewarm in temperature. This part of the island is covered with beautiful gardens of date-palms, pomegranate, and other trees. The coast is everywhere low, and the water shallow for a long distance. There is no pier or jetty anywhere, so that, except at high water, boats anchor nearly a quarter of a mile from the shore.

The total population of the islands is estimated at nearly 60,000, all of them Moslems with the exception of about 100 Banian traders from Sindh, India. Menamah, the large town on the northeast point of the island, with perhaps 10,000 inhabitants, is built along the shore for about a mile; the houses are mostly poor, many being mere mat-huts. This town is the market-place and commercial centre for the whole group. Here is the post office and custom-house and here the bulk of the trade is carried on for the whole island. A short distance from Menamah is the old town of Belad le Kadim, with ruins of better buildings and a fine mosque with two minarets. The mosque is of very early date, for the older Cufic character is on all its inscriptions, covered over in some places by more recent carving and inscriptions in later Arabic.

The largest spring on the islands is called El Adhari, “the virgins.” It issues from a reservoir thirty yards across, and at least thirty feet deep, flowing in a stream six or eight feet wide and two feet deep. This is remarkable for Arabia, and gives some idea of the abundant supply of water. Under the sea, near the island of Moharrek, are fresh-water springs always covered with a fathom of salt water. The natives lower a hollow, weighted bamboo through which the fresh water gushes out a few inches above sea-level. The source of these fresh-water springs of Bahrein must be on the mainland of Arabia, as all the opposite coast shows a similar phenomena. Apparently the River Aftan marked on old maps of the peninsula as emptying into the Persian Gulf near Bahrein was an underground river, known to the older geographers.

If Egypt is the gift of the Nile, Bahrein may well be called the gift of the pearl-oyster. Nothing else gave the islands their ancient history, and nothing so much gives them their present importance. The pearl-fisheries are the one great industry of Bahrein. They are carried on every year from June until October, and even for a longer period, if hot weather sets in earlier. Nearly all the island population are engaged in the work in some way, and during the season there is only one topic of conversation in the coffee-shops and the evening-mejlis,—PEARLS. The pearl has this distinction above all other precious stones, that it requires no human hand to bring out its beauties. By modern scientists, pearls are believed to be the result of an abnormal secretion, caused by the irritation of the mollusk’s shell by some foreign substance—in short, a disease of the pearl-oyster. But it is not surprising that the Arabs have many curious superstitions as to the cause of pearl-formation. Their poets tell of how the monsoon rains falling on the banks of Ceylon and Bahrein find chance lodgment in the opened mouth of the pearl-oyster. Each drop distills a gem, and the size of the raindrop determines the luck of the future diver. Heaven-born and cradled in the deep blue sea, it is the purest of gems and, in their eyes, the most precious.

Not only in its creation, but in its liberation from its prison-house under ten fathoms of water the pearl costs pain and sacrifice. So far as this can be measured in pounds, shillings and pence, this cost is easy of computation. The total value of pearls exported from Bahrein in 1896 was £303,941 sterling ($1,500,000). The number of boats from Bahrein engaged in the fisheries is about nine hundred and the cost of bringing one boat’s share to the surface is 4,810 rupees (about $1,600).[34] Hundreds of craft also come to the oyster-banks from other ports on the gulf. It is scarcely necessary to say that the pearl divers do not receive the amount fairly due them for their toil. They are one and all victims of the “truck-system” in its worst form, being obliged to purchase all supplies, etc., from their masters. They are consequently so much in debt to him as often to make them practically his slaves. The boats are generally owned by the merchants, and the crew are paid at a low rate for a whole year’s work, only receiving a small extra allowance when they bring up pearls of special size or brilliancy. In the winter season these divers are out of work, and consequently incur large debts which are charged to the next season’s account. By force of circumstances and age-long practice the islanders are also much given to the vice of gambling on the market. Even the poorest fisherman will lay his wager—and lose it. It is not the thirty thousand fishermen of the gulf with their more than five thousand boats who grow rich in the pearl-fishing business; the real profit falls to those who remain on shore—the Arab and Hindu brokers of Bombay who deal direct with Berlin, London and Paris. A pearl often trebles in value by changing hands, even before it reaches the Bombay market.

The divers follow the most primitive method in their work. Their boats are such as their ancestors used before the Portuguese were expelled from Bahrein in 1622. Even Sinbad the sailor might recognize every rope and the odd spoon-shaped oars. These boats are of three kinds, very similar in general appearance, but differing in size, called Bakaret, Shua´ee and Bateel.[35] All of the boats have good lines and are well-built by the natives from Indian timber. For the rest, all is of Bahrein manufacture except their pulley-blocks, which come from Bombay. Sailcloth is woven at Menamah and ropes are twisted of date-fibre in rude rope-walks which have no machinery worth mentioning. Even the long, soft iron nails that hold the boats together are hammered out on the anvil one by one by Bahrein blacksmiths.

Each boat has a sort of figure-head, called the kubait, generally covered with the skin of a sheep or goat which was sacrificed when the boat was first launched. This is one of the Semitic traits which appear in various forms all over Arabia—blood-sacrifice—and which has Islam never uprooted. All the fishermen prefer to go out in a boat which has cut a covenant of blood with Neptune. The larger boats used in diving hold from twenty to forty men, less than half of whom are divers, while the others are rope-holders and oarsmen. One man in each boat is called El Musully, i.e., the one-who-prays, because his sole daily duty is to take charge of the rope of any one who stops to pray or eat. He has no regular work, and when not otherwise engaged vicariously mends ropes and sails or cooks the rice and fish over charcoal embers. He is therefore also called El Gillas, “the sitter,” very suggestive of his sinecure office.

The divers wear no elaborate diving-suit, but descend clothed only in their fitaam and khabaat. The first is a true pince-nez or clothespin-like clasp for their nostrils. It is made of two thin slices of horn fastened together with a rivet or cut out whole in a quarter circle so as to fit the lower part of the nose and keep out the water. It has a perforated head through which a string passes and which suspends it from the divers neck when not in use. Khabaat are “finger-hats” made of leather and thrice the length of an ordinary thimble. They are worn to protect the fingers in gathering the pearl-shells from the sea-bottom; at the height of the pearl season large baskets full of all sizes of these finger-caps are exposed for sale in the bazaar. Each diver uses two sets (twenty) in a season. A basket, called dajeen, and a stone-weight complete the diver’s outfit. This stone, on which the diver stands when he plunges down feet-first, is fastened to a rope passing between his toes and is immediately raised; another rope is attached to the diver and his basket by which he gives the signal and is drawn up. The best divers remain below only two or three minutes at most, and when they come up are nine-tenths suffocated. Many of them are brought up unconscious and often cannot be brought to life. Deafness, and suppuration of the ear, due to carelessness or perforated ear-drums, caused by the enormous pressure of the water at such depths, are common among divers. Rheumatism and neuralgia are universal and the pearl-fishers are the great exception among the Arabs in not possessing beautiful teeth.

Sharks are plentiful and it is not a rare thing for them to attack divers. But the Bahrein divers are more fearful of a small species of devil-fish which lays hold of any part of the body and draws blood rapidly. Against this monster of the sea they guard themselves by wearing an “overall” of white cloth during the early part of the season when it frequents the banks. Their tales of horror regarding the devil-fish equal those of Victor Hugo in his “Toilers of the Sea.”

The divers remain out in their boats as long as their supply of fresh water lasts, often three weeks or even more. Sir Edwin Arnold’s lines are thus not as correct as they are beautiful:

When the pearl-oysters are brought up they are left on deck over night and the next morning are opened by means of a curved knife, six inches long, called miflaket. Before the days of English commerce the mother-of-pearl was thrown away as worthless. Now it has a good market-value and (after being scraped free of the small parasites that infest the outer shell) is packed in wooden crates and exported in large quantities. The total value of this export in 1897 was £5,694 ($28,000). The Arabs have asked me in amazement what in the world the “Franks” do with empty sea-shells; and some tell idle tales of how they are ground up into pearl dust and pressed into artificial gems, or are used as a veneer to cover brick houses.

On shore the pearls are classified by the merchants, according to weight, size, shape, color and brilliancy. There are button-pearls, pendants, roundish, oval, flat, and perfect pearls; pearls, white, yellow, golden, pink, blue, azure, green, grey, dull and black; seed-pearls the size of grains of sand and pearls as large as an Arab’s report, emphasized with frequent wallahs, can make them. I have seen a pendant pearl the size of a hazelnut worth a few thousand rupees but there are Arabs who will swear by the prophet’s beard (each hair of which is sacred!) that they have brought up pearls as large as a pigeon’s egg. The pearl brokers carry their wares about tied in bags of turkey-red calico; they weigh them in tiny brass scales and learn their exact size by an ingenious device consisting of a nest of brass sieves, called taoos, six in number, with apertures slightly differing in size. The pearls are put into the largest sieve first; those that do not fall through its pea-sized holes are called, Ras, “chief”; such are generally pearls of great price, although their value depends most on weight and perfection of form. The second size is called Batu, “belly,” and the third Dhail, “tail.” Color has only a fashion-value; Europe prefers white and the Orient the golden-yellow; black pearls are not highly esteemed by Orientals.

Before they are shipped the large pearls are cleaned in reeta a kind of native soap-powder, and the smaller ones in soft brown sugar; then they are tied up in calico and sold in lots by weight, each bundle being supposed to contain pearls of average equal value. How it is possible to collect custom dues on pearls among a people whose consciences rival their wide breast-pockets in concealing capacity, surpasses comprehension. But the thing is done, for the farmer of the custom dues grows rich and the statistics of export are not pure guess-work.

The Bahrein islands also produce quantities of dates, and there is an export trade in a remarkably fine breed of asses, celebrated all over the Persian Gulf. A good Bahrein donkey is easy to ride and almost as good a roadster as an average horse. The only manufactures, beside sail-sheeting, are coarse cloth for turbans, and reed-mats of very fine texture. The chief imports are rice, timber and piece-goods for which Bahrein is the depot for all eastern Arabia. Three sights are shown to the stranger-tourist to the islands of Bahrein: the pearl-fisheries, the fresh-water springs, and the ancient ruins of an early civilization at the village of Ali. These ruins are the “bayoot el owalin” the dwellings of the first inhabitants, who are believed to have been destroyed by Allah because of their wickedness. An hour’s ride through the date gardens and past the minarets brings us to the village of Ali. It can generally be seen from a good distance because of the smoke which rises from the huge ovens where pottery is baked. The potter turns his wheel to-day and fashions the native water-jars with deft hand utterly ignorant and careless of the curious sepulchral tumuli which cast their shade at his feet. South and west of the village the whole plain is studded with mounds, at least three hundred of them, the largest being about forty feet in height. Only two or three have ever been opened or explored. Theodore Bent in company with his wife explored these in 1889, with meagre results, but no further investigations have been made though it is a field that may yet yield large results. M. Jules Oppert, the French Assyriologist, and others regard the island as an extremely old centre of civilization and it is now well known that the first settlements from ancient Babylonia were in the Persian Gulf which then extended as far north as Mugheir, near Suk-es Shiukh. But those first settlers probably went to the coasts of Africa and to the kingdoms of Southern Arabia, in which case Bahrein was on their line of travel. It must always have been a depot for shipping because of its abundant water-supply in a region where fresh-water is generally scarce. The mounds at Ali probably date from this very early period; although no corroboration in the shape of cylinders or bricks bearing inscriptions has yet been found, the character of the structures found in the mounds is undoubted proof of their great antiquity.

The larger mound opened by Bent, now consists of two rock-built chambers of very large stones, square masonry, and no trace of an arch or a pillar. The lower chamber is twenty-eight feet in length, five feet in width, and eight feet high; it has four niches or recesses about three feet deep, two at the end of the passage and two near its entrance. The upper chamber is of the same length as the lower, but its width is six inches less, and its height only four feet eight inches. The lower passage is hand plastered as an impression of the mason’s hand on the side wall still proves. If diggings were made below the mounds or other mounds were opened better results might follow, and perhaps inscriptions or cylinders would be discovered. A year or two ago a jar containing a large number of gold coins was found near Ali by some native workmen; these however were Cufic and of a much later period than the mounds. Near Yau and Zillag, on the other side of the island there are also ruins and very deep wells cut through solid rock with deep rope-marks on the curbing; perhaps these also are of early date. On the island of Moharrek there is a place called Ed Dair, “the monastery” with ruins of what the Arabs call a church; whether this is of Portuguese date like the castle or goes back to a much earlier period before Mohammed, we cannot tell.

The climate of Bahrein is not as bad as it is often described by casual visitors. No part of the Persian Gulf can be called a health resort, but neither is the climate unhealthful at all seasons of the year. In March and April, October, November and December the weather is delightful, indoor temperatures seldom rising above 85° F., or falling below 60° F. When north winds blow in January and February it is often cold enough for a fire; these are the rainy months of the year and least healthful, especially to the natives in their badly-built mat-huts. From May to September inclusive is the hot season, although the nights remain cool and the heat is tempered by sea-breezes (called, El Barih), until the middle of June. Heavy dews at night are common and make the atmosphere murky and oppressive when there is no sea-breeze. Land-breezes from the west and south continue irregularly throughout the entire summer. When they fail the thermometer leaps to over one hundred and remains there day and night until the ripples on the stagnant, placid sea proclaim a respite from the torture of sweltering heat. A record of temperature, kept at Menamah village in the summer of 1893, shows a minimum indoor temperature of 85° and a maximum of 107°F., in the shade. The prevailing wind at Bahrein, and in fact all over the Gulf, is the shemmal or Northwester changing its direction slightly with the trend of the coast. The air during a shemmal is generally very dry and the sky cloudless, but in winter they are sometimes at first accompanied by rain-squalls. In winter they are very severe and endanger the shipping. The only other strong wind is called kaus; it is a southeaster and blows irregularly from December to April. It is generally accompanied by thick, gloomy weather, with severe squalls and falling barometer. The saying among sailors that “there is always too much wind in the Gulf or none at all,” is very true of Bahrein.

This saying holds true also of the political history of the Gulf. Bahrein, because of its pearl-trade has ever been worth contending for and it has been a bone of contention among the neighboring rulers ever since the naval battle fought by the early inhabitants against the Romans. After Mohammed’s day the Carmathians overran the islands. Portuguese, Arabs from Oman, Persians, Turks and lastly the English have each in turn claimed rule or protection over the archipelago. It is sufficient to note here that in 1867, ’Isa bin Ali (called Esau in Curzon’s “Persia,” as if the name came from Jacob’s brother instead of the Arab form of Jesus!) was appointed ruling Sheikh by the British who deposed his father Mohammed bin Khalifa for plotting piracy.

The present Sheikh is a typical Arab and spends most of his time in hawking and the chase; the religious rule, which in a Moslem land means the judicial and executive department, rests with the Kadi or Judge. There is no legislature as the law was laid down once for all in the Koran and the traditions. The administration of justice is rare. Oppression, blackmail and bribery are universal; and, except in commerce and the slave-trade, English protection has brought about no reforms on the island. To be “protected” means here strict neutrality as to the internal affairs and absolute dictation as to affairs with other governments. To “protect” means to keep matters in status quo until the hour is ripe for annexation. Sometimes the process from the one to the other is so gradual as to resemble growth; in such a case it would be correct to speak of the growth of the British Empire.

Contact with Europeans and western civilization has, however, done much for Bahrein in the matter of disarming prejudice and awakening the sluggish mind of the Arab to look beyond his own “Island of the Arabs.” Even as early as 1867, Palgrave could write: “From the maritime and in a manner central position of Bahreyn my readers may of themselves conjecture that the profound ignorance of Nejd regarding Europeans and their various classifications is here exchanged for a partial acquaintance with those topics; thus, English and French, disfigured into the local Ingleez and Francees are familiar words at Menamah, though Germans and Italians, whose vessels seldom or never visit these seas, have as yet no place in the Bahreyn vocabulary; while Dutch and Portuguese seem to have fallen into total oblivion. But Russians or Moskop, that is Muscovites, are alike known and feared, thanks to Persian intercourse and the instinct of nations. Beside the policy of Constantinople and Teheran are freely and at times sensibly discussed in these coffee-houses no less than the stormy diplomacy of Nejd and her dangerous encroachments.”

To the Bahrein Arabs Bombay is the centre of the world of civilization, and he who has seen that city is distinguished as knowing all about the ways of foreigners. So anxious are the boys for a trip on the British India steamer to this Eldorado of science and mystery that they sometimes run from home and go as stowaways or beg their passage. This close contact with India has had its effect on the Arabic spoken on the island which, although not a dialect, is full of Hindustani words. Of late years there has been a considerable Persian immigration into Bahrein from the coast between Lingah and Bushire, and next to Arabic, Persian is the language most in use.