Sheikh Mohammed was very anxious to see how I could shoot with my revolver, so a brown pot containing about half a pint of water was put on a lump of rock as a mark. I was terrified; for I knew if I missed, as I surely expected, I should bring great discredit on myself and my nation, and there was such a crowd! My husband said I must try, and I am sure no one was more astonished than I was that I shattered the pot. If I had not it would have been said that I only carried the revolver for show.
That afternoon a great cavalcade of gazelle huntsmen called upon us. The four chief men of these had each a hooded falcon on his arm, and a tawny Persian greyhound, with long silky tail, at his side. They wore their sickle-like daggers in their waistbands; their bodies were enveloped in long cloaks, and their heads in white cloths bound round with the camel-hair straps; they were accompanied by another young scion of the El Khalifa family, who bestrode a white Arab steed with the gayest possible trappings. Thus was this young prince attired: on his head a cashmere kerchief with gold akkal; he was almost smothered in an orange cloth gown trimmed with gold and lined with green, the sleeves of which were very long, cut open at the ends and trimmed; over this robe was cast a black cloth cloak trimmed with gold on the shoulders, and a richly inlaid sword dangled at his side, almost as big as himself, for he was but an undersized boy of fifteen. The sportsmen made a very nice group for our photography, as did almost everything around us on Bahrein.
Any excavator would have lost patience with the men of Bahrein with whom we had to deal; tickets had to be issued to prevent more men working than were wanted, and claiming pay at the end of the day; ubiquity was essential, for they loved to get out of sight and do nothing; with unceasing regularity the pipe went round and they paused for a 'drink' at the bubble-bubble, as the Arabs express it; morning, noon-tide, and evening prayers were, I am sure, unnecessarily long. Accidents would happen, which alarmed us at first, until we learnt how ready they were to cry wolf: one man was knocked over by a stone; we thought by his contortions some limb must be broken, and we applied vaseline, our only available remedy, to the bruise; his fellow-workmen then seized him by the shoulders, he keeping his arms crossed the while, shook him well 'to put the bones right again,' as they expressed it, and he continued his work as before.