You, the reader, may wish to refer to these notes from time to time as you read the main text. They will be helpful for you, if you are not familiar with the Trucial Coast, or with the situation in the land at that time. I refer you to the map to see the positions of the major regions, oases and towns. These include the seven emirates Ra’s al-Khaimah, Umm al Quwain, Ajman, Sharjah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Fujairah as well as the oases of Dhaid, Hatta, Al Ain/Buraimi, and the Liwa oases.

Some of the following notes will also appear as footnotes at the bottom of the diary pages as a reminder for the reader.

Today visitors arrive in the Emirates and find themselves immediately in a land of plenty. They travel along broad tree lined avenues, to their hotel, which could, in appearance, be in any wealthy country. They see shopping malls which host shops that frequent the high streets of Europe. There are buildings, roads and parks which could be the envy of long established cities elsewhere. These diaries take us back to another land, a land inhabited by the ancestors of today’s Emirati. To him the names of towns, villages and oases, and the names of his forbears will be familiar. But in these reports they represent a time past, a time of great hardship and yet a history to be proud of.

Hopefully you, the reader, will have taken note of my introduction above and you are ready to cast aside, while you read this book, the familiar images that we have now all around us.

1. The Land. The Trucial Coast

The Trucial Coast was also known as ‘The Trucial States’ or ‘The Coast of Oman’ or ‘Trucial Oman’ or even on occasion ‘The Pirate Coast’. The land occupies the southern and eastern end of the Gulf. The border with Saudi Arabia starts in the west near Qatar, running south before turning east continuing south of the Liwa oases until it reaches the territory of the Sultanate of Oman. Thereafter the border continues northwards, in due course running along the foot of the mountains up to north of Ra’s al-Khaimah near the entrance to the Gulf. The Emirates also stretch across the Hajar mountain range to the Indian Ocean in the east separating the Musandem peninsula from the rest of the Sultanate of Oman.