IOR/R/15/1/138, ff 241-246

The letter concerns the foundering and subsequent plunder of a Muscat cargo vessel on its way to Zanzibar, under what Kemball describes as suspicious circumstances. Kemball reports that there are questions over the involvement of the Joasmee [Qasimi] tribes in the incident, but believes there may be a connection to an earlier incident involving a Qasimi boat off Zanzibar two months previously.

The letter has a number of enclosures:

• Letter no.283 of 1853 (folio 243-44) from Kemball to Major Atkins Hamerton, Her Majesty's Consul and the Honourable Company's Agent in the dominions of His Highness the Imam of Muscat, dated 21 September 1853. The letter encloses an extract of a letter received by Kemball from the Qasimi chief Sheikh Sultan ben Suggar [Sultan bin Saqr], who complains of an attack upon one of his boats at Lamooh [in the vicinity of Zanzibar];
• A translation of a letter (folios 245-46) from the Native Agent at Muscat, Khojeh Hiskale, to Kemball, dated 19 October 1853. The letter contains a report of the foundering and plunder of the Muscat cargo vessel, as related to Hiskale by a man called Ibraheem, who was engaged on board the boat in question as a sailing master.