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'Gazetteer of Arabia Vol. I' [‎894] (955/1050)

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The record is made up of 1 volume (523 folios). It was created in 1917. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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894
one-fourth of the prints are imported by British firms. Next in order of value after
cotton goods is sugar, both loaf and crushed; some is from Belgium, Austria and
Egypt, but the great bulk of it is from France which also supplies (but in small quantities)
leather for the manufacture of European boots and shoes, silk goods, satins, gold
brocade, broadcloth, brandy and Bordeaux wine. The Oriental Christian merchants
of Baghdad mostly trade with France, as the Jews do with England; but there is not
in this any basis of political sentiment. Wood and timber, coffee, gunnies, metals, yarn
and twist, spices, kerosene and tobacco are the principal remaining imports. The import
ed wood is mostly for date-boxes and comes from Austria; but bastard teak, locally called
Jawi is imported by an Indian firm at Basrah from Calicut and Singapore : nearly all
building timber, planks and charcoal are from Indian "ports, the charcoal being from
Karachi, but part of the building timber is from Russia, Sweden and Norway. Coffee is
principally Brazilian ; but India supplies the gunnies, the cotton yarn and twist and
the spices. Indigo also is brought in considerable, and tea in increasing, quantities from
British India : about | of the tea is now from India. Iron, the metal most imported,
is of British origin. Kerosene is from Russia, but only part of it is received through
a Russian medium; the Indian firm already mentioned imports some kerosene direct
from Batoum. America, whose trade with 'Iraq is every year greater, sends cheap
blankets, bed-sheets and watches, and nearly all the stockings now sold in the Baghdad
bazaar are of American manufacture, but the quantity of these last is small. Germany
and Austria supply cheap fancy articles, fezes, crockery, low-priced clothes, sometimes
second-hand, penknive, articles of German silver, sewing machines and all sorts of
haberdashery: the best candles are from Holland, and the best window glass is from
Belgium.
There are, in addition to the sea-imports just enumerated and to the land-imports
from Persia already specified, some imports, partly by sea and partly by land, from
other provinces of the Ottoman empire; goods from Constantinople, however, are now
received chiefly by sea, and those from Aleppo largely so via Alexandretta. Such
imports are blankets, flannels, fezes, bath-towels, ladies shoes, slippers, knives and fancy
articles from Constantinople, and native soap, rope, pistachios, silk and gold-thread
from Aleppo and Damascus ; Alleppo to a greater extent than Baghdad supplies the
cotton piece-goods of Musal. Silk for embroidery is from Syria and Northern Persia,
except the " Moga " silk from the East which is so largely used in Baghdad embroideries.
It is estimated by experts that no less than three-fourths of the foreign goods import
ed into Baghdad are re-exported to Persia.
Export trade by sea.—Dates are the most valuable export by sea, and in 1905 those
despatched by sea from Basrah were estimated to be worth £345,184; most are grown
in the Basrah neighbourhood and sent to England and America, but some Zahdi and
Kursi dates from the plantations about Baghdad are consignei, packed in skins, to
Egypt, the Levant A geographical area corresponding to the region around the eastern Mediterranean Sea. and the Black Sea ports. Wheat and barley taken together generally
hold the second place, barley, much of which is from the Shatt-al-Gharaf and Amarah
districts, greatly predominating over wheat in spite of the fact that wheat is the only
grain which leaves Baghdad for abroad. Wool and mohair, Persian opium, seeds
(including Idhrah, Dukhn, Mash, sesame, linseed and hemp), Kurdistan gall-nuts, skins
and hides, succeed grain and follow one other in order of importance ; next are horses,
and Persian carpets, the last mostly through Baghdad; then gum, then liquorice-root.
Other exports are intestines, to be utilised as sausage-skins, and dogs dung which
goes to Austria for use in the tanning of fine leather. There is a small trade with Bombay
in Persian raisins, and Baghdad oranges and pomegranates have been exported ex
perimentally to the same place. Ghi from 'Ahmarah and other places reaches Bombay,
the Red Sea and even the ports of the Levant A geographical area corresponding to the region around the eastern Mediterranean Sea. . Maize, colocynth and almond-kernels,
the last for the manufacture of prussic acid, are also exported to a limited extent.
The destination of the wool is London, Marseilles, America, Germany or Austria;
of the gall-nuts London, Bombay or Persia ; of the gums London, Marseilles and some
times New York and Austria ; of the wheat the Red Sea coast and London ; of the
opium Hongkong, except a little which goes to Singapore and Europe; of the skins
and hides Constantinople, France and the United Kingdom. Some walnut wood is
sent to Marseilles, and 85 per cent, of the liquorice-root is taken by America, where the
liquorice-paste with which American tobacco is sweetened is manufactured from it. The
liquorice business in 'Iraq is now managed by an agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. of the American Tobacco Trust.

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Content

Volume I of III of the Gazetteer of Arabia. The Gazetteer is alphabetically-arranged and this volume contains entries A through to J.

The Gazetteer is an alphabetically-arranged compendium of the tribes, clans and geographical features (including towns, villages, lakes, mountains and wells) of Arabia that is contained within three seperate bound volumes. The entries range from short descriptions of one or two sentences to longer entries of several pages for places such as Iraq and Yemen.

A brief introduction states that the gazetteer was originally intended to deal with the whole of Arabia, "south of a line drawn from the head of the Gulf of 'Aqabah, through Ma'an, to Abu Kamal on the Euphrates, and to include Baghdad and Basrah Wilayats" and notes that before the gazetteer could be completed its publication was postponed and that therefore the three volumes that now form this file simply contain "as much of the MSS. [manuscript] as was ready at the time". It further notes that the contents have not been checked.

Extent and format
1 volume (523 folios)
Physical characteristics

Foliation: This volume's foliation system is circled in pencil, in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. of each folio.

Written in
English in Latin script
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'Gazetteer of Arabia Vol. I' [‎894] (955/1050), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/16/2/1, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023909215.0x00009c> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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