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'Diary of a Tour in the Persian Gulf and in Turkish Arabia December 1906, by Lieutenant-Colonel Malleson Assistant Quarter Master General, Intelligence Branch, Division of the Chief of the Staff.' [‎14v] (28/46)

The record is made up of 1 volume (23 folios). It was created in 1907. 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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in the extreme and their ideas of cleanliness
of an elementary description. But if they
were dirty, their’s was a picturesque dirt,
less squalid and disgusting than that^ of a
similar stratum of society in more civilised
parts of the world.
So for five long days our voyage continued,
its monotony only broken by an occasional
passing steamer or dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. , or by the rarer
appearance of a riparian village, the child
ren of which invariably ran along the banks
asking for presents of the dates which
formed so large a part in the dietary of our
Arab passengers. At length, on the morn
ing of Thursday, the 20th, we reached
Bagdad, I had previously wired up to
Major Ramsay, the British Resident, tell
ing him of our approaching visit, and he
was good enough to come off for us in a
boat and to ask us to stop with him during
our stay in the place. Accordingly, we
went at once to the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. , a fine large
house built on the river bank. The British
Resident is a big man in Bagdad, with
a large guard of Indian soldiers and his
own gunboat anchored in front of the
house. We enjoy these privileges because
we have had representatives in the place
for so long, almost before the Turkish
authority was even as slight as it now is.
The representatives of other powers, and
pretty well every nation has a consul or
agent here, are creatures merely of yester
day, and loom small in the public eye as
compared with the British man. And so
at last we made our entry in Bagdad,
Properly to appreciate Bagdad and all
that its name implies one must be steeped
in its traditions, acquainted with its his
tory, and have studied the masterpiece of
Arabic literature with which its name is so
intimately connected. Bagdad, compared
to the hoary antiquities in its immediate
neighbourhood, is almost a place of mush
room growth. Yet it was founded* by
the second Abbaside Caliph, on the ruins
of an earlier Babylonian town, more than
300 years before William the Conqueror
set sail for the English coast. It was built
then from materials of the most remote
antiquity, quarried from more majestic
ruins. In the period of its greatest glory ;
when the immortal Haroun-er-Rashid was
Commander of the Faithful ; when its arts
and commerce were at their highest point
and its wealth was renowned throughout
the nations ; when its merchant princes
extended their operations to the remotest
lands and distant monarchs sent embassies
to the great Caliph and trembled at his

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Content

The diary, written by Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfrid Malleson, comprises daily entries and accounts of his travels from 3 to 29 December 1906.

The diary commences on his arrival at sea off Maskat [Muscat] before recounting the journey to Basra via Bushire and Koweit [Kuwait] and on to Baghdad, Babylon, Seleucia [Minţaqat as Salūqīyat al Atharīyah] and Ctesiphon.

Each entry contains descriptions of places visited and notes on trade, climate and local customs along with accounts of conversations with people; in addition, there are observations on other matters such as quarantine arrangements, pilgrimages and local shortages of labour.

Printed at the Government Monotype Press, Simla 1907.

Extent and format
1 volume (23 folios)
Arrangement

The report comprises daily entries arranged chronologically by date.

Physical characteristics

Foliation: the foliation sequence commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 23; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Pagination: the volume also contains an original printed pagination sequence.

Written in
English in Latin script
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'Diary of a Tour in the Persian Gulf and in Turkish Arabia December 1906, by Lieutenant-Colonel Malleson Assistant Quarter Master General, Intelligence Branch, Division of the Chief of the Staff.' [‎14v] (28/46), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/66, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100025648363.0x00001d> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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