File 110/1917 'Arabia: Printed Correspondence.' [‎173r] (360/616)

SECRET.
Major Cornwallis, Director,
Arab Bureau.
The original of the circular letter found on Shekib Ghalib Bey, which
was sent by the King of the Hejaz for photographing, has been submitted to
various experts and the resulting opinions are divergent.
Certainly, the opinion which should naturally carry most weight is that
of Sami Bey, himself a Turk and an expert calligraphist, and politically
above suspicion. It may, however, be suggested that, as not infrequently
happens with other expert calligraphists, too great attention to minutiae has
led him to inherently improbable conclusions, and that the opinion of
L eutenant Hazam, of Jewish origin but a good Turkish scholar, is more in
accordance with probabilities and with common-sense.
' The document is written on thin ruled foreign paper. It is very heavily-
creased, and although, when it was first shown by the King of the Hejaz to
Captain Young, Inteligence Officer at Jeddah, the latter expressed the opinion
that it looked too clean to have been kept in the pocket of any one, that is not
the opinion of either Colonel Wilson or those to whom the paper has been
bubmitted here. Unless the paper has been deliberately creased since it was
first shown to Captain Young, which is improbable, as, if there were an
intention to deceive, it would have been so creased before, its appearance is just
that of a paper which has been kept in a pocket book under some pressure.
There seems no special reason to doubt the simple statement that it was
found on the dead officer and that it is a copy, possibly made by an uneducated
person, of an original circular letter.
R. N. V. R
Attached.
Note by Sami Bey.
„ Lieutenant Hazan.
19
Office Memo. No. 3064, dated Delhi, the 20th December 1917.
Endorsed by Assistant Private Secretary to His Excellency the Viceroy.
Transferred to the Secretary to the Government of India in the Eoreign.
and Political Department.
Dated 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. , Cairo, the 19th November 1917.
To— His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, Delhi.
With the compliments of the High Commissioner.
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. , Cairo,
19th November 1917.
Copy.
No. 276.
Sir,
I have the honour to forward a note on the Quarantine Service of the
Hedjaz which has been drawn up by a local Committee, under the Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent.
of Doctor A. Granville, C.M.G., appointed by me to report on the question.
, I consider that the recommendations made by the Committee are sound
*0 principle : but I am bound to endorse the view expressed by Lieutenant-
Colonel Wilson, D.S.O., in his letter attached to the Note, that to attempt to
carry them out immediately would be highly inadvisable.