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completed the Tabuk station and to have moved on to Qaryat-al-Milh. Riadh
has kept in communication with Taif by means of the mobile sets. The “ Umm-al-
Qura of the 30th October announced that the stations at A1 Hasa and Buraida
had been completed, presumably by Marconi’s Egyptian engineer.
Legislation.
19. No legislation of any note hrs been promulgated.
Religious Intolerance.
20. Copies of a further Shia protest against the desecration of tombs by
the Wahhabis were received in September from India. It had already received
the usual answer (July-August report, paragraph 17). The Wahhabi Committee
of Virtue continued its activities at Mecca (ibid., paragraph 16).
Communications.
21. The Hejazi Government received in October an enquiry from the Iraqi
Government as to the possibility of opening a route for motor traffic from Najaf
through Jauf to Medina. They are believed to have replied that the deep sands
of the Nafud desert, which lie to the south of Jauf, made this route impracticable,
hut that they were studying an alternative route following the old pilgrim track
via Hail, called the “ Darb Zubaida." This track is so named after the beneficent
wife of Harun-ar-Rashid, who still has the present Mecca water supply to her
credit.
Locusts.
22. A reply was veceived in September to Sir A. Ryan’s note of the
10th June (May-June report, paragraph 13). The Hejazi Government said that
they would do their best to afford every assistance in the matter of advice to the
International Bureau for Anti-Locust Measures, but they expressed their regret
at being unable either to associate themselves with the bureau or to adhere to the
convention. In effect, as in Persia, they preferred their own locusts to a foreign
mission.
Security.
23. At the end of August two West African natives disappeared near
Rabigh as they were returning on foot from Medina to Jedda. The authorities,
having failed to trace them, surmised that they must have been devoured by wild
beasts in the mountainous forests of that" region. As the Tihama Plain
thereabouts is open dusty desert, inhabited by gazelle and Bedouin, and the two
victims were found to be French West Africans after all, the case was passed to
the French consulate for further treatment. It must be added that such
disappearances are surprisingly rare.
24. At the end of October the Palestine press reported the murder of a
Danish Moslem, named Knud Holmboe, by a Wahhabi enthusiast, while he was
on his way from Transjordania to Mecca. The Danish Government made
enquiries through His Majesty’s Government As a result, the Hejazi
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs informed His Majesty’s Charge d’Affaires
that the frontier Amirs denied all knowledge of the man and the incident. He
added that the press had recently reported him to be alive in Maan.
IT.—Frontier Questions.
T ransjordan.
Raiding.
25. On the 19th October the Acting High Commissioner for Transjordan Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan
reported that, on the 28th September, some Nejdi Bedouin had raided the Hejazi
Beni Atiya at Hazim, in Nejd, and carried off 200 camels belonging to the Trans
jordan Howeytat, which were grazing with the Hejazi herds. A request was
accordingly addressed to the Hejazi Government for their return. It would seem