ABSTRACT
Two essential truths which I soon learned governed my actions, and, to a certain extent, my opinions in the ancient city of the Abbaside Khalifs. First, the key to Najd from any port on the Persian Gulf was in the hand of the High Commissioner for Iraq; second, the door was seldom opened to anyone but the English. Nay, only to a few favoured Englishmen who combined at times the interests of the Royal Geographical Society with those of the Foreign Office. Even some of the American physicians in Bahrain were often refused permission to go to Najd on professional business. These are the truths with which I was confronted in political circles. Even my native friends were not more encouraging than the Englishman in office. The Englishman in office! He smiled at my boldness, my ignorance rather, in Hudaidah; he blandished and evaded in Aden; he equivocated in Bombay, and-what will he do in Baghdad?
