IOR/R/15/1/238

This file consists of several telegrams and a letter relating to the proposal and planning of locust reconnaissance trips in southern Arabia, as part of a wider Middle East Supply Centre (MESC) effort to prevent food shortages caused by locust swarms in the region. The correspondence is between Arnold Crawshaw Galloway, the Political Resident in Bushire, Ralph Ingham Hallows, the Political Agenct in Muscat, Miles Lampson, the British Ambassador in Cairo, the MESC in Cairo, and O. B. Lean, the chief anti-locust officer of the Middle East Anti-Locust Unit, based in Aden.

The first part of the correspondence (folios 2-5) is concerned with the appointment of Wilfred Thesiger as leader of the expedition, obtaining permission from the authorities in Muscat and Salalah to venture into the areas to be surveyed, conditions set by those authorities for granting it, and details of how Thesiger wishes to carry out his task.

The second part (folios 6-7) consists of summaries of political developments in Oman at the time, namely talks between the Ghafiri (Ġāfiri) sheikhs, Suliman Bin Hamiyar of Jabal Akhdhar and Ali Bin Abdullah of the Beni Bu Ali, and the Sultan of Muscat, Sa'id bin Taimur, regarding the election of a new Imam following the expected death of the incumbent, Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Khalili. Folio 6 relays the Sultan's desire to postpone a proposed trip into the north of Oman until the following year due to the delicate political situation. Folio 7, a letter from Bushire to the External Affairs Department of the Government of India in New Delhi, emphasises the importance of these developments for the chances of a proposed geological survey by Petroleum Concessions Limited in the Jabal Akhdhar area during the winter of 1945/6.