IOR/L/PS/5/486, ff 392-409

This item comprises enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay [Mumbai] Secret Department to the Secret Committee [Bombay Secret Letter], No. 22 dated 31 March 1856. The enclosures are dated 16 Janurary-5 February 1856.

The item comprises letters from Captain Arnold Burrowes Kemball, Political Agent in Turkish Arabia [Ottoman Iraq] to the Secretary to the Government, Bombay, for the attention of the President and Governor in Council, Bombay, and the Government of India.

The papers cover matters including the following:

• Events in the Montefik [Muntafiq] District, including the contested ‘chiefship’ of the Montefik tribe, and the decline of the area caused by excessive taxation imposed by the Governor of Bussorah [Basra] and the ‘most revolting means’ (f 397) used by Zeyd en Nasser [Zayd bin Nāṣir], the brother of Bunder en Nasser [Bandar bin Nāṣir] (who was invested with the ‘sheikhship of the Montefik’), for their collection for the Turkish authorities
• The capture of Kars by Russian forces [Crimean War, 1853-1856] under General Mouravieff [Nikolay Muravyov] and the military situation in that area of the Ottoman Empire
• Tensions along the Persian [Iranian]-Turkish [Ottoman] frontier notably at Kermanshah and Mohamrah [Khorramshahr], including: concerns of the Governor-General of Bagdad [Baghdad] regarding potential Persian plans to mount a campaign in spring 1856 with Russian allies; British concerns that Turkish troops may march into the disputed territory of Zohab, then in possession of Persia; and Persian fears of an invasion at Mohamrah by the English via the Turkish dominions.