These Europeans reported that even in the holy city certain dark practices lingered from a primitive past. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "The unspeakable vices of Mecca are a scandal to all Islam, and a constant source of wonder to pious pilgrims which are not thoroughly clear; but under cover of the pilgrimage a great deal of importation and exportation of slaves goes on.
Yet European travelers also reported that the people of the Hejaz, and indeed of all Arabia, were among nature's aristocrats. According to the Britannica:
Physically the Arabs are one of the strongest and noblest races of the world...Thus, physically, they yield to few races, if any, of mankind; mentally, they surpass most, and are only kept back in the march of progress by the remarkable defect of organizing power and incapacity for combined action. Lax and imperfect as are their form of government, it is with impatience that even these are borne..."P:112
"Essentially there were four elements in the Cairo Conference plan. Feisal was to be offered the throne of Mesopotamia, but every effort would be made to make it appear that the offer came from the indigenous population rather than from Britain. In maintaining a British presence in the country, the military would shift to Churchill's airforce-based strategy; but ... Britain would have to rely all the more heavily on Feisal to keep the country quiet in the interim." P:503
"To Arab anti-Zionist demonstrators, Abdullah "maintained an absolutely correct attitude, reproved the demonstrators, stated that the British were his friends, and that British Government would keep their promices to Jews and Arabs alike" (P:506) quoting Churchill.
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