Arabia and the Isles.: With foreword by Lt.- Col Sir Bernard Reilly.

London: John Murray,, 1942. It is an Arab country and Arab it must remain First edition, third impression, a fine presentation copy with a lengthy, topical inscription on the front free endpaper by Ingrams to a respected and valued colleague. The esteemed British colonial administrator, first posted to Aden in 1934, recounts his experiences working in Zanzibar, Mauritius, and southern Arabia. Scarce with the jacket in such good condition. This copy is inscribed in July 1944 to "Dear Fortescue", a stubbornly unidentifiable member of the Famine Relief Flight of the RAF, established in 1944 to assist the people of the Hadhramaut region beset by famine from 1943 to 1944. The force was first based at Al Riyan, a short way up the coast from Mukalla, where Ingrams was based as resident adviser to the ruler of the Qu'aiti Sultanate from 1937 to 1940. The Famine Relief Flight airlifted a daily total of 24 tons of grain to Al Qatn in central Hadhramaut during its operations in the region, and Ingrams clearly harboured great admiration for the role played by the RAF in alleviating the famine: "it was your forerunners in Aden of the RAF who did so much to bring peace to the Hadhramaut & now it is again the RAF who are playing the lion's - or the raven's? - share in bringing food to the starving. What a lot the Hadhramis owe to you all". Ingrams (1897-1973) was first posted to Aden as a political officer in 1934, journeying deep into Hadhramaut in the hinterland of the Aden Protectorate with his wife Doreen (1906-1973). He served as resident advisor to the Hadhramaut sultanates from 1936 to 1944, where he and Doreen became well-known and respected as a peacemakers among local rulers. He was a consummate colonial modernizer, pushing for road building and development in the region, and was described by Doreen as having "quite uncolonial ideas" (ODNB). He also collaborated with Glubb Pasha, establishing the Hadhrami Bedouin Legion in 1940, modelled after Glubb's Arab Legion in Transjordan. Octavo. Original light brown buckram, spine lettered in gilt. With photographic dust jacket. Photographic frontispiece and 30 similar plates, of which all but 4 were taken by the author himself, 2 folding maps at the rear, the Indian Ocean, the East Aden Protectorate and Hadhramaut. Newspaper cutting entitled "Air Service Bolsters Arabian Market Day" from the The Times, 10 September 1962, loosely inserted. Spine cocked and bumped at ends, edges foxed, light offsetting to front free endpaper, occasional light foxing to contents. A very good copy in like jacket, unclipped, rubbed, extremities nicked and chipped, spine sunned, otherwise bright.