This reconnaissance flight demonstrated primarily that there is no feasible route out of Aqaba, either to the north or west, except the one along the present road, which goes through a portion of Palestine. No feasible route was observed through the cliffs to the east of Aqaba., except that traversed by the road to Ma'an, which is in Trans-Jordan and on anything but a direct pipe line route. The existence of other feasible routes, however, was not disproved.

SITUATION AT AQABA

As explained elsewhere., the government of Trans-Jordan claims sovereignty over the town of Aqaba and the east shore of the Gulf for a distance of "two miles south" of this town. This claim was made in a unilateral declaration by the British political agent contained in a letter from him to the King of Arabia a few years ago when Trans-Jordan was a British mandate. The King of Arabia has never recognized the validity of this claim and asserts that Aqaba is traditionally a part of the Hejaz, i.e., the western province of Saudi Arabia. If it in assumed, however, that the settlement of these conflicting claims will take a long time and perhaps be resolved unfavorably to Arabia, there is no way of avoiding TransJordan territory by a line, into the head of the Gulf of Aqaba without a submarine pipe line crossing at least two miles south of the head of the Gulf. According to the navigation charts, whose accuracy there is no reason to doubt, the three miles of water that would have to be crossed reaches a depth of 600 ft. Laying an ordinary submarine pipe line in water of this depth by ordinary methods would not be advisable and it isthe concensus that the crossing would have to be made with a multiplicity of small pipes of heavy wall thickness. This would not be impossible, but it would certainly be expensive.

ALL-EGYPTIAN ROUTE

(Route C on Map No. l)

The reconnaissance described in this report covered no portion of the route noted "C" on Map No. 1, and since the length of this route in nearly 40% greater than that of the "'Prospectus" route into Palestine and the King of Arabia has expressed himself as being antagonistic to it, there may be little reason to consider it seriously or even to mention it further In this report. However, on May 22, Wolfe and Johnson were invited to luncheon with Saba Habashi Pasha, Egyptian Minister of Commerce and Industry, and he produced a Map showing a pipe line almost exactly as indicated as "C" on the attached Map No. 1 and explained that this was the route that the Egyptian Government hoped the Trans-Arabian pipe line would see its way clear to adopt. Habashi Pasha said that he fully appreciated the difficulties of going tbrough Aqaba, both physical and political, and indicated further that he thought it desirable for the line to keep out of both Trans-Jordan and Palestine and traverse only territory controlled by friendly Arab governments. He said that the water at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba was comparatively shallow and that a submarine crossing could be effected at that point with comparative ease. (The basis for this statement is not known. The available navigation charts are inconclusive but indicate a depth of 60 fathoms near the crossing. One would think that such charts would show the shallowest sounding but they do have unaccountable omissions. If the depth is 60 fathoms, the submarine crossing would differ in difficulty only in degree from the crossing at the head of the Gulf.)