. The heart of Arabia, a record of travel and exploration . th the British authoritiesfor a display of greater activity in support of the blockadein return for an increased salary—with what results I shallrecord in due course. A minor role was assigned to the Dhafirtribe under its chief Shaikh, Hamud ibn Suwait, who haddone good but unostentatious work in connection with theprotection of the railway line in the earher days of thecampaign, and the desert alUance in this sector was formallycompleted by the inclusion of Ibrahim, Shaikh of Zubair,as the guide, philosopher and friend of all parties
. The heart of Arabia, a record of travel and exploration . th the British authoritiesfor a display of greater activity in support of the blockadein return for an increased salary—with what results I shallrecord in due course. A minor role was assigned to the Dhafirtribe under its chief Shaikh, Hamud ibn Suwait, who haddone good but unostentatious work in connection with theprotection of the railway line in the earher days of thecampaign, and the desert alUance in this sector was formallycompleted by the inclusion of Ibrahim, Shaikh of Zubair,as the guide, philosopher and friend of all parties was the pivot of the whole arrangement, the Unkbetween the desert and the sown, and, though he hadachieved no substantial results in the four months whichhad intervened between my departure for Arabia and myreturn to Basra, he could at least claim that he had fulfilledthe letter of his contract by collecting and keeping a largegathering of friendly elements at his camp by the wellsof Al Hafar, and it was in the hope of spurring him into. X X - ^ < -y. D - < u < ^ y - asC < - D ~ O O 5 THE HINTERLAND OF EUPHRATES 239 something like active co-operation with our blockade thatI conceived the idea of visiting him in his den. My prepara-tions for a start were completed by the afternoon of 28thMarch, when I di-ove to the terminus of the Basra-Nasiriyyarailway and took my seat in the Nasiriyya express. Thebarren plain between Basra and Zubair station is too wellknown to need description : the winter rains had reducedthe country-side to a morass wellnigh impracticable formotor trafhc and the landscape to the southward towardsthe head of the Khor Abdullah creek was a network ofmuddy lagoons. Through the tumbled remains of old Basra,the first town of purely Muhammadan origin, we passedlaboriously to the station of Shuaiba, where I ahghted tofind after diligent enquiry that some weary camels couchedby the permanent way were intended for my baggage, anda dilap
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1922
