ARABIAN SECRETS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9663, 30 November 1909, Page 3

ARABIAN SECRETS.

Arabia is one of the few regions of the world that oiler opportunities to the explorer. Little is known of Central Arabia, while in the south eastern corner is a great tn\pt of unknown country estimated to contain 400,000 square miles. The Arabs call; this latter region "The Dwelling of the Voir)," ami it is probably the moat forbidding desert on the face of the earth. Some time ago an English expedition, assisted by the Royal Geographical Society, set out to pierce its mysteries, among which are said to be buried cities, but they met with little or no success. Only thirty-five mile? from the ,coast the Arabs proved unfriendly, and after spending five days under ■me tree in racking uncertainty, with the Arabs every mnv and then iirmg at th2m for amusement, the explorers were ordered to return at once. They made the coast again safely, but absolutely done up with t the heat and want of sleep and food, and minus tbeir money and their baggage. Evidently the exploration of this vast region is going to be a very formidable task, but the samn time thnt this pary was making its attempt, another Englishman, Mr Douglas was doing highly interesting and important work in Central Arabia. He covered six hundred miles of new country, the first European to penetrate the border of the Great "Desert of the Great waste." Dressed as an Arab, he Jived with the Bedouins, and suffered many hardships owing to the absence cf water and the constant inter-tribal warfare. Fighting, indeed, seems to be the main occupation of the tribes in the interior, and evsryJßedouin, however poor, possesses a modern breech-loading rifle, generally of English manufacture. Mr Carruthers is much impressed it the'possibilities of Arabia, which he thinks cannot remain in its present state of lethargy. "It is," he said, "an extraordinary thing that the Arabs, who once terrified the world, should have'tetreated into this barren peninsula. If a great Mahometan n ovement takes placa in Egypt or India, Arabia will have to be reckoned with."