• A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
ON THE BACK of Mr. Wendell Phillips's book, Qataban and Sheba (published by Gollancz at El Is.), there are warm words of commendation from Sir Ronald Storrs, Admiral Byrd and others. I wonder what the Yemeni word for it will be? In his book Mr. Phillips tells the story of the expedition which he led to the ancient cities of Southern Arabia, and recounts how he and his colleagues had to run for their lives from Marib, in he Yemen (once the capital of the Kingdom of Saba, or Sheba), across the border into the Aden Protectorate. I heard this story first from' Mr. Phillips himself two years ago when he was on his way back from Arabia to America, and his telling of it made me think of something out of P. C. Wren. The Yemen is no doubt a place where curious happenings are to be expected, but even there a massacre of the King's guests by the King's soldiers would be carrying things a trifle far. It was from such' a fate, according to Mr. Phillips. that the expedition had to flee. He reported a rumour that the soldiers in Marib , were being incited by the agents of Prince Hassan, the Viceroy of Sana. in the hope that the massacre would discredit his brother, King Ahmed. in the eyes of the world, and so make it possible for him (Hassan) to seize the throne. The Yemeni authorities at the time took a somewhat different view of the incident. Their story was that they had cancelled the agree- ment with Mr. Phillips by which he had brought his expedition into the Yemen, and asked him to end his operations, because he had failed to limit his activities to purely scientific pur- poses. 'It is abundantly clear,' said a statement from the Yemeni Legation in London, 'that Mr. Phillips was using his materials for commercial purposes, e.g., the attempt to use photographs taken for making a commercial film and the several sensational articles published in magazines with photographs, particularly in the United States, without obtaining the apprbval of the Yemen Government.' As to the expedition's dramatic dash to safety in Aden, they said, 'Mr. Phillips saw fit to leave the country under cover of darkness, presumably to avoid inspec- tion by Government officials of whatever he carried with him.'
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