Alois Musil, now a professor (save the mark !), was
a great adventurer. For more than twenty years he travelled over the North Arabian Deserts as Sheikh Musa, riding saddle to saddle with Nuri Shalan, Emir of the Rwala. His first aim was a topographical survey, but the desert entered into his soul, and he stayed with the Rwala long enough to know them in all their moods. He accompanied them to their grazing grounds, went with them on their wars and raids, grew to know their sorcery and their creeds, saw them as robbers and lovers-and how characteristic are their love-songs :
" She is like a white gazelle, with the fragrance of amber, Loading gazelles in pairs ; Like the sweet-scented flower beside the pond of clear water Spreading luxuriant leaves which ever tremble."
In this way Sheikh Musa learned the wisdom of the Rwala, in the best way of all, by living with them and being one of them. And all that he learned, their manners, their histories and their customs, these may be found by the curious and the learned in six volumes published by the American Geographical Society. But for those of us who like adventure and are not too obsessed with learning, Katherine MeGiffent Wright has edited a volume entitled In the Arabian Desert (Jonathan Cape, 18s.), drawn mainly from the second volume of the series. The writing is perhaps rather stilted, though the poems have been much improved since they first appeared, but the matter is good enough for the most exigeant.
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