We are conscious of the inadequacy of a paragraph to
review the very important record of travel and exploration which Mr. H. St. J. Philby has given us in Arabia of the Wahhabis (Constable, 81s. 6d.). Here is one who has followed in the footsteps of Doughty, and talked to the grandsons of those who met him in 'Anaiza. Here are pages as striking and as evocative of the desert as anything Doughty wrote ; and, although Mr. Philby's style does not sustain the grandeur and the sweep of his forerunner, he has really seen and done more in Arabia than Doughty and knows the Arabs better. Moreover, the Arabs are at the beginning of a new dispensation in which the long-range rifle and the motor car will replace the camel and the muzzle-loader, and Mr. Philby reveals the desert peoples as they are.tb-day., It is a picture of absorbing interest ; and the author is helped by photographs which it is no exaggeration to say are among the best ever published. We could hardly praise this book too highly : to do justice to it would require more space than is at present available.
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