UNKNOWN ARABIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 69, 23 March 1938, Page 20

UNKNOWN ARABIA

EXPLORATION BY AIR

LAND OF SAI'AR TRIBESMEN

(From "Tito Post's" Representative.) LONDON, March 2.

I One of the few remaining unknown 'territories of the modern world is I gradually being explored by pilots of [the Royal Air Force with headquarters in the Aden Protectorate. They I have recently flown over parts of [Southern Arabia which have hitherto 'been unmapped and have learned something of a nation about which only the vaguest facts: were known.-

Planned in the first place to learn something of the. Sai'ar tribesmen, whose fondness for raiding homesteads and caravans had become a menace to the peace of the immense hinterland known as the Hadhramaut, the flights resulted in the discovery of many villages and established the character of the country over a wide area. On the first exploration two villages known only by repute were located. The pilots then flew north, crossing a river valley called the Wadi Eiwa, until the edge of the desert was reached. The Wadi Eiwa was found to be much more extensive than had been thought, running north-east and south-west with many tributaries draining into the i desert. Going sheer down to the desert, along the edge of it, were steep mountain bluffs known as-"johl."

A day or two later four aircraft (lew on a different course to the edge of the desert. As far as the eye cotold reach the pronounced edge of the "johl" stretched in ,a north-easterly direction. A small, number of permanent dwellings was observed at intervals. Within the' edge of the great desert, and separated from the rriain ".iohl" country by a strip, of sand a few hundred yards wide was discerned a narrow "island" of similar mountain blufT territory about two to three miles wide and fifty miles long. Beyond could be seen nothing but sandy desert.

I The flight next flew south-west, following (he edge of the desert for 50 • miles 'Until they reached the point at i which they had crossed the desert [border on the previous day, where they turned towards the western end of the great Wadi Hadhramaut. The avia- ; tors discovered a cultivated and seemingly, .prosperous area about 20 miles | 'square. Fifty or sixty Sai'ar villages, i none of them previously known, with numerous isolated dwellings and extensive cultivated areas,- were seen j and many photographs were taken. I The reconnaissance proved that many lof the Sai'ar tribes have permanent .•homes and, are not nomads, as had been previously understood.