THE UNKNOWN FAR EAST.

Evening Star, Issue 13145, 29 December 1908, Page 6

THE UNKNOWN FAR EAST.

Mr David Hogarth, the well-known geographer, in the course of a recent lecture Before the Royal Geographical Society, declared that almost the whole of the southern half of Arabia is occupied, according to native report, by a vast wilderness, called generally R-üba-el-Kha-li—i.e., Dwelling of the Void—but on its western edge, el-Ahkaf—i.e., the Dunes—and on its eastern edge, el-Dahna, a name given eLsewhere by Arabs to a rolling, gravelh steppe. No European had ever enteren this immense tract, which embraced some 600,000 square miles. It was very doubtful, moreover, whether any native has every crossed any part but it* extreme corners, or, rather, certain tongues which it throws out towards the Persian Gulf between Nojd and Oman and towards the Indian Ocean, south-west of the latter province. It would take a bold man to venture out for the passage of either 850 miles west to east or 650 north to south, in the isothermal zone of the world's greatestheat, with no better information than we possess. Perhaps some air pilot in the far future will be the first to try. Speaking about the districts on the fringes of this vast unknown territory. Mr Hogarth said that under present conditions the western explorer is not wanted in Nejd, and he might find it easier to get in than out. except to another world by short shrift of club or spear. He would have to face or elude not only religious fanatics of the cxtremest type, but a whole poptUation dependent on slave labor and accustomed for generations to regard Western men, and especially Britons, as destroyers of the means to social wealth. The device of disguise one never liked to recommend. Like an alibi, the worst of all defences if unsuccessful, it almost certainly entailed speedy death. A man might go, as did Halevy. in the- modified guise of an itinerant rabbi, and be forwarded by co-reli-gionists uf Nojran. But that' venture needed moral as well as physical fortitude of no common order, for in addition to the peril of one's real character being discovered, the. severe hardships and indignities incidental to the assumed one had to be endured. Halevy was kicked from pillar to post through Yemen and Marib. One might go, as Doughty did. through Northern Nejd, as a lvoor Christian hakim, begging his wav from well to well am" camp to camp; but the risk would be very great, and the opportunities for doing scientific work under such conditions but small. Probably an explorer must wa't until some favorable ]wlitical conjunction occurs in South Nejd to the British power in the Gulf. Then lie should try his luck openly in his true character, as a person ol quality visiting other persons of quality, carrying instruments and note lxx>ks. as even Doughty did, not abjuring his Christianity—for that will serve him with the ragged aristocrats of the camps—and healing the sick as he goes. But he had better make his will before he starts, or, better still, be a friendless orphan with no will to make. There was at this moment a project afoot for a certain Ixild explorer, who has had unique experience of the Aden hinterland, to attempt not only to visit Marib, but possibly the exploration of a line through the Great Desert from west to east. It would be a. great dav for the Geographical Societv if. thanks to its support, even a- corner sliould presently be lifted of that vast South Arabian veil."