A NEW LAWRENCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1939, Page 4

A NEW LAWRENCE

BEHIND SCENES IN ARABIA. To-day, once again, there is a Briton who is a power behind the scenes in Arabia. He dresses like an Arab, he speaks to the Arabs in their own language, and he has gained the confidence of semi-savage tribes as Lawrence did, says a writer in the London Sunday Express. Harold Ingrams is his name, and though he is in a sense the successor to Lawrence, yet he differs from him lin two important points. First, where Lawrence organised the Arabs for war, Ingrams has succeeded in bringing to South Arabia the first peace it has had for centuries. Second, where Lawrence rode the Arabian Desert alone, Ingrams rides with his wife. Harold Ingrams is in the early fortifies. He is six feet tall,- with phe nomenally fair hair and pale eyes. Only five years ago Ingrams was on service at Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea. Facing Aden is a long, sunscorched strip of the coast of Southern Arabia .which is called the Hadhra-’ maut. In. the atlas it is usually marked with vague boundaries —for few know exactly where it is or what it is, or who lives there under the rule of whom.

Actually it is the. home of 300,000 members of Arab tribes. Some have been brigands, .some cultivators of dates and corn, and some tenders of the exotic incense-tree which for two thousand years has sent its gum from this coast to make an awesome odour in all the churches of Christendom. It is a land mostly desert, but with some cultivable valleys.

Ingrams and his wife were lured by a. mystery of this coast to make a visit in 1934. They found a sad land indeed. Cursed by nature with an infertile soil, it was cursed still more by warring man. Ingrams found that the 300,000 people were divided up into 1200 tribes, which had from time immemorial waged feuds against each other. The state of the country had become such that the fields were connected to the villages by trenches, and some people had literally not dared to pass their own house doors for twenty years. In a. single valley there was an average of ten deaths a month through the feud. In this and plenty of other valleys land lay idle because the people did not dare to come out with their spades and rakes for fear of a rifle shot. Ingrams and his wife outstayed their intended leave, and went ten days inland to places not hitherto visited by Europeans. And everywhere they went people said: “Bring us, we pray you, peace. Help us to end the I feuds that we are sick of.” Ingrams) had to answer that he had no official position in the Hadhramaut and) no authority, but he went back to I Aden with the feeling that there was) work to his hand, and wrote a report!' to the Colonial Office.

Two years passed, and Ingrains learned from the Colonial Office that he was to go to the Hadhramaut. One of the principal rulers, the Sultan of the O’aiti, had asked for him to be sent as an adviser. He arrived with his wife at Makella, the principal port of Hadhramaut and the residence of the Sultan, late in 1936. and immediately set out to achieve the seemingly impossible task of ending the feuds. He and his wife dressed as Arabs, lived as Arabs, and entertained as Arabs. They started out on tours ot the country that were to extend to

thousands of miles. They travelled by camel and mule. They carried no arms; and avoided outraging the Arabs’ beliefs. They drank no alcohol. They stayed with Arabs when they could; when they could not they slept beneath a cliff. Ingrams’ grand object was to work the tribes up to sign a three-year truce, during which none should attack another. He carried his draft truce everywhere with him,' collecting signatures not only from chiefs, but from heads of families —thousands of signatures.

He and his wife visited every tribe in the Hadhramaut —the peaceable tribes, and these who made a living by banditry and murder alike. He found that the Arabs could be convinced if you took each one alone, but in conclave nothing- was to be done with them.

And while Ingrams was talking peace to the men, Mrs. Ingrams went into the harem and exerted herself on the women. For the influence exerted through the Wives of the Hadhramaut was not small.

Soon Ingrams had a fine array of signatures; but the refusers also formled an array. Many would say: “I would willingly sign, but suppose when I have given my pledge, my neighbour attacks me, will the British Government help me?” And as yet Ingrams was not in a position to answer “Yes.” A TEST CASE. It so happened that a test case arose almost at once. In January, 1937, a British officer who had come to Hadhramaut to survey roads was fired on and two of his men were injured. The tribe responsible was the Ben

. Yemani. The heads of the tribe were summoned before the Sultan and Ingrams. They were found guilty and ■ fined ten camels, thirty rifles and one ; hundred goats. All Hadhramaut waited to see whether Ingrams really had power or not. Letters were sent demanding the fine. No reply. Next the tribe were told that if they did not pay up, the village would be bombed by the R.A.F. Still no reply. Then the villagers were warned to leave their houses for the fields at a certain hour. They were told the wells on which their water supply depended would not be destroyed. At the appointed hour the R.A.F. came, dropped some bombs —which did not do much damage—and flew away. At once the Ben Yemani men came in, bringing their camels, rifles and goats, and paid the fine. Thousands came to Makella to witness their submission, and Ingrams publicly shook hands with heads of the tribe. Shortly afterwards he and Mrs. Ingrams went to stay with them. The chiefs of the Yemani were most agreeable, and actually thanked Ingrams for having bombed them. It was a matter of face. “If we had not been bombed,” they said, “everybody would have laughed at us and said we were cowards, and the government were

lying, and we wouldn’t have been bombed if we hadn’t paid.” With the defeat of the Ben Yemani the remaining tribes hastened to sign Ingram’s three-year truce. And thus it. came about that in March, 1938, there was at last peace between all the tribes of Hadhramaut. The gi-’t.i-tude of the Arabs was deep and sincere, and Ingrams was given the honourable title of “Friend of Hadhramaut.”