UNKNOWN ARABIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 102, 3 May 1938, Page 7

UNKNOWN ARABIA

EXPLORATION BY AIR FERTILE COUNTRY FOUND TRIBESMEN NOT NOMADS LONDON, March 5. One o£ the few remaining unknown ■ territories of the modern world is ' gradually being explored by pilots of i the Royal Air Force with headquarters lln the'Aden Protectorate. They have | recently flown over parts of Southern. I Arabia which hitherto have been unmapped, and have learned something iof a nation about which only the ; vaguest facts were known. Planned in the first place to learn ] something of the Ss.l 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 desert. Going sheer down to the desert, along the edge of it were steep mountain bluffs known I as “johl.”

A day or two later four aircraft flew on a different course to the edge of the desert. As far as the eye could reach the pronounced edge of the “johl" stretched in a north-easterly direction. A few permanent dwellings were observed at intervals. Within the edge of the great desert, and separated from the main “johl" country by a strip of sand a few hundred yards wide was discerned a narrow “island" of similar mountain bluff country about two to three miles wide and 50 miles long. Beyond could be seen nothing but sandy desert. The airmen next flew south-west, following the edge of the desert for 50 miles until they reached the point at which they had crossed the desert border on the previous day, where they turned toward the western end of the great Wadi Hadhramaut. They discovered a cultivated and seemingly prosperous area about 20 miles square.

Fifty or sixty Sai'ar villages, none of them previously known, with numerous isolated dwellings and extensive cultivated areas, were seen and many photographs were taken. The reconnaissance proved that many of the Sai’ar tribes have permanent homes and are not nomads as had been previously understood.