Page:The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926).djvu/16

 BOOK I

MY FIRST VISIT TO ARABIA

I had believed these misfortunes of the Revolt to be due to faulty leadership, or rather to the lack of leadership, Arab and English. So I went down to Arabia to see and consider its great men. The first, the Sherif of Mecca, we knew to be aged. I found Abdulla too clever, Ali too clean, Zeid too cool. Then I rode up-country to Feisal, and found in him the leader with the necessary fire, and yet with reason to give effect to our science. His tribesmen seemed sufficient instrument, and his hills to provide natural advantage. So I returned confidently to Egypt, and told my chiefs how Mecca was defended not by Rabegh, but by Feisal in Jebel Subh.

Chapter 8.—The Lama arrives at Jedda (41) Colonel Wilson welcomes Storrs and myself (42) Emir Abdulla (43) Arab government (44) military situation (45) Storrs persuasive (47). Chapter 9.—Jeddah (48) a dinner party (50) the Turkish band (51). Chapter 10.—Emir Ali at Rabegh (52) we ride inland (54) the Tehama and a discussion of water supplies as affecting Arab strategy (56) encounter at a well (57) tricks of a Sherif (58). Chapter 12.—Hills of Hejaz (60) Bir el Sheikh (61) highlands by night (62) a spy gives us food (63) a watered village (65). Chapter 13.—Slave economy (66) a ruined village (67) the rebels (67) my first meeting with the Emir Feisal at Hamra (68). Chapter 14.—Egyptian troops (69) Feisal's story of his first outbreak in Medina (70) his plans for the moment (73) himself (74). Chapter 15.—A political dinner (76) the royal family of Hejaz (76) nationalism among nomads and townsmen (77) religion (79). Chapter 16.—Playing the reporter (80) the troops and their native way of fighting (81) the situation (82) artillery (83) envoi (84). Chapter 17.—The ruined road (85) in Wadi Yenbo (86) Yenbo, Boyle, and hats (87) Admiral Wemyss (88) Khartoum, where we argue the Arab Revolt with Sir Reginald Wingate (89). a French idea (89) Sir Archibald Murray (90) I am good (91).

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