Southern Arabia

We joined the camels on the way, and after two hours of stones ascended the very steep Akaba Beva. The view from the hills above--about 2,500 feet--is splendid, all the Yafei mo...

We never could ascertain whether the Tamimi had come or not, so on February 18, having given up all hope of joining them and changed ten camels, we set out, but not before nine...

On January 25 we started for Shibahm, carpets having been sent forward the day before. The sultan was to follow us in a day or two, when some sheikhs had been to see him. We sta...

On two separate occasions we visited Maskat. The first time was in 1889 on our way to Persia, and the second in 1895 when we were starting for Dhofar, on the journey which I sha...

On January 17 we started from Al Koton with only seven of our camels and two of the sultan's packed with forage, to be away several days. The sultan wished to lend his horses, b...

After returning from our expedition to the Hadhramout in 1894 we determined the next winter to attempt the ambitious adventure of making a journey overland right across Southern...

We left Wadi Gabeit next morning, and on the following day another messenger from Sawakin met us with a similar mandate; but as we were now journeying in a presumably safe direc...

Our departure from Al Koton on February 12 was almost as serious an affair as our start from Makalla. Sultan Salàh, with the instincts of true hospitality, not only refused to r...

The first Arabian journey that we undertook was in 1889, when we visited the Islands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf; we were attracted by stories of mysterious mounds, and we pr...

Like a fairy palace of the Arabian Nights, white as a wedding cake, and with as many battlements and pinnacles, with its windows painted red, the colour being made from red sand...

Little did we dream when we left Mohammed Gol with our rather extensive caravan that behind that gigantic mountain, which though it only reaches an elevation of 7,500 feet, look...

During the time that we spent at Ali we had numerous visitors. The first day came five camels with two riders apiece, and a train of donkeys, bringing rich pearl merchants from...

When we reached the foot of the hill on which Hagarein stands we dismounted; there was tremendous work to get out the sword of the oldest soldier; he had used it so much as a wa...

And now behold us excavators on the way to the scene of our labours. Six camels conveyed our tents, a seventh carried goat-skins full of water. Four asses groaned under our pers...

At length we turned our faces towards the Gara mountains, with considerable interest and curiosity, and prepared to ascend them by a tortuous valley, the Wadi Ghersìd, which div...

We left Al Hafa on December 29, after waiting six days for camels. There was much difficulty in getting a sufficient quantity, and never before had camels been hired in this man...

After leaving our camp at Saihon we took a path in a south-westerly direction, and after a few days of somewhat monotonous travelling we came again into the deeper valleys and f...

We reached Ghail Babwazir in three hours, at half-past five, passing through several oases. It is a large town. Some children, as I came round a corner, cried, 'Let us flee! her...

In the winter of 1895, though we still wished to continue our investigations in Arabia, we found it impracticable, owing to the warlike state of the tribes there, so we decided...

Having left these villages behind us, we climbed rapidly higher and higher, until at an elevation of over 4,000 feet we found ourselves at last on a broad, level table-land, str...

The journey was delightful, nearly all the way by the edge of the sea, past miles and miles of little mounds thrown up by the crabs in making their holes: daily they make them,...

After our journeys in South Africa and Abyssinia, it was suggested to my husband that a survey of the Hadhramout by an independent traveller would be useful to the Government; s...

We were up and off before the sun rose, our party being increased by Sultan Salem, brother to the Fadhli sultan. He was twenty, and though not dark in colour, has woolly hair. H...

the dustpans they use for scraping the sand off the cultivable soil, and many preparations for the feast in the way of food and very smart new indigo-dyed clothes. Photography,...

As we had been unable to penetrate into the Mahri country, though we had attempted it from three sides, we determined to visit the offshoot of the Mahri who dwell on the island...

Certainly Tamarida is a pretty place, with its river, its lagoon, and its palms, its whitewashed houses and whitewashed mosques, and with its fine view of the Haghier range imme...

Our object had been to go across from Dhofar by land to the Hadhramout, across the Mahri country. Wali Suleiman had done all in his power to help us, but without much success, a...

After several days at Adahan we climbed down northward. Our journey was only three miles along a very narrow valley, but we made much more of it climbing after plants and shells...

We now pursued our way along the coast-line of Dhofar in an easterly direction. Wali Suleiman entertained us for a night at a farm he had built at a place called Rizat, the land...

I never saw a place so void of architectural features as the town of Maskat itself. The mosques have neither domes nor minarets--a sign of the rigid Wahabi influence which swept...

After four days waiting for camels, and the usual wrangling over the price and casting lots for us, which here they do with stones instead of wood as in Arabia, we started late...

Never shall I forget the confusion of our start. Mokaik and ten of his men appeared at seven in the morning of the day before in our rooms, with all the lowest beggars of Makall...

After leaving Tamarida we spent a night at a place the name of which has been variously spelt. We decided to spell it Dihelemnitin. It has otherwise been called Dishelenata, &c....

When we returned to Halaib we encamped preparatory to going inland. Great doctoring had to be done over the hand of Ahmet Farraj, our clown. He had held a large hook overboard,...

Though we rose so early next morning that we dressed by candle-light, we were not up nearly so early as Imam Sharif, who, being sleepy and misled by a candle in our tent, arouse...

It is hard to imagine anything more squalid than the Egyptian fortress of Halaib, as it is spelt on the map, or Halei as it is pronounced, which was our next halting-place, and...

In the same year, 1897, soon after our return thither from Sokotra, we left Aden to explore the Yafei and Fadhli countries. Our preparations for this expedition were made under...

At Mohammed Gol, to which port our dhow next conducted us, our prospects of getting well into the interior were much brighter, and our ultimate results beyond comparison more sa...

A work of unusual interest. Hardly any man of this generation has had a more varied and adventurous life than Prince Kropotkin, the famous Russian Revolutionist. Apart from the...

Ambassadors. By Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Malet, K.C.B. The House of Lords. By Lord Monkswell, F.R.S. The House of Commons. By Sir Reginald Palgrave, K.C.B. The Royal Navy. By Rear-Ad...