Travels to Arabia during the Reign of

King ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz

Dr. Fadia Saud Al Saleh

Introduction :

Apart from its socio-historical, geographical and topographical value, travel literature has always had a great literary impact. It gives an account of the explorers’ adventures, observations and impressions of the area explored, its culture, economy and society, using a variety of literary styles and technical devices.

Travel in Arabia has always been of great interest, but it was not until the eleventh century that this genre of literature crystallized and matured, with the work of Al Beyruni and Ibn Jubair. In the nineteenth century, interest in travel literature developed, particularly in the form of records of Western explorations in the Arabian peninsula. Explorers such as the Blunts, Doughty, Palgrave and Hogarth were fascinated by and attracted to the unexplored deserts of central Arabia. The discoveries, adventures and hardships of their journeys provided useful and detailed information on Arabia and the reforming movement of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahab (1691–1787).

The twentieth century saw the full blossoming of the literature of Arabian travel. The changed situation in the Arabian peninsula created by ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Saud attracted European, Japanese and Arab travellers. His strong government and establishment of peace and security in the land made it possible for travellers to move about with impunity. Through their powers of narrative and memory, vivid accounts are revealed to the modern reader.

This chapter will concentrate on the first half of the twentieth century, covering the period of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz’s reign. The travels of H. St J. B. Philby, Amin al-Rihani, Eigiro Nakano, Ghulam Rasül Muhir, Gerald de Gaury, Fuad Shaker and ‘Abd al-Wahhab Azzam will be discussed and evaluated. The study will reveal a variety of attitudes, depending on the writers’ nationality, religion and disposition. The end-result will be a multifaceted image of an original, complex and rich civilization.

The Travels of ‘Abd-Allah Philby:

The physical exertion of desert travel is as nothing compared with the nervous strain – especially in the desert borderlands where tribal loyalties can never be taken for granted. In fact, we met with nothing but friendliness – a striking tribute to the desert’s fear of the desert king – but each day’s success had to be paid for by the anxieties of the night before (Monroe, Philby of Arabia, p. 192).

Physical exertion never deterred Philby, as he said, from exploring central Arabia. His chance came when summoned by Sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner in Iraq, to act as political representative to Ibn Saud in 1917, from which time he built himself a successful career in exploration. Harry St John Bridger Philby was born in Ceylon in 1885, where his father had settled to seek his fortune in the coffee trade. He went to school at Westminster, where he became captain of the school, and then to from Cambridge, where he obtained a First Class degree in Modern Languages. In 1907, he joined the Indian Civil Service, and remained there until he and other linguists were chosen to work as civilian administrators in Iraq in 1915. In November 1917 he went to Riyadh via Hasa on a political mission. In order to win them the acceptance of religious people in Nejd, the Amir of Hasa rigged out the three European members of the mission with local dress, consisting of thüb, zabün, bisht, sandals and head-cloth. Of all the three, it was ‘Philby [who] felt comfortable and at home in the clothes, and at once had himself photographed; he had already started growing the beard that is customary in Arabia’ (Monroe, Philby of Arabia, p. 65).

As soon as they reached Riyadh, they were met and greeted by King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, who impressed them with his charm, generosity, indefatigability, volubility and expertness in desert affairs. Philby’s lively sense of curiosity was satisfied when the king assigned him a political task in Ta’if and provided him with the best of camels and guides. The expedition lasted fifteen days during December, at which time the pools of rainwater and the grass, birds and desert animals were of great interest to Philby. Apart from the difficulty that the camels had in climbing the cliffs, the unfriendliness of his companions, and the embarrassment he felt while waiting for them to pray, the journey was amusing and thrilling; even the coarse camel meat that he then ate for the first time was considered by Philby to be a great gastronomic experience.

To keep Philby off the scene while he was intending to invade Ha’il, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz provided him with camels and guides to explore southern Nejd. He described his departure from Riyadh to a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in April 1919:

The delightful spring season of Arabia, when the desert is bright with grass and flowers, was rapidly drawing to a close, when on May 6 we set forth to the southward, having on the previous night seen the last of a long series of daily thunder storms pass over Riyadh speeding northward. We passed rapidly down the bed of the Shamsiyya torrent, past the royal cemetery of the Wahabbi dynasty and beyond the outer fringe of the palm-groves of Riyadh. Then skirting the eastern fringe of Manfuha and Masana, we came to the valley of Wadi Hanifa, along which our course lay in a south-easterly direction for the rest of that day and the next until we came to the borders of Kharj (H. St J. B. Philby, ‘Southern Najd’, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 55, No. 3 (1920): 161—91, at p. 163).

He went on to describe Haïr and the city of Yamamah, Aflaj, Hawtah, Sulayyil and Wadi Dawasir and their oases, uplands, hamlets, pools of water, palm groves and ravines, where a ‘brisk northerly breeze, flowing with great regularity by day, made the climate of summer in these southern latitudes surprisingly mild, and the nights were delightfully cool’ (ibid., p. 183). This journey took fifty days, the last fourteen days of which were in Ramadan. As travellers, his companions were exempt from fasting, and so they caused irritation to the local inhabitants they came across, because ‘there is nothing so irritating to those that burn with thirst as to see their fellows drink’ (ibid., p. 184).

After intervals of work in Iraq, Iran, Eastbourne and Transjordan, Philby revived his friendship with King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, and on 7 August 1930 he went to Makkah, escorted by two ministers and the editor of Umm al-Qura; he then became a Muslim, Sheikh ‘Abd-Allah. Commander D. G. Hogarth, discussing the Southern Nejd expedition, said that an agent saw Philby at Ta’if and reported that ‘it was impossible to distinguish Mr. Philby from the thirty-five or so Bedouin who accompanied him, either in his command of Arabic or in his mastery of their customs, or in his general bearing, except for one fact, namely, that his feet were a little too clean!’ (p. 186).

‘Becoming a Muslim seemed to him the only way of accomplishing the exploit of his dreams – the crossing of the Rub al-Khali’ (Monroe, Philby of Arabia, p. 163). His dream was in part frustrated when he heard that Bertram Thomas had anticipated him by crossing the Rub al-Khali first. A persistent and dedicated explorer, Philby won the permission of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz to start the journey in mid-December 1931. He gave a lecture at a Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on 23 May 1932 describing his journey ‘without hesitation or qualification as the greatest and most pleasant experience of all my life’. He attributed his success in achieving the expedition to King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, without whose support he would not have been able to take the risk of crossing the great desert:

And now I must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, my mite of homage and gratitude to the great ruler of Wahabi Arabia, whose friendship has ever been to me more than sufficient solace for long years of exile and many disappointments. Without his countenance I would have never ventured to regard the Empty Quarter as within the range of my ambition. And to his generous assistance and patronage I owe entirely such measure of success as I have achieved. It is to him that I owe the provision of the necessary ways and means for my enterprise, and that at a moment when he and his country were in the throes of the grave economic crisis which has lately been passing over the whole world. My debt of gratitude is indeed great and unrepayable, but the kinsman of Hatim Tai would be the last to wish that I should embarrass him by making a pother about his far-famed and often self-embarrassing hospitality and generosity. I would ask you therefore to regard this expedition of mine rather as a historic landmark, for it was in effect the first expedition of a scientific nature organized and equipped by the Wahabi Government. Its results, I venture to hope, will be regarded as of world-wide interest and of some intrinsic importance (H. St J. B. Philby, ‘Rub’ al-Khali’. The Geographical Journal. Vol. 81, No. 1 (1933): 1—262, at p. 2).

He was escorted by nineteen men of different tribes, and provided with thirty-two camels loaded with provisions enough for ninety days. He admired the great endurance of the camels, for they could stay without food for over forty-eight hours and for ten days without water. The beginning of the journey was not cheerful, for the weather was too cold and misty. Moreover, they decided not to take advantage of the exemption for travellers, and to fast during Ramadan, which started on the third day of their journey. They crossed many valleys and ridges and passed many wells, such as Bin Fadhil, Tuwairifa, ‘Ain Sala and Naifa, where Philby heard the humming music of the singing sands, the same sound that he had heard in Madinah in 1928.

The collapsing of the camels and the scarcity of water and food affected the nerves of Philby and his companions. They were compelled to handle water with so much care that they only poured it into the camels’ nostrils to refresh them. Yet at last he fulfilled his dream.

Philby narrated his travels in a vivid recreation of the adventures and hardships that he encountered. His style varied according to the demands made by his subject-matter. Being a linguist, he had the capacity to respond flexibly to his experience and convey it vividly, focusing with great intensity on specific details. Here is an example, describing the singing sands:

I immediately went up to the summit of the great dunes where a very gentle breeze was blowing from the north, while the sun shone hot and strong upon the sand. I found I could produce the desired effect practically at will by setting large quantities of the sand in motion with my feet. The sliding mass began with a soft grating sound, which gradually developed into the deep musical booming as it got lower, and then as gradually the tone softened, until it stopped abruptly when the sand ceased to move. On one occasion, having got the music strongly, I threw myself down the steep slope and almost buried myself in the deep moving sand, which seemed to vibrate and throb under me, but continued singing. I plunged a bottle into the singing mass to collect a genuine sample, and as I withdrew it a long-drawn-out wail as of a trombone followed it. The same thing happened when I tried to disengage my deeply buried knees. I would suggest that this effect is achieved by the formation of a sort of a vacuum between the moving mass and the stationary sand over which it passes, the hollow space serving as a sounding-board to convert the initial grating into the final booming (ibid., p. 15).

His use of metaphor is interesting: ‘from this point we marched for two days across a swelling ocean of sands of which the ridges were the waves’ (ibid., p. 11). And in his relating of certain episodes, a certain comic effect too cannot be mistaken. In concluding his lecture about the Rub’ al-Khali, he said:

Seven figures appeared stealthily from the Farsha bushes some way ahead of us and seemed to be trying to cut us off. In a moment rifles were unslung and loaded for action, when someone cried out that they seemed to be unarmed. Next minute there was relief and laughing. They were women! And soon we were exchanging greetings and news with a charming old lady and her pretty daughter, the former veiled and the latter sufficiently conscious of her beauty to be coyly careless. And that was our welcome back into civilization after fifty-three unrelieved days of our own company (ibid., p. 21).

The Travels of Amin al-Rihani:

How glorious the gold of the Nafüd is at sunrise and sunset! Or rather how beautiful its shade of purple sloping towards the sunset! How delightful the nights of the Nafüd when you sit down on the smooth silky sands accompanied by a star whose light comes closer to you as if whispering words of tranquillity, love and peace (Amin al-Rihani, Mulük al-Arab, p. 617).

In this way the red colour of the Nafüd dunes impressed its delightful and exhilarating effect on Amin al-Rihani. Amin Faris al-Rihani (1293–1354/1876–1940) was born in the Lebanon and left at the age of eleven to live with his uncle and then his father in America. He started to study Law at New York University, but in 1898 gave up Law and came back to Lebanon to study Arabic. As time passed he made frequent journeys between Lebanon and America. Moreover, he travelled widely in the Arab world in 1922, and met most of the Arab kings while calling for national unity among the Arabs. The full account of these travels was given in Mulük al-Arab (Kings of the Arabs). As an American citizen, al-Rihani met with many obstacles in his attempt to visit most of the Arab countries under the British protectorate. He was at Lahj when he wrote to King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz asking his permission to visit Nejd. ‘Between them lay the Indian Ocean, then the Nafüd, then the Dahana, then the English’ (ibid., p. 492). He was welcomed by the King, but delayed by the British Agent in passing through Bahrain. However, he reached the eastern coast of Arabia:

I entered the tent while the servants were still talking. I lay on the bed filled with delight of a man whose dream had come true. Here is the desert! There is the camel! Those are my servants and here I am, a neighbour of one of the Arab princes: Sultan of Nejd. … After a while the place was filled with noise and excitement receiving the King’s procession … and it was the first meeting on the sands, under the sky and the stones and in the light of blazing fires and around us, I saw a man distinguished by his height … and a smile that is a magnet for hearts. I do not know how I welcomed him. I was delighted and startled by the great surprise (ibid., p. 520–2).

Al-Rihani accompanied the King, who was heading for al-Uqair, where they were expecting Sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner in Iraq. On that journey al-Rihani was so close to King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz that he came to understand his mental and spiritual make-up. The imposing personality of the King never failed to impress al-Rihani. He was touched by his modesty when he sat down on the sand and asked him to do the same: ‘This is the best carpet.’ He also liked his sense of humour. When the tents were pitched for the conference in the Uqair, some of them were highly furnished for the sake of the British delegation. The King used to invite al-Rihani there, saying: ‘Let’s travel to the modern world! Don’t think that we are far from it. It is only ten steps. Here we are in modernity! Bring tea, boy!’ Then he would sit on the chair, saying, ‘Let’s be modern. Come along Ustath; join us’ (ibid., p. 535) pointing to another chair.

Al-Rihani spent six weeks in Riyadh, recording observations and comments on the King, his people, his politics and his desert. Then he started his journey to Kuwait, which is about 550 miles away from Riyadh. They passed Manfuhah, the birthplace of the great poet al-A’sha, Dir’iyah, the old Saudi capital, ‘Uyainah, the birthplace of Sheikh Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahab, and then Shaqra. ‘Shagra is the biggest and most beautiful town in Washim. Its date palms, like its women, were within the walls, adorning the houses’ (ibid., p. 600).

At Unayzah, ‘the queen of Qasim’, the people were friendly and sociable, because most of them had lived abroad. It is called ‘the Paris of Nejd’, yet al-Rihani believed that it was more beautiful than Paris was. ‘It was like a picture painted by Claude Manet of a tale of Thousand and One Nights’ (p. 606). As for Buraydah, it was a commercial centre; they spent a week there to refresh themselves and prepare for the toughest part of their journey, the journey across the Nafüd, the Dahna, Wadi Ruma and the Dibdibah. Al-Rihani was the one who suffered most, because of frequent fevers and the uncomfortable camel ride. They were relieved when they passed the Dahna safely. One of them said that Mr Philby had danced with delight when he reached Hafar. The four days they spent in the Dibdibah were rich in bustards and truffles. At Jahrah, everybody started to dress up in their new kiswas, for ‘within one hour

Kuwait appeared behind the transparent silver veil of dawn’ (p. 645).

Mulük al-Arab is a massive work of two volumes and about nine hundred and fifty pages; it gives an account of seven kings of Arabia, together with the historical, geographical and social circumstances of their peoples. Of these kings, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz is the most impressive: ‘I met all the princes of Arabia, but I did not find any of them as great as that man’ (p. 524). Al-Rihani has an outstanding skill in discerning a man’s character in his face, his gestures and his speech. An obvious example is his first interview with the King, when he expressed his wish for the unity of the Arab princes. ‘“Who are the Arabs? We are the Arabs.” The King said that, and hit the carpet with his bamboo stick’ (p. 523).

A distinctive feature of al-Rihani’s style in this book is his frequent use of colloquial words and phrases such as izgurt (those who smoke and sing), imsakhan (sick), ta’amira (lighting a cigarette), and ibretsah (a small pool, using the Nejdi sound [ts] instead of [k]), and his accounts of the folk songs of the Nejd that were recited by his companions to help the long nights pass.

Some of his descriptions are elaborate personifications, as when he describes his fever as ‘that wicked, troublesome guest’ that accompanied him throughout his entire journey (p. 593), and his depiction of Misfir, the ugly cook (p. 625). These lengthy paragraphs were clearly composed with the intention of adding to the literary quality of the work as a whole.

The Journey of Ghulam Rasül Muhir:

Days and ages passed when murder, robbery and plunder were on the increase everywhere. Then came the reign of King [Ibn Saud], when security and comfort were secured for the pilgrims. The voyage used to take six months from India to Hejaz; now it takes six or eight days. Still the flow of pilgrims continued, whether it was stormy or calm, whether it was dangerous or secure (Sheikh Ghulam Rasül Muhir, Yawmiyat Rihla fi al-Hijaz 1348/1930 (Diary of a Journey in the Hejaz 1348/1930), p. 39).

Sheikh Ghulam Rasül Muhir was one of the notable ulama of the Indian subcontinent. He was born in the Punjab in 1313/1895, and obtained his university degree from the Islamic College of Lahore. He joined the National Religious Movement and worked as a journalist, but his main interest was in Islamic history. In 1344/1925 he performed his first pilgrimage to Makkah as a secretary to Mawlana Zafar Ali Khan. In 1348/1930 he set out on his second pilgrimage at the invitation of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, and he recounted his journey in Yawmiyat Rihla fi al-Hijaz 1348/1930 (Diary of a Journey in the Hejaz 1348/1930).

He set out with his friend, Ismaïl Ghaznawi, on 20 April 1930 from Lahore to Karachi by train. The trip was tough because of a sandstorm, which covered the whole place with a layer of dust about an inch thick: ‘When I looked at Ismaïl, I broke out in laughter. He looked like a jester disguised with make-up’ (p. 4). In Karachi they visited the salt-pans, where there were great throngs of people working in a huge area of about an acre that was entirely full of salt. They completed the regular preparations for the trip, such as obtaining vaccinations and buying tickets, and headed for the steamer Khesto to start their voyage to Aden. As soon as the ship began sailing along the coast, all the passengers called out with one voice ‘Allah Akbar!’ The ship was carrying about eight hundred pilgrims, of whom a large number were Iranians, who were constantly busy selling and buying their Persian carpets.

As for food, there were two kinds: national and English food. They were unfortunate in choosing the national food, because the cook for it was not very competent, and there was no convenient place to eat it, so that most of them felt suffered from sea-sickness. On 29 April they reached Aden:

The sight of Aden and Bab al-Mandab made me melancholic and sad because this spot was one of the most important places of the Islamic Da’wa in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Now it is captured by non-Muslims. Oh! How the Muslims have lost these blessed lands. Once they ruled over land and sea in Europe, Africa and Asia. Today other flags are waving over their lands. Every island now is dominated by the English and each coast in front of us is governed either by the English or some other European power (ibid., p. 28).

On board, the atmosphere was highly spiritual. Everybody was praying, reciting and interpreting verses of the Holy Qur’an. Their strong faith helped them to endure the difficulty of their journey. ‘The Hejaz is not like the Riviera, Kashmïr or Lausanne, where people go to enjoy themselves. People go to Hejaz showing remarkable endurance of difficulties, unbearable heat, burning sun and scarcity of water’ (ibid., p. 40).

On 2 May they reached Jeddah, and were received at the Royal Guest House. At midnight on the same day they left for Makkah. The road was not fully paved yet, but there were cafés serving coffee, tea and light meals. They saw numerous groups of Takarana (Negro Muslims), who travelled on foot at night from Jeddah to Makkah. They reached Makkah at half past three, and without delay they went to the Haram, entered through Bab al-Salam and started from the black stone their Omra by Tawaf. Then they went to Maqam Ibrahim, drank from the well of Zamzam, performed Sa’i, shaved their hair and prayed the Fajr prayer in their ihram. Finally, they took rest at Dar al-Kiswa.

On 5 May, Sheikh Ghulam with some five hundred pilgrims attended the Royal gathering. After dinner, they moved to the reception hall on the third floor, where ‘the great King in his simple dress, cloak and Nejdi sandals was sitting. He started his eloquent speech with verses from Sura 49 Al-Hujurat: “O mankind! We created you from a single [pair] of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other [not that ye may despise each other]. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is [he who is] the most righteous of you” (Sura 49 Al-Hujurat, 13). He confirmed his strong faith, tawhïd, called for the unity of Muslims, and concluded his speech by saying: “I am not a man of learning but a simple Bedouin. Almighty Allah has given me the authority to protect Islam (tawhïd). My sons, my family, my people, my country and myself will sacrifice ourselves without hesitation to achieve the task imposed on me”’ (p. 58). The speech was translated into Urdu and Persian, and then followed by other speeches and poems.

Before relating the great experience of the hajj, Sheikh Ghulam gave a geographical and historical survey of the city of Makkah and the Haram, documented with maps. They were planning to go to Mina by car, but Sheikh Ghulam suggested that they should go there on foot. When they saw the rows of donkeys at Janat al-Mu’la, they decided to hire some, at the cost of one riyal each. Though it was humiliating to ride a donkey in India, they enjoyed their ride, calling out ‘Tarïq …Tarïq …Tarïq …’ (‘keep back’): ‘We were all wearing the ihram and as the donkeys were running we were not able to cover our bodies. We were wondering when to fall down! What would happen to the belt which held the ihram around our bodies? We were trying to wrap the ihram in order not to get naked in front of the whole world’ (ibid., p. 94).

From Mina they left for Arafat, using the same means of transport. They performed the noon and afternoon prayers and climbed the Jabal al-Rahma (‘Mountain of Mercy’) where they called upon Almighty Allah to strengthen Muslims and liberate India from the British occupation. A sense of spiritual exaltation pervaded the great meeting at Arafat, where there were no less than four hundred thousand pilgrims praising Allah Almighty in one voice. They went on to Muzdalifa and Mina and completed all the hajj rituals.

On 26 May they set sail for Karachi on the ship Dara. The ship was old, and so slow that most of the pilgrims felt worried and tired. However, an amusing incident lightened the tedious atmosphere. An Indian pilgrim had brought with him two ewes from Aden as a present for someone in India. He provided them with fodder and kept them on the upper deck. A group of pilgrims from Bukhara killed one of the ewes and ate it, and the next day they ate the other. The Indian became angry, demanding his ewes back, but the men from Bukhara claimed that one of them had bought them. After a dreadful row the Bukharans were found guilty, for it was discovered that their own two ewes were still alive. So they had to pay the Indian for his ewes.

Yawmiyat Rihla fi al-Hijaz 1348/1930 is one of one hundred and eighty books written by Sheikh Ghulam Muhir. It was originally published in the form of letters sent from Sheikh Muhir to his friend Abdul Majïd Salik, the editor of the Inqilab newspaper. It was translated by Dr Samïr ‘Abd al-Hamïd Ibrahïm, who remarked in his Preface: ‘It is the first travel book to be translated from Urdu into Arabic as far as I know.’

Sheikh Muhir wrote in simple straightforward prose, full of Islamic references, a style that is entirely appropriate to the purpose of relating the spiritual experience of his pilgrimage to Makkah. His description and observations are accurate and objective, particularly when he mentions the attack of mosquitoes in Dar al-Kiswa or when he criticizes the Mutawifïn (pilgrims’ guides), whose main concern is to get money, and how their high voices irritate and disturb other pilgrims who need tranquillity and peace.

The light-heartedness of certain incidents reveals the writer’s sense of humour. This is especially obvious in the incidents of the two ewes (p. 130) and the donkey rides (p. 94).

The Travels of De Gaury:

Wherever you may go in the Arab world the tribesmen assert that they are descended from the tribes of Central Arabia, and they speak highly of the people there today and their manners and customs. It was an almost closed territory, but I had long had hopes of visiting it one day, of going to the fountain-head of the Arab race and of the Muhammadan religion (De Gaury, Gerald, Arabia Phoenix, Harrap, London, 1946, p. 17).

Colonel Gerald de Gaury was another Arabist. He served as a soldier and diplomat in Iraq, Arabia and Kuwait. His first journey from Jeddah to Kuwait through Riyadh started on Friday 28 June 1934. He got permission from King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ‘provided that he travels with an escort furnished by us and wears Arab dress’ (De Gaury, Gerald, ‘Memories and Impressions of the Arabia of Ibn Saud’, in Arabian Studies II, C. Hurst, London, 1975, pp.19—32, at p. 21). It took him three and a half days by car to reach Riyadh. He was received by Sheikh Yüsuf Yasin, the head of the king’s Diwan, and then by the king himself. He was impressed by ‘his immense height: six feet, four inches’ and his ‘overwhelming charm, which began at once to work on [him]’. During two audiences, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz gave him a full account of his battles and the wounds he received in his twelve years of retrieving Nejd, couched in strong language and classical phrasing, ‘with a mixture of Bedouin sayings interlaced’ (p. 23). Then he left Riyadh after two fascinating days, and reached Kuwait three days later in his Chevrolet.

His second journey to Riyadh was at the beginning of 1935, when he joined the first British Minister, Sir Andrew Ryan, on his first visit to Riyadh. They travelled from Cairo to Bahrain on a Royal Air Force flight, from where a ship, chartered by King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, ferried them across to the eastern coast of Arabia. On their way to Hofuf, the capital of al-Hasa, they were fascinated by the golden-coloured sand-dunes that ‘stood out boldly in contrast to their own lapis-lazuli shadows’, and admired their skilful driver, who ‘enjoyed his tussles with the untracked country and with the car, which he encouraged with shouts as if it were a camel’ (De Gaury, Arabia Phoenix, p. 39).

Passing by the bath-house of Ain Umm Najim, they started their journey to Riyadh crossing ‘the great sand belts of the Dahana in a saloon car and loaded lorries. The track was very rough and the car was jerking, so that Sir Andrew was injured in the head and fainted.’ De Gaury revived him with some brandy, and they continued on their way.

While they were camped in the Summan plain a storm blew up hard, and heavy rain followed. As soon as it stopped everyone was relieved; the men ‘began to sing songs of war and songs of love’, and all kinds of creatures were ‘driven from their holes by the rain-water’ (De Gaury, Arabia Phoenix, p. 51).

Finally they reached Riyadh, which ‘lay half hidden in the valley of the Wadi Hanifa’. They were cordially welcomed and led to their quarters in the Summer Palace, where they enjoyed ‘the cool air from the orchards, leaning out of the open windows and listening to long-drawn-out notes like that of a discordant violin, made by the wooden water-wheels’ (p. 38). They were received by His Majesty, Al-Shuyukh. Sir Andrew delivered his message from King George, and Colonel De Gaury read the translation in Arabic. They were enchanted by His Majesty’s charming personality and his two sons, the Crown Prince Saud and Prince Faisal and their horsemanship while playing the spear game known as Jarid in front of their father. They admired all the customs of the country, from the responsory formula sum to the minute details of preparing and serving coffee and meals.

When accompanying King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz on his hunting trips, De Gaury was so omnivorously observant that he learnt about falconry, locusts as a delicacy, the light autumn rain Wasm and its effect on spring grazing, and the growing of truffles. He, like Lady A. Blunt, found springtime ‘unbelievably stimulating’. He compared its effect to that of spring in the Western world:

Instead of a yearning for the greener lands of Europe which might be expected to overcome the traveller, he is filled with a strange elation, and as the deserts beckon him on he forgets all that he has left behind him in favour of this new addiction. It is with pride in his isolation, not longing for them, that he remembers the nearest Europeans are some five hundred miles away. As his falconers loose their hawks into the sky after a distant bustard, so his thoughts go soaring in philosophical flights by which he resolves the perfection of life in the desert. His only fear is that he will be forced to return to the crowded Western world (De Gaury, Arabia Phoenix, p. 75).

Overwhelmed by the king’s kindness, hospitality and valuable gifts, they left for Hejaz. They passed the plain of Marat, where the pre-Islamic poet Imru al-Qais was born, the village of Dawadimi, the wells of Afif, the Fort of Muwayh, Ushayrah, Sayl, and the old irrigation works in Wadi Fatima, and were finally welcomed by the foreign community of Jeddah. From Jeddah they took the weekly steamer to Suez, where the customs men asked Colonel De Gaury if he had ‘anything of value to declare?’ He murmured in reply ‘Memories worth half the world’ (ibid., p. 127).

In the summer of 1939 De Gaury, instead of Philby, was chosen for a War Office post handling intelligence and counter-intelligence in Arabia, to Philby’s great disappointment. De Gaury did not reach Riyadh until the autumn of that year, and was fortunate enough to enjoy the rainy winter in the camp of His Majesty King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz at ‘the side of a large temporary lake at Hafr al-Ats north of Riyadh’ (De Gaury, ‘Memories and Impressions’, p. 27).

Accompanying the king, who was going to Makkah, De Gaury again crossed Arabia from Riyadh to Jeddah by car. Since he was only allowed as far as the limits of the Holy Area around Makkah, he headed to Jeddah and then to Asïr. ‘It is the fairest province in the Saudi Kingdom, the only one with running streams and some thick woods’ (De Gaury, Arabian Journey and other Desert Travels, Harrap, London, 1950, p. 64). In a difficult journey, they passed through Qunfudhah, crossed the Wadi Shahran, and went through Abha and the wood near Sabaya, enjoying their greenery. In the village of Jizan, which used to be an important centre for pearling, the governor arranged for them a four-day trip to Kamaran Island on a new sailing-boat. After grilling the fish for dinner, the crew passed the night drumming and dancing:

A quiver went down the Negro from neck to toe, so that his head shot forward, while his posterior was suddenly thrust backward, and as sharply forward again, his spine curved, and his arms held out for balance. So he stayed posturing to the sound of the drum, clicking his forefingers, jerking his thighs (De Gaury, Arabian Journey, p. 99).

The following night they woke suddenly when a storm broke out and the prevailing darkness turned everything black. ‘In this jet nothingness there was a roar like the fall of a city and the whole world was suddenly an electric white brighter than midday’ (ibid., pp.102–3). Their small craft could not survive the storm, but they were rescued by canoes from Kamaran Island, ‘where all that day at intervals the story of the storm was retold’ (p. 104).