File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎203r] (414/834)

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occurred, and since then British officers* had become much
better known, and, for the most part, liked. He confessed he
had asked Major Davenport partly as a test case, and, thanks be
to Dod ! , not a Bedouin had growled. In the future he would
not hesitate to invite British officers.
DAWASIR AND NEJRAN.
Mr. H. St. J. B. Philby, I.C.S., at present Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency.
at Riyadh, has accomplished another pioneer feat of exploration
by reaching Dawasir. We are informed that he arrived there on
May 30, and hoped to be back in Riyadh about June 18. To
what point of the long u Wadyan ” he pushed we are not
informed, but, presumably, at any rate to Dam and the compara
tively settled and fertile district reported to lie round that town
{see Arabia Handbook,’ i, p. 375), which acknowledges the
suzerainty of Ibn Saud. Mr. Philby had planned to return
through Dawasir last January, had King Husein allowed him to
go back to Laif. Now, evidently, he has succeeded, from the
other side, in exploring a region, hearsay reports of which have
excited the curiosity of most Arabian travellers, from Niebuhr to
Burton, Doughty and Leachman. While in Dawasir, Mr. Philby
noted much traffic, especially in coffee, passing up from Yemen
by way of Nejran.
About the latter district, which has been seen only once by a
European (Joseph Halevy, a French Jew, travelling as a Jerusalem
Yemeni rabbi in 1870), he evidently heard a good deal, and he
reports that the educated class among the Beni Yam, who inhabit
it, and also among the even less known Qahtan, who range between
it and Dawasir, is inclining towards Ibn Saud, partly from some
sympathy with Akhwan ideas, partly in order to enjoy settled
government. A chief of the Fahnad (?) section has recently been
to Riyadh, and the chief of another section, the Rashid, was going
to accompany Mr. Philby thither on his return. Presumably,
these are Yam chiefs. Their tribe is of the Ismaili sect, and
follows the Agha Khan, being the largest group of his adherents
in the Arab-speaking countries. Next in importance comes, of
course, the better known Lebanon group. About five hundred
Yam—these tribesmen habitually take mercenary service—have
been, or still are, with Idrisi; and we reported recently (p. 210)
that a party of them was lying up for a Turkish convoy from
Medina to Yemen in the spring of 1917, but failed to intercept it.
The Turks have never exercised, or even claimed, authority in
Nejran. We await with impatience further news from Mr. Philby,
and hope that, in consideration of the great importance, political,
ethnological and cartographical, of his visit to one of the darkest
corners of Arabia, we may have as full a report as possible,
whether for publication or not.