276 We Reach Sheykh Obeyd Once More [ l &97 



on the 17th at a quarter past eleven, meeting Anne accidentally on her 

 way through the palm grove from the station. I could hardly speak 

 for tears of joy. I had been away the forty days, during which she 

 was to expect no news of me, and this was the forty-first, and during 

 the whole of that time I had not spoken a word of any language but 

 Arabic, till I had come even to think in Arabic, and I was weak and 

 worn out, and famished in mind and body. Our last run from Siwah, 

 413 miles, had been accomplished in fourteen days and a half. 



" Since then I have been resting, except that on the 20th I went 

 into Cairo and lunched with Gorst, and at his suggestion drew up a 

 memorandum in writing for him of the circumstances of my journey. 

 There have been two political events during my absence, the war in 

 Crete and Rodd's mission to Abyssinia. I hardly know what to say 

 yet on either case. Personally I have come back from my journey with 

 my mind cleared on one point important to my life. It is as to religion. 

 My experience of the Senussia at Siwah has convinced me that there is 

 no hope anywhere to be found in Islam. I had made myself a ro- 

 mance about these reformers, but I see that it has no substantial basis, 

 and I shall never go farther now than I am in the Mohammedan direc- 

 tion. The less religion in the world, perhaps, after all, the better." 



