PREFACE 



that this feehng has been more one of laziness 

 and inertia than of romance. It has been, you 

 are perfectly certain, just a response to your 

 environment. You are apt to wonder how 

 you ever could have yielded to it, but still you 

 are 'way sure that it was the only thing you 

 could have done at the time. 



Even now, writing in Morris Plains, I find 

 myself thinking and almost believing that I 

 am again in the desert. I smell its smells and 

 hear its sounds. Under the tents of the 

 Anezeh my companions and I sit in the evening 

 silently drinking the salted coffee and smoking 

 the pipe passed around from hand to hand ; for 

 half hours at a time no one speaks — we only 

 hear the querulous jackals snarling over a bit 

 of offal on the outskirts of the camp; once in 

 a while some old Chief of the Tribe softly calls 

 upon Allah. 



Again in my thoughts I renew the bond of 

 brotherhood with Achmet Hafez and begin all 

 over again my friendship with Hashim Bey, the 

 Sheikh of all the Sheikhs of the Bedouins. 



It has been impossible for me, therefore, not 

 to include in this book some of the romance of 

 the desert and of the journey to it. I only 



[ xvii ] 



