East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1909-11-05
AN ADVENTURE IN
DESERTS OF. ARABIA
ENGLISH EXPLORING PARTY
HAS HAZARDOUS JOURNEY
Attempt TO Penetrate i'm Unknown,
Mysterious Dwelling of the Void"
Guides Desert and Native Tribes
are Hostilc-Finally Forced to Re-
treat.

London, Nov. 5.-News has jus
reached London Of the unfortunat,
termination OF on English explorin,
expedition which attempted to pene
trate the deserts OF Southern Arabia
which are absolutely unknown t
white men, and which are known a.
the Dwelling Of the Void" Like al
previous expeditions, the effort to in,
vestigate the mysterious region endet
in failure. The members of the par.
ty, headed by G. W. Bury, fortunately
escaped with their lives. but theii
hardships resulted in adding but lit.
tie to the knowledge of Arabia. The
following account Of the adventure /.
given by the leader:
THE region Is absolutely unknown
to modern geographers, none of whom
have succeeded in penetrating its
mysteries. We were anxious to reach
the buried cities in the interior, al.
though the principal object of the
Journey was to make natural history
collections.
when we arrived off the little fish,
ing village OF Irka we sent our order
ly Sareb ashore with a letter to the
chief. who come out to us. Instead
of really helping us he was conspir-
ing with the interior chief of Haura
TO get US partly up country and leave
US stranded.
Tribes are Hostile.
Eventually we got away from Idka
with an escort of fifteen men and
eight camels. We were both armed
and wore turbans, as the people there
declare that Christians only wear hats
to hide their horns. on the follow
ing day the chief of Haura sent a
messenger with a letter to say that
he would not receive us at any price.
"Our whole caravan stopped, our
boxes were dumped in the open des-
ert, and we found what shelter we
could under one tree. We got our
camp in state of defence, and took
ii in turns to snatch a little sleep.
The chief of Haura proved most un-
friendly. He would not send us out
food, and set guard over US. For
tunately we had a few biscuits with
us. but this was practically all we
had for the week we were stranded in
the desert.
1--WE were absolutely in the power
of the Arabs. and to have attempted
a show of force would have been fatal.
Every now and again the Arabs fired
pot shots at us for amusement, but
never hit us, although they struck one
tree under which we sat.
Ordered TO Leave Country.
after five anxious days had pass
ed the chief of Haura sent us a final
letter declining to find us an escort
and ordering us TO leave his country
within three hours. The three of us
were very weak, having lived mainly
on jam and biscuits, and the prospect
OF a flight of thirty-five miles to the
coast was not a pleasant one. We
had, of course. to discard our bag
gage, for our escort deserted.
Il tore out a few written pages Of
my diary, we concealed the two
chronometers about our clothes, and.
with a certain amount of ammunition,
were prepared to bolt, our intention
being to get away in the middle Of
the night, when our guards would
probably be asleep. We regarded II
as almost certain that we should ge
attacked and murdered before we
were able to go far.
Give Up Money.
1--WE did not get away that night,
and to our surprise on the following
morning the local pundit came out
from town to reopen negotiations.
The chief now demanded all our mon
ey. in return for which he would pro-
vide US with an escort and camels.
Keeping only a few dollars we
handed over the money, and in the
evening twenty-seven camels arrived.
Some shots were fired at us at inter-
walls, but no damage was done. Hay
ing loaded our camels we started on
our return to the coast.
'The journey was terribly hot, and
we were very weak, but we had to
make forced marches, and only
snatch three hours sleep. We were
done up when we event.
ually reached the coast at our orig
inal starting place. A dhow put in
and in fwo davs tnok nc IN Erdap ~