Project Gutenberg's Southern Arabia, by Theodore Bent and Mabel Bent

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Title: Southern Arabia

Author: Theodore Bent
Mabel Bent

Release Date: May 22, 2007 [EBook #21569]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTHERN ARABIA ***

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SOUTHERN ARABIA

[Illustration: Lafayette, photo.

Walker & Boutall ph. sc.

[Signature: Theodore Bent]

London. Published by Smith, Elder & Co. 15, Waterloo Place.]

SOUTHERN ARABIA

BY

THEODORE BENT, F.R.G.S., F.S.A.

AUTHOR OF
'THE RUINED CITIES OF MASHONALAND' 'THE SACRED CITY OF THE ETHIOPIANS'
'THE CYCLADES, OR LIFE AMONG THE INSULAR GREEKS' ETC.

AND

MRS THEODORE BENT

_WITH A PORTRAIT, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATION_

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE

1900

[All rights reserved]

PREFACE

If my fellow-traveller had lived, he intended to have put together in
book form such information as we had gathered about Southern Arabia. Now,
as he died four days after our return from our last journey there, I have
had to undertake the task myself. It has been very sad to me, but I have
been helped by knowing that, however imperfect this book may be, what is
written here will surely be a help to those who, by following in our
footsteps, will be able to get beyond them, and to whom I so heartily
wish success and a Happy Home-coming, the best wish a traveller may have.
It is for their information that I have included so many things about the
price of camels, the payment of soldiers and so forth, and yet even
casual readers may care to know these details of explorers' daily lives.

Much that is set down here has been published before, but a good deal is
new.

My husband had written several articles in the _Nineteenth Century_, and
by the kindness of the editor I have been able to make use of these; also
I have incorporated the lectures he had given before the Royal
Geographical Society and the British Association. The rest is from his
note-books and from the 'Chronicles' that I always wrote during our
journeys.