42 the colour of lava. five foot three, marking him every inch a king, or at least a caliph in disguise, who had stepped out of the pages of "The Arabian Nights" to examine the latest improvements in warfare. The striking fact was that the mysterious prince of Mecca looked no more like a son of Ishmael than an Abyssinian looks like one of Stefansson's Eskimos. Bedouins, although of the Caucasian race, have had their skins scorched by the relent- less desert sun until their complexions are But this chap was as blond as a Scandinavian, in whose veins flows Viking blood and the cool tradition of fiords and sagas. The nomadic sons of Ishmael all wear flowing beards, as their ancestors did in the time of Abraham. The youth with the curved gold sword was clean- shaven. He walked rapidly, with his folded. His blue eyes, oblivious to his sur- roundings, were wrapped in some inner contemplation. My first thought, as I glanced at his face, was that he might be one of the youngest of the apostles returned to life. His expression was serene, almost saintly, in its selflessness and repose. nds "Who is he?" I turned eagerly to the Turkish shopkeeper, who could only manip- ulate a little tourist English. He only shrugged his shoulders. Who could he be? I was certain of getting some information about him from General Sir Ronald Storrs, Governor of the Holy City; so I strolled over in the direction of his palace, just outside the old wall near the quarries of King Solomon. General Storrs was Oriental Secretary to the High Com- missioner of Egypt before the fall of Jeru- salem, and always kept in intimate touch with the peoples of Palestine. He speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, with much the same fluency and charm that he speaks English. I knew he could tell me something about my blond Bedouin. "Who is the blue-eyed youth with the curved sword of a prince of" The General did not even let me finish the question. He quietly opened the door of an adjoining room. There, seated in a com- fortable Morris-chair, with his feet dis- respectfully planted on the same table where the German General, Falkenhayn, worked out his unsuccessful plan for defeating Allenby, was the Bedouin prince who had passed me on Christian Street earlier in the afternoon. He was deeply absorbed in a ponderous tome on archæology. In introducing us, General Storrs said: "I want you to meet Colonel Lawrence, the "uncrowned King of Arabia." " He shook hands courteously, but shyly, and with a certain air of aloofness, as if his mind was on buried treasures and not on the affairs of this immediate world of cam- Google THE STRAND MAGAZINE. Digitized by paigns and warfare. And that was how I first made the acquaintance of one of the most unique and picturesque personalities of modern times, a man who will be blazoned on the romantic pages of history with Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Lord Clive. Chinese Gordon, and Kitchener of Khartoum. During the last five years of epic events, among others, two remarkable figures have appeared. The dashing adventures and anecdotes of their careers will furnish golden themes to the writers of the future, as the lives of Ulysses, King Arthur, and Richard the Lion-Hearted to the poets, troubadours, and chroniclers of other days. One is a massive, towering, square-jawed six-footer- that smashing British cavalry leader, Field- Marshal Lord Allenby, Commander of the Twentieth Century Crusaders, who has gained world-fame because of his exploit in driving the Turks from the Holy Land, downing the Crescent, and raising the Cross over Jerusalem. The other is the undersized, beardless youth whom I first saw absorbed in a technical treatise on the cuneiform inscriptions discovered on the bricks of ancient Babylon. HIS SPECTACULAR ACHIEVEMENTS. The spectacular achievements of Thomas Edward Lawrence, the young Oxford gradu- ate, are still unknown except to a handful of his associates. Yet quietly, without any theatrical headlines or fanfare of trumpets, he brought the disunited nomadic tribes of Arabia into a unified campaign against their Turkish oppressors-a difficult and splendid stroke of policy which caliphs, statesmen, and sultans had been unable to accomplish in centuries of effort. Lawrence placed him- self at the head of the Bedouin army of the King of the Hejaz, drove the Turks from Arabia, and restored the caliphate to the descendants of the Prophet. Allenby liberated Palestine, the holy land of Jews and Christians; Lawrence freed Arabia, the holy land of millions of Mohammedans. I had heard of the mysterious Lawrence many times during the months I was in Palestine with General Allenby. On my way from Italy to Egypt, one of the officers on the cruiser told me that an Englishman was supposed to be in command of an army of wild Bedouins somewhere in the trackless deserts of the far-off land of "The Arabian Nights." This was the first rumour which reached me of Lawrence's exploits. In Egypt and Palestine I heard fantastic tales of his exploits. And always his name was men- tioned in solemn, hushed tones, because at this time the Arabian affair was supposed to be a secret. Lawrence became to me a new Oriental legend of the war in the making, Original from CORNELL UNIVERSITY
