"THE UNCROWNED of his staff, and the independent young Lawrence. About that time Ronald Storrs, Oriental Secretary of the High Commissioner of Egypt, and a friend of Lieutenant Lawrence, was about to start on a trip down the Red Sea to Jeddah as the representative of the KING OF ARABIA." 47 compliments, was: "When will you get to Damascus?" Feisal replied that he believed the first important step was to capture Medina, next to Mecca the holiest city of Islam. After two weeks with the Emir, Lawrence became, convinced that it would H.R.H. PRINCE FEISAL, THE ENLIGHTENED ARABIAN MONARCH, WHOSE METEORIC RISE TO POWER IN THE NEAR EAST IS LARGELY DUE TO THE MIRACULOUS ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE YOUNG OXFORD GENIUS WHOSE LIFE AMBITION IS TO POTTER ABOUT AMONG THE RUINS OF ANTIQUITY. THIS ARAB RULER IS A DIRECT DESCENDANT OF THE PROPHET MOHAMMED. British Foreign Office to pay his respects to the aged Sherif of Mecca, who had" touched off" the Arabian revolution. Lawrence had long realized the possibility of the Arabs playing an important part in the war against Germany and Turkey in the East, and as his work at G.H.O. at Cairo had become none too pleasant, he asked Sir Archibald Murray to grant him a fortnight's leave in order that he might accompany Storrs on his trip down the Red Sea. General Headquarters in Cairo evidently was delighted to have the oppor- tunity of getting rid of the altogether too independent subordinate, and granted his request with evident pleasure. When Storrs and Lawrence reached Jeddah, the latter succeeded in getting permission from the Sherif of Mecca to make a short trip up-country to see Emir Feisal, one of the Sherif's sons. who was engaged in guerilla warfare with some of the Turkish forces. The first thing he said to Feisal, after they had exchanged the usual desert Digitized by Google be possible to develop a large irregular Arabian army, and he was so interested in this that he never went back to Cairo to make his apo.ogies. Evidently, Sir Archibald Murray and his staff were not disappointed. And that was the curious way in which the now famous Colonel T. E. Lawrence, "Prince of Mecca" and uncrowned King of Arabia," became connected with the revolution in the Hejaz. THE PROBLEMS HE HAD TO SOLVE. In order to understand the complicated problem Lawrence faced, and the over- whelming odds against him, it is necessary to take a swift retrospective glance at the history of Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula is larger than the British Isles and France. and Spain combined. The distance from Damascus to Aleppo alone is greater than the distance from London to Rome, and great sweeps of desert separate nearly all Original from CORNELL UNIVERSITY
