Shiftless Sands

ARABIA FELIX -- Bertram Thomas -- Scribner ($5). Last large geographical blind spot in world cartographers' eyes was the great desert Rub' al Khali, "empty quarter" of Arabia. After skirting its southern fringe for more than two months, on Jan. 10, 1931, Explorer Thomas and 13 Arabs made tracks across; on Feb. 4 they emerged at Doha, on the Persian Gulf. The journey emptied geography of ignorance, emptied also any hopes of discovering a better world on Planet Earth. The cartographical blind spot had been filled in with 600 miles of burning sand. An "unprecedented suspension of blood feuds" among the Arabs, due to Bin Sa'ud's benign but determined autocracy, made the journey possible. From the coast of the Arabian Sea, Explorer Thomas sent inland two Rashidi tribesmen to collect camels, men to conduct him over the Qara mountains to the desert's edge. Shaikh Salih went ahead to organize a relay, prepare the desert ways. So well did he prepare them that the final dash through enemies' territory passed without hitch or hobble from hostile tribes. On his way Explorer Thomas busied himself with collecting flora, fauna, Arab chants, cephalic measurements of different tribes, superb photographs of the desert and its denizens. Though he embroiders his narrative with tales of the desert and its lore, the author's thoughts, like his camels, found food scanty in the sands. Written in a style reminiscent of Charles M. Doughty's masterpiece. Tourist Thomas' magnificently produced book (compared with Travels in Arabia Desertary} seems the record of a somewhat barren scientific tour de force.

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