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they belonged to hill tribes who had been robbers
and highwaymen before. Once or twice when our
car was disabled and we had to spend many hours
of the night on the sands, we felt as safe as at home.
Sometimes when some wanderer came suddenly
out of the dark and approached our car and asked
for a drink of water, the driver told us in an
undertone that a few years ago that man would
have robbed us ! It was on such occasions that
I fully understood what the King's peace in
Arabia meant."
People, whose own idea of the Haj was confined
within conventional limits, would hardly under-
stand Nizaniat Jung's point of view in the remark
quoted below. It explains some of the movements
of his mind.
" The weeks I spent in Arabia before and
after the Haj were a renewal of some of my
most useful experiences in life. The trial of
patience and fortitude by severe tests in the
form of illness and discomforts and privations,
is always a good training for strengthening the
moral fibre. This I had in full measure in
Mecca in 1932 and in 1938, and after it came
the grim silence of the desert and its grand
spaciousness—so satisfying to the soul with
its suggestion of unending peace. The desert
has a great attraction for me, though I have
always been a lover of beautiful scenery.
Bare and empty and forbidding, yet it shows
us at times wonderful fairy scenes in its mirage.
We see delicately shaded pictures, such as only