If it is legitimate to suggest that travel in Arabia ever lacks movement, Miss Freya Stark's account of her second visit to the Hadhramaut may be said to fall into two parts; a static and a dynamic. Accompanied by a female geologist and a female archaeologist - representing, she says, the Science of the expedition, its Art residing in herself - she went up the Tarim road by lorry from Mukalla to look for pre-Islamic remains in the ancient cities of the wadi.
Even though supported by the "Ingram's peace" which has recently descended on British Arabia, the spectacle of three unprotected women (one in trousers) determined not only to range freely but to dig (it might be for treasure) was not without suspicion in Hureidha, and while its Science dustily progressed its Art was quietly unfolded by Miss Stark. She was often prostrated by the microbes of the Hadhramaut and was sometimes nearly mobbed by its men, women, and children, but she turned her eyes, her heart, her understanding, and her camera upon every invader of her person and her personality. In her diary, east and west, men and microbes, irony and tenderness, life and death, hot sun and velvet night, Arab walls and nature's sand, limestone and lava are most beautifully woven and most delicately displayed.
The static passed into the dynamic when Miss Stark parted from her companions with the intention of returning to the cast alone, by way of the old Frankincense road which threads the western wadi system of Hajr and Mafaia and has seldom been visited by Europeans. It was not certain that the Ingram's peace held in some section of this route. The brilliant comedy and the popular fervour of the horse races of Hauta were behind her: the much more dangerous fanaticism of the Beduin of Azzan was to come. However, travelling by donkey and camel (and who has looked at these creatures with a more seeing eye than Miss Stark?), she survived the riots of Azzan and got safely through the last most dangerous stretch to the coast in a caravan led by its Sultan.
