Note 102 — BOOK III THE DAWN OF HISTORY

My friend Colonel Lawrence tells me that the movement among the Arabs is somewhat as follows: (1) the sessile village cultivators are pushed out by over-population into the desert—very reluctantly; (2) they wander in the desert for a thousand years or so—as a stick pushed into the water gets carried about for a long way; (3) they are pushed again out of the desert, back again into sessile life by starvation—very reluctantly (they have learned to love the desert); and when they come back into sessile life they are on the other side—i.e. having started in west Arabia, they land in Mesopotamia. Thus they wander a thousand years or so, and end up thousands of miles from where they started.—E. B.