Machine summary:
Europe and America, at present eager to establish communication with the spirit world, would get enlightenment from such a book as thi~ before us, which, by its sophistication and its subtleties, tends rather to obscure the light for Muslims, who have other aims ; for the conclusions of Sufism are based on actual experience, and would stand the tests of the Psychical Research Society.
\Ve notice in the XIth century the Car• thaginian Constantino travelling for 30 years in North Africa and 10 the Orient with a view to teaching Arabian medical science at Salerno and to translating Arabic works into Latin when a monk at Monte Cassino.
" UNKNO\YN ARABIA Major Cheesman went to Al-Hasa in Arabia armed with a letter of introduction to 'Abdul 'Aziz Ibn-us Saud, Sultan of Najd, from General Sir Percy Cox ; by virtue of which he was allowed, after some delay and apparent reluctance on the part of the authorities, to visit the decayed and neglected Oasis of J abrin, never before visited by a European*.
But the interest of the book to the general reader is not its scientific purpose but its tale of actual encounters, particularly the author's interviews with the Sultan of Najd, whose 'photograph adorns the volume, and his account of the life and customs of the Wahhsbis and of their dealings with non- Wahhabis in a territory like Al-Hasa where the latter are in the majority .
Sultan 'Abdul 'Aziz took a personal interest in the author's collection of birds) 'He displayed more knowledge of the different species than any educated Arab I had encountered.