Jarabub

Between Egypt and Italian Tripoli, just north of the great Libyan Desert, lies the tiny oasis-city of Jarabub, an excessively important water supply station for the trans-Libyan caravans. There in 1855 the potent sheik, Sidi Mohammed ben Ali ben Es Senussi el Khettabi el Hassani el Idrissi el Mehajiri, established the stronghold of his fraternity or sect, the Senussites, who continue to possess tremendous influence in the region.

Last week Italian airplanes roared and circled above Jarabub. They dropped packets of leaflets by the hundred. The Senussites picked them up and stoically absorbed the information that an Italian army was marching upon them, but that they need fear nothing since the Italian commander pledged himself to respect their holy places and to tolerate their tribal and religious customs.

While the Italian columns were approaching, 2,000 strong, the Senussite leaders informed their ignorant people that the sovereignty of Jarabub has been transferred from Egypt to Italy by an Italo-Egyptian Commission (TIME, Oct. 12, EGYPT), which made this important disposition of a virtually autonomous people while cruising about luxuriously in the Mediterranean (north of Jarabub) without troubling to land and make the awkward 270-mile trek inland to the oasis itself.

Last week when the Italian troops at length arrived they were equipped with three squadrons of motor cars, bearing machine guns and 350 supply cars carrying rations and sufficient water for a month's campaign, since it was feared that the Senussites would poison their own wells rather than submit.

The Italian commander, Colonel Ronchetti, incurred no active resistance; the Senussites are familiar enough with European armaments to realize their hopeless impotence. Italian-censored radio despatches declared that the Senussite chieftains performed the ceremony of submission while the Italian flag was unfurled from a specially imported staff. Later, Colonel Ronchetti appointed the Sherif Pasha el Gariani custodian of the Senussites' holy places.