Imams' Guest

Buyers and borrowers of best sellers were mightily of a twitter, last week, at news of new exploits by the author of Revolt in the Desert, famed Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence. He, with a modesty not inferior to Lindbergh's, has rejected all the honors and decorations which Britons sought to heap upon him in reward for his success in fomenting an Arabian revolt against Turkey during the War. Last week, after eight years of self-imposed nonentity as a British private, T. E. Lawrence returned to Arabia as a British plenipotentiary and arrived at San'a, the Capital of the Imamate of Yemen.

Mightily of a twitter were the twelve warlike princes of Yemen and their potent father, the Imam Yahya ben Muhammad ben Hamid al Din. Over coffee brewed from the peerless beans of Menakha, and with the eight gates of the Imam's capital barred for the night, a conference took place in deadly secrecy between Plenipotentiary and Potentate.

Officials close to the Secretary of State for India said guardedly, in London, that the present activities of Colonel Lawrence began last April. They recalled that Amir Amanullah, Khan of Afghanistan, has invited to a Pan-Asiatic Parley at Kabul, Afghanistan, next November, delegates from the nationalist parties of India and Egypt, and representatives of the nationalist governments of Persia and Turkey, together with emissaries from all the Sultans, Imams and potent Sheiks* of Arabia.

The intimation was allowed to escape with contented British smugness that Colonel Lawrence, whose Arab friends have created him a Prince of Mecca, is now using his unique influence to combat the Pan-Asiatic schemes of the Amir of Afghanistan--who recently toured Europe, was the guest of George V (TIME, March 26, April 2).

*Such as Sheik Ahmed ibn Jabir al Subah, ruler of Kuwait.