From Sphinx to Oracle

Abstract

UNDER a somewhat fantastic title Mr. A. Silva White has published an account of a journey which he made in the early part of the present year to the Oasis of Sîwah, the Oasis that was made for ever famous by Alexander the Great, who visited it after he had conquered Phœnicia and Egypt. Mr. White's visit seems to have been prompted by an inspiration which came upon him after he had drunk deep of the “sonorous silence” of the desert, at “midnight hours,” “in the radiance of a full-moon.” We wish that the inspiration had been a thing born of the day, and that it had counselled him to persevere in making preparations which took the form of studying the history and languages, ancient and modern, of the land over which he had resolved to travel. His original object seems to have been to visit Jarabub, the stronghold of the powerful “Senussi” sect of Muhammadans, which lies rather more than one hundred miles from Sîwah, in a direction more west than north. As Mr. White talks of his “political studies” we may assume that he had some definite mission when he set out for this uninviting spot; we have no right to inquire what the mission was, and we can only offer him our sympathy in his failure to reach the place where he fain would have been. To this failure we perhaps owe the appearance of his work.

From Sphinx to Oracle.

By A. Silva White. Pp. xvi + 277. 2 Maps, and 57 Illustrations.(Hurst and Blackett, 1899.)