ABSTRACT
Ibn Sa‘ud did not let his sympathies be guided by motor-cars or riches but his increasing financial difficulties pressed him in their direction. Before America took a share in the second World War and before she took over the greater part of British relief work in Sa‘udi Arabia Ibn Sa‘ud had already met a vanguard of American technicians. Karl S. Twitchell and his men believed it possible to change the sandy wastes of the Tihama into date-groves with the water raised by their windmills and being good Americans they did not believe in the use of the backs of donkeys and camels for carrying purposes but imported big-wheeled wagons from America to be drawn by those animals. Poor indeed were the results of all Twitchell’s efforts in the Yemen. His ideas were sound and his practical methods would have led to good results in any normal country but the Yemen was by no means normal.
