ARABIA: Tomb of Eve

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To His Majesty Ibn Saud, warlike Sultan of Nejd and King of the Hejaz, came tidings last week of his flourishing son the Amir Faisal, 19-year-old Viceroy of the Hejaz. The tidings were conveyed 500 miles by motor caravan from the Red Sea town of Jidda in the Hejaz, to the Sultan's inland capital, Riyadh, in Nejd. There was it made known that the enlightened son & Viceroy had finally caused to be obliterated that notorious imposture, "The Tomb of Mother Eve," at Jidda.

Quaint, but probably constructed within the last millenium, the bogus "tomb" was an enclosure whose walls marked the outline of a supposedly buried female of gigantic stature. At the head was a raised mound. Midway in the enclosure rose a small whitewashed dome, protecting from the elements a mystic black stone, El Surrah.

Doubtless the young Viceroy Faisal has learned on his two recent trips to England that El Surrah, the navel, is taboo among moderns. Last week he could point with pride to the demolition of the entire "tomb," and to the removal among the debris of El Surrah.