In her latest article for Qatar Visitor, France Gillespie, author of Discovering Qatar, takes a look at desert explorer Robert Cheesman and his little chronicled trip along Qatar's Salwa coast in the early 1920's. He was traveling in search of Gerrha, the fabled Phonecian city, but he was close to breaking new ground even before making any discoveries: he was only the second Westerner to travel along this bare and desolate stretch of coast, empty of inhabitation except for a few Bedouin. Although he was entering the land of the Qatari bedouins, he was accompanied by Bedouin from the interior: Bedouin who lived so remote form the sea that they had never seen or eaten fish before.
France's next article, The Ubaid Period in Qatar, will be published next month. In the meantime you may be interested in her other articles on Qatar: Qatar's Natural History, Qatar Seas and the Archeology of Qatar.
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