The preferred edition with the first publication of the 3 maps intended for the second impression but never issued, and with the charts bound into the book for ease of use. Dickson the son of the British consul in Damascus, had unrivalled access to the desert tribes as a result of being wet-nursed by a Badawi woman. The work is thorough an comprehensive. Completed in 1936, due to the difficulties of typing the manuscript and drawing the text illustrations in desert winds and sand and the disruptions of WWII, it was not published until 1949.

Third impression; 8vo, 664 pp, frontispiece, numerous illustrations, 6 folding genealogical charts, original cloth, dust-wrapper, a fine copy.