Plate 11: Auda Abu Tayi

'Auda was very simply dressed in white cotton, northern fashion, with a red Mosul headcloth. He might be over fifty, and his black hair was streaked with white, but he was still strong and straight, loosely built, spare, and active as a much younger man. His face was magnificent, even to its lines and hollows, and showed how true it was that the death of Annad, his favourite son, in battle with his Jazi cousins, had cast sorrow over all his life, by the bitter failure of his dream to hand on through him the greatness of the name of Abu Tayi to future generations. He had large eloquent eyes, like black velvet in richness. His forehead was low and broad, his nose very high and sharp, powerfully hooked: his mouth rather large, and his beard and moustaches trimmed to a point, in Howeitat style, with the lower jaw shaven underneath.'

Writing of Kennington's Arab portraits, Storrs reported that it was Emir Abdulla who 'forced some surly Shaikhs to sit against their will – including Auda Abu Tayi, who actually walked half a mile to [Kennington's] tent. But he was angry and superior (feeling presumably as a Guardsman would, if employed as a mannequin)' . Kennington 'had to keep him sitting by will power.'