In 1905, she returned to Greater Syria. She met Mark Sykes, then a British traveller. The two quarrelled and shared a mutual dislike of each other that would last until 1912, when they made up. She concluded her trip visiting archaeological sites in Asia Minor and visiting Constantinople. She published her observations of the Middle East in the 1907 book Syria: The Desert and the Sown. In it she vividly described, photographed, and detailed her trip to Greater Syria including Damascus, Jerusalem, Beirut, Antioch, Alexandretta, and the lands of the Druze and of the Bedouin. The Desert and the Sown was well-received in the western world; the book received positive reviews and was a success. A notable epithet of Bell's came from her trip to Syria, where one particular compliment from a Bani Sakher tribesman she recorded became part of her later public image: "Mashallah! Bint aarab." Literally, it meant "As God wills it, a daughter of the Arabs," but she translated it as being called a "daughter of the desert."
