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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Travels in Arabia, by Bayard Taylor, Edited
+by Thomas Stevens
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Travels in Arabia
+
+
+Author: Bayard Taylor
+
+Editor: Thomas Stevens
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2013  [eBook #41960]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAVELS IN ARABIA***
+
+
+This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler
+
+               [Picture: Night march on the Arabian Desert]
+
+                      ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY OF TRAVEL
+
+
+
+
+
+                            TRAVELS IN ARABIA
+
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                         COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY
+                              BAYARD TAYLOR
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                REVISED BY
+                              THOMAS STEVENS
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 NEW YORK
+                         CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+                                   1898
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                         COPYRIGHT 1881, 1892, BY
+                         CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                              TROW DIRECTORY
+
+                     PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
+
+                                 NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+REVISER’S NOTE
+
+
+The continuance of Bayard Taylor’s Library of Travel in the popular favor
+is one of the accepted facts of the literary world.  So much so, indeed,
+that a revision of his works on the part of another is to be permitted
+only on certain conditions of reserve, and by reason of events that have
+transpired since the death of the distinguished traveller.
+
+Travellers and authors die; but the tribes, nations, and races visited by
+them continue on, making war or peace, changing frontiers, setting up or
+pulling down dynasties.
+
+The whole political complexion of a country may be changed in a decade.
+Though the people of Arabia, the genuine Bedouins, are believed to have
+changed little or nothing in their mode of life since the days of the
+Shepherd Kings of Abraham’s time, waves of political and religious
+agitation have occasionally rippled over one part or another of the
+ancient peninsula.  Seemingly they make as little permanent impression on
+the undercurrent of Bedouin life, as do the waves of the sea on its
+immutable whole, so that the accounts of the earlier chroniclers of
+Arabian life and manners agree in a singular manner with the descriptions
+of contemporary visitors.  For this reason, no less than for the respect
+and admiration entertained by the reviser for Mr. Taylor’s
+conscientiousness and judgment as a traveller and compiler, and his
+literary excellence as an author, this volume remains, practically, as
+fully the work of its original editor as before.
+
+By way of bringing it up to date, however, Chapter XVII. has been added,
+and such slight revision of preceding chapters has been made as was found
+necessary, consistent with the scope and intention of the new edition.
+
+                                                           THOMAS STEVENS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+                              CHAPTER I.
+SKETCH OF ARABIA; ITS GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION AND ANCIENT              1
+HISTORY
+                             CHAPTER II.
+EARLY EXPLORERS OF ARABIA                                            8
+                             CHAPTER III.
+NIEBUHR’S TRAVELS IN YEMEN                                          14
+                             CHAPTER IV.
+BURCKHARDT’S JOURNEY TO MECCA AND MEDINA                            29
+                              CHAPTER V.
+WELLSTED’S EXPLORATIONS IN OMAN                                     40
+                             CHAPTER VI.
+WELLSTED’S DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT CITY IN HADRAMAUT                55
+                             CHAPTER VII.
+BURTON’S PILGRIMAGE                                                 62
+                            CHAPTER VIII.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS IN CENTRAL ARABIA: FROM PALESTINE TO             83
+THE DJOWF
+                             CHAPTER IX.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—RESIDENCE IN THE DJOWF                          107
+                              CHAPTER X.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—CROSSING THE NEFOOD                             127
+                             CHAPTER XI.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—LIFE IN HA’YEL                                  138
+                             CHAPTER XII.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—JOURNEY TO BEREYDAH                             176
+                            CHAPTER XIII.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—JOURNEY TO RI’AD THE CAPITAL OF NEDJED          201
+                             CHAPTER XIV.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—ADVENTURES IN RI’AD                             217
+                             CHAPTER XV.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—HIS ESCAPE TO THE EASTERN COAST                 240
+                             CHAPTER XVI.
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—EASTERN ARABIA                                  259
+                            CHAPTER XVII.
+LADY BLUNT’S PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD                                    279
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+NIGHT MARCH IN THE DESERT                           FRONTISPIECE
+                                                     FACING PAGE
+THE COFFEE HILLS OF YEMEN                                     19
+VIEW OF EL-MEDINA                                             39
+A VALLEY IN OMAN                                              51
+THE RUINS OF NAKAB EL-HADJAR, IN HADRAMAUT                    59
+VIEW OF MEDINA FROM THE WEST                                  69
+CAMP AT MOUNT ARAFAT                                          77
+COSTUME OF PILGRIMS TO MECCA                                  81
+WILLIAM GIFFORD PALGRAVE                                      84
+AN ARAB CHIEF                                                105
+CAPTAIN BURTON AS A PILGRIM                                  129
+THE VILLAGE OF EL-SUWAYRKIYAH                                184
+AN ARAB ENCAMPMENT                                           190
+DEATH ON THE DESERT                                          208
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+SKETCH OF ARABIA: ITS GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION, AND ANCIENT HISTORY.
+
+THE Peninsula of Arabia, forming the extreme southwestern corner of Asia,
+is partly detached, both in a geographical and historical sense, from the
+remainder of the continent.  Although parts of it are mentioned in the
+oldest historical records, and its shores were probably familiar to the
+earliest navigators, the greater portion of its territory has always
+remained almost inaccessible and unknown.
+
+The desert, lying between Syria and the Euphrates is sometimes included
+by geographers as belonging to Arabia, but a line drawn from the Dead Sea
+to the mouth of the Euphrates (almost coinciding with the parallel of 30°
+N.) would more nearly represent the northern boundary of the peninsula.
+As the most southern point of the Arabian coast reaches the latitude of
+12° 40′, the greater part of the entire territory, of more than one
+million square miles, lies within the tropics.  In shape it is an
+irregular rhomboid, the longest diameter, from Suez to the Cape El-Had,
+in Oman, being 1,660, and from the Euphrates to the Straits of
+Bab-el-Mandeb, 1,400 miles.
+
+The entire coast region of Arabia, on the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and
+the Gulfs of Oman and Persia, is, for the most part, a belt of fertile
+country, inhabited by a settled, semi-civilized population.  Back of this
+belt, which varies in width from a few miles to upwards of a hundred,
+commences a desert table-land, occasionally intersected by mountain
+chains, and containing, in the interior, many fertile valleys of
+considerable extent, which are inhabited.  Very little has been known of
+this great interior region until the present century.
+
+The ancient geographers divided Arabia into three parts,—_Arabia Petræa_,
+or the Rocky, comprising the northwestern portion, including the Sinaitic
+peninsula, between the Gulfs of Suez and Akaba; _Arabia Deserta_, the
+great central desert; and _Arabia Felix_, the Happy, by which they appear
+to have designated the southwestern part, now known as Yemen.  The modern
+Arabic geography, which has been partly adopted on our maps, is based, to
+some extent, on the political divisions of the country.  The coast region
+along the Red Sea, down to a point nearly half way between Djidda and the
+Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and including the holy cities of Medina and
+Mecca, is called the Hedjaz.  Yemen, the capital of which is Sana, and
+the chief sea-ports Mocha, Hodeida, and Loheia, embraces all the
+southwestern portion of the peninsula.  The southern coast, although
+divided into various little chiefdoms, is known under the general name of
+Hadramaut.  The kingdom of Oman has extended itself along the eastern
+shore, nearly to the head of the Persian Gulf.  The northern oases, the
+seat of the powerful sect of the Wahabees, are called Nedjed; and the
+unknown southern interior, which is believed to be almost wholly desert,
+inhabited only by a few wandering Bedouins, is known as the Dahna or
+Akhaf.
+
+Arabia has been inhabited by the same race since the earliest times, and
+has changed less, in the course of thousands of years, than any other
+country of the globe, not excepting China.  According to Biblical
+genealogy, the natives are descended from Ham, through Cush; but the
+Bedouins have always claimed that they are the posterity of Ishmael.
+Some portions of the country, such as Edom, or Idumæa, Teman and Sheba,
+(the modern Yemen,) are mentioned in the Old Testament; but neither the
+Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, nor Egyptian monarchies succeeded in
+gaining possession of the peninsula.  Alexander the Great made
+preparations for a journey of conquest, which was prevented by his death,
+and Trajan was the only Roman emperor who penetrated into the interior.
+
+The inhabitants were idolaters, whose religion had probably some
+resemblance to that of the Phoenicians.  After the destruction of
+Jerusalem, both Jews and Christians found their way thither, and made
+proselytes.  There were Jews in Medina, Mecca, and Yemen; and even the
+last Himyaritic king of the latter country became a convert to Mosaic
+faith.  Thus the strength of the ancient religion was already weakened
+when Mohammed was born (A.D. 570); and there are strong evidences for the
+conjecture that the demoralization of both Jews and Christians, resulting
+from their long enmity, was the chief cause which prevented Mohammed from
+adopting the belief of the latter.  At the time of his birth, the
+civilization of the dominant Arab tribes was little inferior to that of
+Europe or the Eastern Empire.  There was already an Arabic literature;
+and the arts and sciences of the ancient world had found their way even
+to the oases of Nedjed.
+
+The union of the best and strongest elements in the race, which followed
+the establishment of the new religion, gave to men of Arabian blood a
+part to play in the history of the world.  For six hundred years after
+Mohammed’s death Islam and Christendom were nearly equal powers, and it
+is difficult, even now, to decide which contributed the more to the arts
+from which modern civilization has sprung.  Arabia flourished, as never
+before, under the Caliphs; yet it does not appear that the life of the
+inhabitants was materially changed, or that any growth, acquired during
+the new importance of the country, became permanent.  Its commerce was
+restricted to the products of its narrow belt of fertile shore; an arid
+desert separated it from Bagdad and Syria; none of the lines of traffic
+between Europe and the East Indies traversed its territory, and thus it
+remained comparatively unknown to the Christian world.
+
+After the downfall of the Caliphate the tribes relapsed into their former
+condition of independent chiefdoms, and the old hostilities, which had
+been partially suppressed for some centuries, again revived.  In the
+sixteenth century the Turks obtained possession of Hedjaz and Yemen; the
+Portuguese held Muscat for a hundred and fifty years, and the Persians
+made some temporary conquests, but the vast interior region easily
+maintained its independence.  The deserts, which everywhere intervene
+between its large and fertile valleys and the sea-coast, are the home of
+wandering Bedouin tribes, whose only occupation is plunder,—whose hand is
+against every man’s, and every man’s hand against them.  Thus they serve
+as a body-guard even to their own enemies.
+
+The long repose and seclusion of Central Arabia was first broken during
+the present century.  It may be well to state, very briefly, the
+circumstances which led to it, since they will explain the great
+difficulty and danger which all modern explorers must encounter.  Early
+in the last century, an Arabian named Abd el-Wahab, scandalized at what
+he believed to be the corruption of the Moslem faith, began preaching a
+Reformation.  He advocated the slaughter or forcible conversion of
+heretics, the most rigid forms of fasting and prayer, the disuse of
+tobacco, and various other changes in the Oriental habits of life.
+Having succeeded in converting the chief of Nedjed, Mohammed Ibu-Savod,
+he took up his residence in Derreyeh, the capital, which thenceforth
+became the rendezvous for all his followers, who were named _Wahabees_.
+They increased to such an extent that their authority became supreme
+throughout Central Arabia, and the successor of Ibu-Savod was able to
+call an army of 100,000 men into the field, and defy the Ottoman power.
+
+In the year 1803 the Wahabees took and plundered Mecca, and slew great
+numbers of the pilgrims who had gathered there.  A second expedition
+against Medina failed, but the annual caravan of pilgrims was robbed and
+dispersed.  Finally, in 1809, the Sultan transferred to Mohammed Ali, of
+Egypt, the duty of suppressing this menacing religious and political
+rebellion.  The first campaign in Arabia was a failure; the second, under
+Ibrahim Pasha, was successful.  He overcame the Wahabees in 1818,
+captured Derreyeh, and razed it to the ground.  In 1828 they began a
+second war against Turkey, but were again defeated.  Since then they have
+refrained from any further aggressive movement, but their hostility and
+bigotry are as active as ever.  The Wahabee doctrine flatters the
+clannish and exclusive spirit of the race, and will probably prevent, for
+a long time, any easy communication between Arabia and the rest of the
+world.
+
+The greater part of our present knowledge of Arabia has been obtained
+since the opening of this century.  The chief seaports and the route from
+Suez to Mt. Sinai were known during the Middle Ages, but all else was
+little better than a blank.  Within the last fifty or sixty years the
+mountains of Edom have been explored, the rock-hewn city of Petra
+discovered, the holy cities of Medina and Mecca visited by intelligent
+Europeans; Yemen, Hadramaut, and Oman partly traversed; and, last of all,
+we have a very clear and satisfactory account of Nedjed and the other
+central regions of Arabia, by the intrepid English traveller, Mr.
+Palgrave.
+
+Thus, only the southern interior of the peninsula remains to be visited.
+The name given to it by the Arabs, _Roba el-Khaly_, “the abode of
+emptiness,” no doubt describes its character.  It is an immense,
+undulating, sandy waste, dotted with scarce and small oases, which give
+water and shelter to the Bedouins, but without any large tract of
+habitable land, and consequently without cities, or other than the rudest
+forms of political organization.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+EARLY EXPLORERS OF ARABIA.
+
+WHEN the habit of travel began to revive in the Middle Ages, its
+character was either religious or commercial, either in the form of
+pilgrimages to Rome, Palestine, (whenever possible), and the shrines of
+popular saints, or of journeys to the Levant, Persia and the Indies, with
+the object of acquiring wealth by traffic, the profits of which increased
+in the same proportion as its hazards.  From the time of Trajan’s
+expedition to Arabia, (in A.D. 117) down to the sixteenth century, we
+have no report of the history or condition of the country except such as
+can be drawn from the earlier Jewish and Christian traditions and the
+later Mohammedan records.
+
+The first account of a visit to Arabia which appears to be worthy of
+credence, is that given by Ludovico Bartema, of Rome.  After visiting
+Egypt, he joined the caravan of pilgrims at Damascus, in 1503, in the
+company of a Mameluke captain, himself disguised as a Mameluke renegade.
+After several attacks from the Bedouins of the desert, the caravan
+reached Medina, which he describes as containing three hundred houses.
+Bartema gives a very correct description of the tomb of the Prophet, and
+scoffs at the then prevalent belief that the latter’s coffin is suspended
+in the air, between four lodestones.
+
+He thus describes an adventure which befell his company the same evening
+after their visit to the mosque.  “At almost three of the night, ten or
+twelve of the elders of the sect of Mohammed entered into our caravan,
+which remained not past a stone’s cast from the gate of the city.  These
+ran hither and thither, crying like madmen with these words: ‘Mohammed,
+the messenger and apostle of God, shall rise again!  O Prophet, O God,
+Mohammed shall rise again!  Have mercy on us, God!’  Our captain and we,
+all raised with this cry, took weapon with all expedition, suspecting
+that the Arabs were come to rob our caravan.  We asked what was the cause
+of that exclamation, and what they cried?  For they cried as do the
+Christians when suddenly any marvellous thing chanceth.  The elders
+answered: ‘Saw you not the lightning which shone out of the sepulchre of
+the Prophet Mohammed?’  Our captain answered that he saw nothing, and we
+also being demanded, answered in like manner.  Then said one of the old
+men: ‘Are you slaves?’  This to say bought men, meaning thereby,
+Mamelukes.  Then said our captain: ‘We are indeed Mamelukes.’  Then again
+the old man said: ‘You, my lords, cannot see heavenly things, as being
+_neophiti_, that is, newly come to the faith, and not yet confirmed in
+our religion.’  It is therefore to be understood that none other shining
+came out of the sepulchre than a certain flame, which the priests caused
+to come out of the open place of the tower, whereby they would have
+deceived us.”
+
+Leaving Medina, the caravan travelled for three days over a “broad
+plain,” all covered with white sand, in manner as small as flour.  Then
+they passed a mountain, where they heard “a certain horrible noise and
+cry,” and after journeying for ten days longer, during which time they
+twice fought with “fifty thousand Arabians,” they reached Mecca, of which
+Bartema says: “The city is very fair, and well inhabited, and containeth
+in round form six thousand houses as well builded as ours, and some that
+cost three or four thousand pieces of gold: it hath no walls.”
+
+Bartema describes the ceremonies performed by the pilgrims, with
+tolerable correctness.  His fellowship with the Mamelukes seems to have
+been a complete protection up to the time when the caravan was ready to
+set out on its return to Damascus, and the members of the troop were
+ordered to accompany it, on pain of death.  Then he managed to escape by
+persuading a Mohammedan that he understood the art of casting cannon, and
+wished to reach India, in order to assist the native monarchs in
+defending themselves against the Portuguese.  Reaching Jedda in safety,
+Bartema sailed for Persia, visiting Yemen on the way; made his way to
+India, and after various adventures, returned to Europe by way of the
+Cape of Good Hope.
+
+The second European who made his way to the holy cities was Joseph Pitts,
+an Englishman, who was captured by an Algerine pirate, as a sailor-boy of
+sixteen, and forced by his master to become a Mussulman.  After some
+years, when he had acquired the Arabic and Turkish languages, he
+accompanied his master for a pilgrimage to Mecca, by way of Cairo, Suez
+and the Red Sea.  Here he received his freedom; but continued with the
+pilgrims to Medina, and returned to Egypt by land, through Arabia Petræa.
+After fifteen years of exile, he succeeded in escaping to Italy, and
+thence made his way back to England.
+
+Pitts gives a minute and generally correct account of the ceremonies at
+Mecca.  He was not, of course, learned in Moslem theology, and his
+narrative, like that of all former visitors to Mecca, has been superseded
+by the more intelligent description of Burckhardt; yet it coincides with
+the latter in all essential particulars.  His description of the city and
+surrounding scenery is worth quoting, from the quaint simplicity of its
+style.
+
+“First, as to Mecca.  It is a town situated in a barren place, (about one
+day’s journey from the Red Sea), in a valley, or rather in the midst of
+many little hills.  It is a place of no force, wanting both walls and
+gates.  Its buildings are, as I said before, very ordinary, insomuch that
+it would be a place of no tolerable entertainment, were it not for the
+anniversary resort of so many thousand Hagges (Hadjis), or pilgrims, on
+whose coming the whole dependence of the town (in a manner) is; for many
+shops are scarcely open all the year besides.
+
+“The people here, I observed, are a poor sort of people, very thin, lean
+and swarthy.  The town is surrounded for several miles with many
+thousands of little hills, which are very near one to the other.  I have
+been on the top of some of them near Mecca, where I could see some miles
+about, yet was not able to see the farthest of the hills.  They are all
+stony-rock and blackish, and pretty near of a bigness, appearing at a
+distance like cocks of hay, but all pointing towards Mecca.  Some of them
+are half a mile in circumference, but all near of one height.  The people
+here have an odd and foolish sort of tradition concerning them, viz.,
+That when Abraham went about building the Beat-Allah (Beit-Allah, or
+‘House of God’), God by his wonderful providence did so order it, that
+every mountain in the world should contribute something to the building
+thereof; and accordingly every one did send its proportion, though there
+is a mountain near Algier which is called Corradog, _i.e._, Black
+Mountain, and the reason of its blackness, they say, is because it did
+not send any part of itself towards building the temple at Mecca.
+Between these hills is good and plain travelling, though they stand one
+to another.
+
+“There is upon the top of one of them a cave, which they term Hira,
+_i.e._, Blessing, into which, they say, Mahomet did usually retire for
+his solitary devotions, meditations and fastings; and here they believe
+he had a great part of the Alcoran brought him by the angel Gabriel.  I
+have been in this cave, and observed that it is not at all beautified, at
+which I admired.
+
+“About half a mile out of Mecca is a very steep hill, and there are
+stairs made to go to the top of it, where is a cupola, under which is a
+cloven rock; into this, they say, Mahomet when very young, viz., about
+four years of age, was carried by the angel Gabriel, who opened his
+breast and took out his heart, from which he picked some black blood
+specks, which was his original corruption; then put it into its place
+again, and afterward closed up the part; and that during this operation
+Mahomet felt no pain.”
+
+The next account of the same pilgrimage is given by Giovanni Tinati, an
+Italian, who deserted from the French service on the coast of Dalmatia,
+and became an Albanian soldier.  Making his way to Egypt, after various
+adventures, he became at last a corporal in Mohammed Ali’s body-guard,
+and shared in several campaigns against the Wahabees.  He did not,
+however, penetrate very far inland from the coast, and his visit to Mecca
+was the result of his desertion from the Egyptian army after a defeat.
+His narrative contains nothing which has not been more fully and
+satisfactorily stated by later travellers.
+
+By this time, however, the era of careful scientific exploration had
+already commenced, and the descriptions which have since then been
+furnished to us are positive contributions to our knowledge of Arabia.
+With the exception of the journey of Carsten Niebuhr, which embraces only
+the Sinaitic Peninsula and Yemen, the important explorations—all of which
+are equally difficult and daring—have been made since the commencement of
+this century.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+NIEBUHR’S TRAVELS IN YEMEN.
+
+IN 1760 the Danish government decided to send an expedition to Arabia and
+India, for the purpose of geographical exploration.  The command was
+given to Carsten Niebuhr, a native of Hanover, and a civil engineer.
+Four other gentlemen, an artist, a botanist, a physician, and an
+astronomer, were associated with him in the undertaking; yet, by a
+singular fatality, all died during the journey, and Niebuhr returned
+alone, after an absence of nearly seven years, to publish the first
+narrative of travel based on scientific observation.
+
+The party sailed from Copenhagen for Smyrna in January, 1761, visited
+Constantinople, and then proceeded to Egypt, where they remained nearly a
+year.  After a journey to Sinai, they finally succeeded in engaging
+passage on board a vessel carrying pilgrims from Suez to Jedda, and
+sailed from the former port in October, 1762.  They took the precaution
+of adopting the Oriental dress, and conformed, as far as possible, to the
+customs of the Mussulman passengers; thus the voyage, although very
+tedious and uncomfortable, was not accompanied with any other danger than
+that from the coral reefs along the Arabian shore.  The vessel touched at
+Yambo, the port of Medina, and finally reached Jedda, after a voyage of
+nineteen days.
+
+The travellers entered Jedda under strong apprehensions of ill-treatment
+from the inhabitants, but were favorably disappointed.  The people, it
+seemed, were already accustomed to the sight of Christian merchants in
+their town, and took no particular notice of the strangers, who went
+freely to the coffee-houses and markets, and felt themselves safe so long
+as they did not attempt to pass through the gate leading to Mecca.  The
+Turkish Pasha of the city received them kindly, and they were allowed to
+hire a house for their temporary residence.
+
+After waiting six weeks for the chance of a passage to Mocha, they
+learned that an Arabian vessel was about to sail for Hodeida, one of the
+ports of Yemen.  The craft, when they visited it, proved to be more like
+a hogshead than a ship; it was only seven fathoms long, by three in
+breadth.  It had no deck; its planks were extremely thin, and seemed to
+be only nailed together, but not pitched.  The captain wore nothing but a
+linen cloth upon his loins, and his sailors, nine in number, were black
+slaves from Africa or Malabar.  Nevertheless, they engaged passage,
+taking the entire vessel for themselves alone; but when they came to
+embark, it was filled with the merchandise of others.  The voyage proved
+to be safe and pleasant, and in sixteen days they landed at Loheia, in
+Yemen.
+
+The governor of this place was a negro, who had formerly been a slave.
+He received the travellers with the greatest kindness, persuaded them to
+leave the vessel, and gave them a residence, promising camels for the
+further journey by land.  Although they were somewhat annoyed by the
+great curiosity of the inhabitants, their residence was so agreeable, and
+offered the naturalists so many facilities for making collections, that
+they remained nearly four months.  “We had one opportunity,” says
+Niebuhr, “of learning their ideas of the benefits to be derived from
+medicine.  Mr. Cramer had given a scribe an emetic which operated with
+extreme violence.  The Arabs, being struck at its wonderful effects,
+resolved all to take the same excellent remedy, and the reputation of our
+friend’s skill thus became very high among them.  The Emir of the port
+sent one day for him; and, as he did not go immediately, the Emir soon
+after sent a saddled horse to our gate.  Mr. Cramer, supposing that this
+horse was intended to bear him to the Emir, was going to mount him, when
+he was told that this was the patient he was to cure.  We luckily found
+another physician in our party; our Swedish servant had been with the
+hussars in his native country, and had acquired some knowledge of the
+diseases of horses.  He offered to cure the Emir’s horse, and succeeded.
+The cure rendered him famous, and he was afterward sent for to human
+patients.”
+
+Having satisfied themselves by this time that there was no danger in
+travelling in Yemen, they did not wait for the departure of any large
+caravan, but, on February 20, 1763, set out from Loheia, mounted on
+asses, and made their way across the _Tehama_, or low country, toward the
+large town of Beit el-Fakih, which stands near the base of the
+coffee-bearing hills.  They wore dresses somewhat similar to those of the
+natives, a long shirt, reaching nearly to the feet, a girdle, and a
+mantle over the shoulders.  The country was barren, but there were many
+villages, and at intervals of every few miles they found coffee-houses,
+or, rather, huts, for the refreshment of travellers.  After having
+suffered no further inconvenience than from the brackish water, which is
+drawn from wells more than a hundred feet deep, they reached Beit
+el-Fakih in five days.
+
+Here they were kindly received by one of the native merchants, who hired
+a stone house for them.  The town is seated upon a well-cultivated plain;
+it is comparatively modern, but populous, and the travellers, now
+entirely accustomed to the Arabian mode of life, felt themselves safe.
+The Emir took no particular notice of them, a neglect with which they
+were fully satisfied, since it left them free to range the country in all
+directions.  Niebuhr, therefore, determined to make the place the
+temporary headquarters of the expedition, and to give some time to
+excursions in that part of Yemen.  “I hired an ass,” says he, “and its
+owner agreed to follow me as my servant on foot.  A turban, a great coat
+wanting the sleeves, a shirt, linen drawers, and a pair of slippers, were
+all the dress that I wore.  It being the fashion of the country to carry
+arms in travelling, I had a sabre and two pistols hung by my girdle.  A
+piece of old carpet was my saddle, and served me likewise for a seat, a
+table, and various other purposes.  To cover me at night, I had the linen
+cloak which the Arabs wrap about their shoulders, to shelter them from
+the sun and rain.  A bucket of water, an article of indispensable
+necessity to a traveller in these arid regions, hung by my saddle.”
+
+After a trip to the seaport of Hodeida, Niebuhr visited the old town of
+Zebid, built on the ruins of an older city, which is said to have once
+been the capital of all the low country.  Zebid is situated in a large
+and fertile valley, traversed during the rainy season by a considerable
+stream, by which a large tract of country is irrigated.  There are the
+remains of an aqueduct built by the Turks, but the modern town does not
+cover half the space of the ancient capital.  Zebid, however, is still
+distinguished for its academy, in which the youth of all that part of
+Yemen study such sciences as are now cultivated by the Mussulmans.
+
+Niebuhr’s next trip was to the plantations of the famous Mocha coffee,
+whither the other members of the party had already gone, during his visit
+to Zebid.  After riding about twenty miles eastward from Beit el-Fakih,
+he reached the foot of the mountains.  He thus describes the region:
+“Neither asses nor mules can be used here.  The hills are to be climbed
+by steep and narrow paths; yet, in comparison with the parched plains of
+the Tehama, the scenery seemed to me charming, as it was covered with
+gardens and plantations of coffee-trees.
+
+“Up to this time I had seen only one small basaltic hill; but here whole
+mountains were composed chiefly of those columns.  Such detached rocks
+formed grand objects in the landscape, especially where cascades of water
+were seen to rush from their summits.  The cascades, in such instances,
+had the appearance of being supported by rows of artificial pillars.
+These basalts are of great utility to the inhabitants; the columns, which
+are easily separated, serve as steps where the ascent is most difficult,
+and as materials for walls to support the plantations of coffee-trees
+upon the steep declivities of the mountains.
+
+                     [Picture: Coffee hills of Yemen]
+
+“The tree which affords the coffee is well known in Europe; so that I
+need not here describe it particularly.  The coffee-trees were all in
+flower at Bulgosa, and exhaled an exquisitely agreeable perfume.  They
+are planted upon terraces, in the form of an amphitheatre.  Most of them
+are only watered by the rains that fall, but some, indeed, from large
+reservoirs upon the heights, in which spring-water is collected, in order
+to be sprinkled upon the terraces, where the trees grow so thick together
+that the rays of the sun can hardly enter among their branches.  We were
+told that those trees, thus artificially watered, yielded ripe fruit
+twice in the year; but the fruit becomes not fully ripe the second time,
+and the coffee of this crop is always inferior to that of the first.
+
+“Stones being more common in this part of the country than in the Tehama,
+the houses—as well of the villages as those which are scattered
+solitarily over the hills—are built of this material.  Although not to be
+compared to the houses of Europe for commodiousness and elegance, yet
+they have a good appearance; especially such of them as stand upon the
+heights, with amphitheatres of beautiful gardens and trees around them.
+
+“Even at this village of Bulgosa we were greatly above the level of the
+plain from which we had ascended; yet we had scarcely climbed half the
+ascent to Kusma, where the Emir of this district dwells, upon the
+loftiest peak of the range of mountains.  Enchanting landscapes there
+meet the eye on all sides.
+
+“We passed the night at Bulgosa.  Several of the men of the village came
+to see us, and after they retired we had a visit from our hostess, with
+some young women accompanying her, who were all very desirous to see the
+Europeans.  They seemed less shy than the women in the cities; their
+faces were unveiled, and they talked freely with us.  As the air is
+fresher and cooler upon these hills, the women have a finer and fairer
+complexion than in the plain.  Our artist drew a portrait of a young girl
+who was going to draw water, and was dressed in a shirt of linen,
+checkered blue and white.  The top and middle of the shirt, as well as
+the lower part of the drawers, were embroidered with needlework of
+different colors.”
+
+Having met with no molestation so far, Niebuhr determined to make a
+longer excursion into the southern interior of Yemen, among the
+mountains, to the important towns of Udden and Taas.  The preparations
+were easily made.  The travellers hired asses, the owners accompanying
+them on foot as guides and servants.  As a further disguise they assumed
+Arabic names, and their real character was so well concealed that even
+the guides supposed them to be Oriental Christians—not Europeans.
+Entering the mountains by an unfrequented road, they found a barren
+region at first, but soon reached valleys where coffee was cultivated.
+The inhabitants, on account of the cooler nights, sleep in linen bags,
+which they draw over the head, and thus keep themselves warm by their own
+breathing.
+
+After reaching Udden, which Niebuhr found to be a town of only three
+hundred houses, the hill-country became more thickly settled.  Beside the
+roads, which had formerly been paved with stones, there were frequent
+tanks of water for the use of travellers, and, in exposed places, houses
+for their shelter in case of storms.  The next important place was
+Djobla, a place of some importance in the annals of Yemen, but with no
+antiquities, except some ruined mosques.  A further march of two days
+brought the party to the fortified city of Taas, but they did not venture
+within its walls, not having applied to the Emir for permission.  They
+returned to their quarters at Beit el-Fakih, by way of Haas, another
+large town at the base of the mountains, having made themselves
+acquainted with a large portion of the hill-country of Arabia Felix.
+
+The journey to Mocha lasted three days, over a hot, barren plain, with no
+inhabitants except in the wadys or valleys, which are well watered during
+the rainy season.  Their arrival at Mocha was followed by a series of
+annoyances, first from the custom-house officials, and then from the
+Emir, who conceived a sudden prejudice against the travellers, so that
+they were in danger of being driven out of the city.  An English
+merchant, however, came to their assistance, a present of fifty ducats
+mollified the Emir, and at the end of a very disagreeable week they
+received permission to stay in the city.  From heat and privation they
+had all become ill, and in a short time one of the party died.
+
+Niebuhr now requested permission to proceed to Sana, the capital of
+Yemen.  This the Emir refused, until he could send word to the Imâm; but,
+after a delay of a month, he allowed the party to go as far as Taas,
+which they reached in four days, and where they were well received.  The
+refreshing rains every evening purified the air, and all gradually
+recovered their health, except the botanist, who died before reaching
+Sana.
+
+Taas stands at the foot of the fertile mountain of Sabber, upon which,
+the Arabs say, grow all varieties of plants and trees to be found in the
+world.  Nevertheless they did not allow the travellers to ascend or even
+approach it.  The city is surrounded with a wall, between sixteen and
+thirty feet high, and flanked with towers.  The patron saint of the place
+is a former king, Ismael Melek, who is buried in a mosque bearing his
+name.  No person is allowed to visit the tomb since the occurrence of a
+miracle, which Niebuhr thus relates: “Two beggars had asked charity of
+the Emir of Taas, but only one of them had tasted of his bounty.  Upon
+this the other went to the tomb of Ismael Melek to implore his aid.  The
+saint, who, when alive, had been very charitable, stretched his hand out
+of the tomb and gave the beggar a letter containing an order on the Emir
+to pay him a hundred crowns.  Upon examining this order with the greatest
+care it was found that Ismael Melek had written it with his own hand and
+sealed it with his own seal.  The governor could not refuse payment; but
+to avoid all subsequent trouble from such bills of exchange, he had a
+wall built, inclosing the tomb.”
+
+The Emir of Taas so changed in his behavior toward the travellers, after
+a few days, that he ordered them to return to Mocha.  Finding all their
+arguments and protests in vain, they were about to comply, when a
+messenger arrived from Mocha, bringing the permission of the Imâm of
+Yemen for them to continue their journey to Sana.  They set out on June
+28th, and, after crossing the mountain ranges of Mharras and Samara, by
+well-paved and graded roads, reached, in a week, the town of Jerim, near
+the ruins of the ancient Himyaritic city of Taphar, which, however, they
+were unable to visit on account of the illness of Mr. Forskal, the
+botanist of the expedition.  This gentleman died in a few days; and they
+were obliged to bury him by night, with the greatest precaution.
+
+From Jerim it is a day’s journey to Damar, the capital of a province.
+The city, which is seated in the midst of a fertile plain, and is without
+walls, contains five thousand well-built houses.  It has a famous
+university, which is usually attended by five hundred students.  The
+travellers were here very much annoyed by the curiosity of the people,
+who threw stones at their windows in order to force them to show
+themselves.  There is a mine of native sulphur near the place, and a
+mountain where cornelians are found, which are highly esteemed throughout
+the East.
+
+Beyond Damar the country is hilly, but every village is surrounded with
+gardens, orchards, and vineyards, which are irrigated from large
+artificial reservoirs built at the foot of the hills.  On reaching Sana
+the travellers were not allowed to enter the city, but conducted to an
+unfurnished house without the walls, where they were ordered to wait two
+days in entire seclusion, until they could be received by the Imâm.
+During this time they were not allowed to be visited by anyone.  Niebuhr
+thus describes their interview, which took place on the third day:
+
+“The hall of audience was a spacious square chamber, having an arched
+roof.  In the middle was a large basin, with some _jets d’eau_, rising
+fourteen feet in height.  Behind the basin, and near the throne, were two
+large benches, each a foot and a half high; upon the throne was a space
+covered with silken stuff, on which, as well as on both sides of it, lay
+large cushions.  The Imâm sat between the cushions, with his legs crossed
+in the Eastern fashion; his gown was of a bright green color, and had
+large sleeves.  Upon each side of his breast was a rich filleting of gold
+lace, and on his head he wore a great white turban.  His sons sat on his
+right hand, and his brothers on the left.  Opposite to them, on the
+highest of the two benches, sat the Vizier, and our place was on the
+lower bench.
+
+“We were first led up to the Imâm, and were permitted to kiss both the
+back and the palm of his hand, as well as the hem of his robe.  It is an
+extraordinary favor when the Mohammedan princes permit any person to kiss
+the palm of the hand.  There was a solemn silence through the whole hall.
+As each of us touched the Imâm’s hand a herald still proclaimed, ‘God
+preserve the Imâm!’ and all who were present repeated these words after
+him.  I was thinking at the time how I should pay my compliments in
+Arabic, and was not a little disturbed by this noisy ceremony.
+
+“We did not think it proper to mention the true reason of our expedition
+through Arabia; but told the Imâm that, wishing to travel by the shortest
+ways to the Danish colonies, in the East Indies, we had heard so much of
+the plenty and security which prevailed through his dominions, that we
+had resolved to see them with our own eyes, so that we might describe
+them to our countrymen.  The Imâm told us we were welcome to his
+dominions, and might stay as long as we pleased.  After our return home
+he sent to each of us a small purse containing ninety-nine _komassis_,
+two and thirty of which make a crown.  This piece of civility might,
+perhaps, appear no compliment to a traveller’s delicacy.  But, when it is
+considered that a stranger, unacquainted with the value of the money of
+the country, obliged to pay every day for his provisions, is in danger of
+being imposed upon by the money-changers, this care of providing us with
+small money will appear to have been sufficiently obliging.”
+
+“The city of Sana,” says Niebuhr, “is situated at the foot of Mount
+Nikkum, on which are still to be seen the ruins of a castle, which the
+Arabs suppose to have been built by Shem.  Near this mountain stands the
+citadel; a rivulet rises upon the other side, and near it is the Bostan
+el-Metwokkel, a spacious garden, which was laid out by the Imâm of that
+name, and has been greatly embellished by the reigning Imâm.  The walls
+of the city, which are built of bricks, exclude this garden, which is
+inclosed within a wall of its own.  The city, properly so called, is not
+very extensive; one may walk around it in an hour.  There are a number of
+mosques, some of which have been built by Turkish Pashas.  In Sana are
+only twelve public baths, but many noble palaces, three of the most
+splendid of which have been built by the reigning Imâm.  The materials of
+these palaces are burnt bricks, and sometimes even hewn stones; but the
+houses of the common people are of bricks which have been dried in the
+sun.
+
+“The suburb of Bir el-Arsab is nearly adjoining the city on the east
+side.  The houses of this village are scattered through the gardens,
+along the banks of a small river.  Fruits are very plenteous; there are
+more than twenty kinds of grapes, which, as they do not all ripen at the
+same time, continue to afford a delicious refreshment for several months.
+The Arabs likewise preserve grapes by hanging them up in their cellars,
+and eat them almost through the whole year.  Two leagues northward from
+Sana is a plain named Rodda, which is overspread with gardens and watered
+by a number of rivulets.  This place bears a great resemblance to the
+neighborhood of Damascus.  But Sana, which some ancient authors compare
+to Damascus, stands on a rising ground, with nothing like florid
+vegetation about it.  After long rains, indeed, a small rivulet runs
+through the city; but all the ground is dry through the rest of the year.
+However, by aqueducts from Mount Nikkum the town and castle of Sana are,
+at all times, supplied with abundance of excellent fresh water.”
+
+After a stay of a week the travellers obtained an audience of leave,
+fearing that a longer delay might subject them to suspicions and
+embarrassments.  Two days afterward the Imâm sent each of them a complete
+suit of clothes, with a letter to the Emir of Mocha, ordering him to pay
+them two hundred crowns as a farewell present.  He also furnished them
+with camels for the journey.  Instead of returning by the same road they
+determined to descend from the hill-country to their old headquarters at
+Beit el-Fakih, and thence cross the lowland to Mocha.
+
+For two days they travelled over high, rocky mountains, by the worst
+roads they found in Yemen.  The country was poor and thinly inhabited,
+and the declivities only began to be clothed with trees and terraced into
+coffee plantations as they approached the plains.  The poorer regions are
+not considered entirely safe by the Arabs, as the people frequently
+plunder defenceless travellers; but the party passed safely through this
+region, and reached Beit el-Fakih after a week’s journey from Sana.
+
+Niebuhr and his companions reached Mocha early in August, and toward the
+end of that month sailed in an English vessel for Bombay, after a stay of
+ten months in Yemen.  The artist of the expedition and the Swedish
+servant died on the Indian Ocean, and the physician in India, a few
+months afterward, leaving Niebuhr the sole survivor of the six persons
+who left Copenhagen three years before.  After having sent home the
+journals and collections of the expedition he continued his travels
+through the Persian Gulf, Bagdad, Armenia, and Asia Minor, finally
+reaching Denmark in 1767.  The era of intelligent, scientific
+exploration, which is now rapidly opening all parts of the world to our
+knowledge, may be said to have been inaugurated by his travels.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+BURCKHARDT’S JOURNEY TO MECCA AND MEDINA.
+
+BURCKHARDT, to whom we are indebted for the first careful and complete
+description of the holy cities of Arabia, was a native of Lausanne, in
+Switzerland.  After having been educated in Germany, he went to London
+with the intention of entering the English military service, but was
+persuaded by Sir Joseph Banks to apply to the African Association for an
+appointment to explore the Sahara, and the then unknown negro kingdoms of
+Central Africa.  His offer was accepted, and after some preparation he
+went to Aleppo, in Syria, where he remained for a year or two, engaged in
+studying Arabic and familiarizing himself with Oriental habits of life.
+
+His first journeys in Syria and Palestine, which were only meant as
+preparations for the African exploration, led to the most important
+results.  He was the first to visit the country of Hauran—the Bashan of
+Scripture—lying southeast of Damascus.  After this he passed through
+Moab, east of the Dead Sea, and under the pretence of making a pilgrimage
+to the tomb of Aaron on Mount Hor, discovered the rock-hewn palaces and
+temples of Petra, which had been for many centuries lost to the world.
+
+Burckhardt reached Cairo in safety, and after vainly waiting some months
+for an opportunity of joining a caravan to Fezzan, determined to employ
+his time in making a visit to Upper Egypt and Nubia.  Travelling alone,
+with a single guide, he succeeded in reaching the frontiers of Dongola,
+beyond which it was then impossible to proceed.  He therefore returned to
+Assouan, and joined a small caravan, which crossed the Nubian Desert to
+Ethiopia, by very nearly the same route which Bruce had taken in
+returning from Abyssinia.  He remained some time at Shendy, the capital
+of Ethiopia, and then, after a journey of three months across the country
+of Takka, which had never before been visited by a European, reached the
+port of Suakin, on the Red Sea.  Here he embarked for Jedda, in Arabia,
+where he arrived in July, 1814.
+
+By this time his Moslem character had been so completely acquired that he
+felt himself free from suspicion.  Accordingly he decided to remain and
+take part in the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, which was to take place
+that year, in November.  His funds, however, were nearly exhausted, and
+the Jedda merchants refused to honor an old letter of credit upon Cairo,
+which he still carried with him.  In this emergency he wrote to the
+Armenian physician of Mohammed Ali, who was at that time with the Pasha
+at the city of Tayf (or Tayef), about seventy miles southeast of Mecca.
+Mohammed Ali happening to hear of this application, immediately sent a
+messenger with two dromedaries, to summon Burckhardt to visit him.  It
+seems most probable that the Pasha suspected the traveller of being an
+English spy, and wished to examine him personally.  The guide had orders
+to conduct the latter to Tayf by a circuitous route, instead of by the
+direct road through Mecca.
+
+Burckhardt set out without the least hesitation, taking care to exhibit
+no suspicion of the Pasha’s object, and no desire to see the holy city.
+But the guide himself proposed that they should pass through Mecca in
+order to save travel; the journey was hurried, however, and only a rapid
+observation was possible.  Pushing eastward, they reached, on the third
+night, the Mountain of Kora, which divides the territory of Mecca from
+that of Tayf.  Burckhardt was astonished at the change in the scenery,
+produced by the greater elevation of the interior of Arabia above the
+sea.  His description is a striking contrast to that of the scenery about
+Mecca.
+
+“This,” he says, “is the most beautiful spot in the Hedjaz, and more
+picturesque and delightful than anything I had seen since my departure
+from Lebanon, in Syria.  The top of Djebel Kora is flat, but large masses
+of granite lie scattered over it, the surface of which, like that of the
+granite rocks near the second cataract of the Nile, is blackened by the
+sun.  Several small rivulets descend from this peak and irrigate the
+plain, which is covered with verdant fields and large shady trees beside
+the granite rocks.  To those who have only known the dreary and scorching
+sands of the lower country of the Hedjaz, this scene is as surprising as
+the keen air which blows here is refreshing.  Many of the fruit-trees of
+Europe are found here: figs, apricots, peaches, apples, the Egyptian
+sycamore, almonds, pomegranates; but particularly vines, the produce of
+which is of the best quality.  After having passed through this
+delightful district for about half an hour, just as the sun was rising,
+when every leaf and blade of grass was covered with a balmy dew, and
+every tree and shrub diffused a fragrance as delicious to the smell as
+was the landscape to the eye, I halted near the largest of the rivulets,
+which, although not more than two paces across, nourishes upon its banks
+a green alpine turf, such as the mighty Nile, with all its luxuriance,
+can never produce in Egypt.”
+
+Burckhardt had an interview with Mohammed Ali on the evening of his
+arrival in Tayf.  His suspicions were confirmed: the Kadi (Judge) of
+Mecca and two well-informed teachers of the Moslem faith were present,
+and although the Pasha professed to accept Burckhard’s protestations of
+his Moslem character, it was very evident to the latter that he was
+cunningly tested by the teachers.  Nevertheless, when the interview was
+over, they pronounced him to be not only a genuine Moslem, but one of
+unusual learning and piety.  The Pasha was forced to submit to this
+decision, but he was evidently not entirely convinced, for he gave orders
+that Burckhardt should be the guest of his physician, in order that his
+speech and actions might be more closely observed.  Burckhardt took a
+thoroughly Oriental way to release himself from this surveillance.  He
+gave the physician so much trouble that the latter was very glad, at the
+end of ten days, to procure from the Pasha permission for him to return
+to Mecca, in order to get rid of him.  Burckhardt thereupon travelled to
+the holy city in company with the Kadi himself.
+
+At the valley of Mohram, nearly a day’s journey from Mecca, Burckhardt
+changed his garb for the _ihram_, or costume worn by the pilgrims during
+their devotional services.  It consists of two pieces of either linen,
+cotton, or woollen cloth; one is wrapped around the loins, while the
+other is thrown over the shoulder in such a manner as to leave the right
+arm entirely bare.  On reaching Mecca he obeyed the Moslem injunction of
+first visiting the great mosque and performing all the requisite
+ceremonies before transacting any worldly business.  When this had been
+accomplished he made a trip to Jedda for the purpose of procuring
+supplies, which were necessary for the later pilgrimage to Medina, and
+then established himself comfortably in an unfrequented part of Mecca, to
+await the arrival of the caravan of pilgrims from Damascus.
+
+Burckhardt describes the great mosque of Mecca, which is called the _Beit
+Allah_, or “House of God,” as “a large quadrangular building, in the
+centre of which stands the Kaaba, an oblong, massive structure eighteen
+paces in length, fourteen in breadth, and from thirty-five to forty feet
+in height.  It is constructed of gray Mecca stone, in large blocks of
+different sizes, joined together in a very rough manner, and with bad
+cement.  At the northeast corner of the Kaaba, near the door, is the
+famous Black Stone, which forms part of the sharp angle of the building
+at four or five feet above the ground.  It is an irregular oval of about
+seven inches in diameter, with an undulating surface, composed of about a
+dozen smaller stones of different sizes and shapes, well joined together
+with a small quantity of cement, and perfectly smoothed.  It is very
+difficult to determine accurately the quality of this stone, which has
+been worn to its present surface by the millions of touches and kisses it
+has received.  It appears to me like a lava, containing several small
+extraneous particles.  Its color is now a deep reddish brown, approaching
+to black.  It is surrounded on all sides by a border, composed of a
+substance which I took to be a close cement of pitch and gravel; this
+border serves to support its detached pieces.  Both the border and the
+stone itself are encircled by a silver band.”
+
+Toward the end of November the caravans from Syria and Egypt arrived, and
+at the same time Mohammed Ali, so that the _hadj_, or pilgrimage, assumed
+a character of unusual pomp and parade.  The Pasha’s _ihram_ consisted of
+two of the finest Cashmere shawls; the horses and camels belonging to
+himself and his large retinue, with those of the Pasha of Damascus and
+other Moslem princes, were decorated with the most brilliant trappings.
+On arriving, the pilgrims did not halt in Mecca, but continued their
+march to the Sacred Mountain of Arafat, to the eastward of the city.  A
+camp, several miles in extent, was formed upon the plain, at the foot of
+the mountain, and here Burckhardt joined the immense crowd, in order to
+take his share in the ceremonies of the following day.
+
+In the morning he climbed to the top of Arafat, which is an irregular,
+isolated mass of granite, rising only about two hundred feet above the
+plain.  Overlooking thus the entire camp, he counted more than three
+thousand tents, and estimated that at least twenty-five thousand camels
+and seventy thousand human beings were there collected together.  “The
+scene,” he says, “was one of the most extraordinary which the earth
+affords.  Every pilgrim issued from his tent to walk over the plain and
+take a view of the busy crowds assembled there.  Long streets of tents,
+fitted up as bazaars, furnished them with all kinds of provisions.  The
+Syrian and Egyptian cavalry were exercised by their chiefs early in the
+morning, while thousands of camels were seen feeding upon the dry shrubs
+of the plain all around the camp.  The Syrian pilgrims were encamped upon
+the south and southwest sides of the mountain; the Egyptians upon the
+southeast.  Mohammed Ali, and Soleyman, Pasha of Damascus, as well as
+several of their followers, had very handsome tents; but the most
+magnificent of all was that of the wife of Mohammed Ali, the mother of
+Toossoon Pasha and Ibrahim Pasha, who had lately arrived from Cairo with
+a truly royal equipage, five hundred camels being necessary to transport
+her baggage from Jedda to Mecca.  Her tent was in fact an encampment,
+consisting of a dozen tents of different sizes, inhabited by her women;
+the whole enclosed by a wall of linen cloth, eight hundred paces in
+circuit, the single entrance to which was guarded by eunuchs in splendid
+dresses.  The beautiful embroidery on the exterior of this linen palace,
+with the various colors displayed in every part of it, constituted an
+object which reminded me of some descriptions in the Arabian tales of the
+Thousand and One Nights.”
+
+Burckhardt also gives an interesting description of the sermon preached
+on Mount Arafat, the hearing of which is an indispensable part of the
+pilgrimage: unless a person is at least present during its delivery, he
+is not entitled to the name of _hadji_, or pilgrim.  The great encampment
+broke up at three o’clock in the afternoon, and Mount Arafat was soon
+covered from top to bottom.  “The two Pashas, with their whole cavalry
+drawn up in two squadrons behind them, took their posts in the rear of
+the deep line of camels of the pilgrims, to which those of the people of
+Hedjaz were also joined; and here they waited in solemn and respectful
+silence the conclusion of the sermon.  Farther removed from the preacher
+was the Scherif of Mecca, with his small body of soldiers, distinguished
+by several green standards carried before him.  The two _mahmals_, or
+holy camels, which carry on their backs the high structure which serves
+as the banner of their respective caravans, made way with difficulty
+through the ranks of camels that encircled the southern and eastern sides
+of the hill, opposite to the preacher, and took their station, surrounded
+by their guards, directly under the platform in front of him.  The
+preacher, who is usually the Kadi of Mecca, was mounted upon a finely
+caparisoned camel, which had been led up the steps: it was traditionally
+said that Mohammed was always seated when he addressed his followers, a
+practice in which he was imitated by all the Caliphs who came to the
+pilgrimage, and who from this place addressed their subjects in person.
+The Turkish gentleman of Constantinople, however, unused to camel-riding,
+could not keep his seat so well as the hardy Bedouin prophet, and the
+camel becoming unruly, he was soon obliged to alight from it.  He read
+his sermon from a book in Arabic, which he held in his hands.  At
+intervals of every four or five minutes he paused and stretched forth his
+arms to implore blessings from above, while the assembled multitudes
+around and before him waved the skirts of their _ihrams_ over their heads
+and rent the air with shouts of _Lebeyk_, _Allah_, _huma lebeyk_!—‘Here
+we are at Thy bidding, oh God!’  During the waving of the _ihrams_ the
+sides of the mountain, thickly crowded as it was by the people in their
+white garments, had the appearance of a cataract of water; while the
+green umbrellas, with which several thousand pilgrims sitting on their
+camels below were provided, bore some resemblance to a verdant plain.”
+
+Burckhardt performed all the remaining ceremonies required of a pilgrim;
+but these have been more recently described and with greater minuteness
+by Captain Burton.  He remained in Mecca for another month, unsuspected
+and unmolested, and completed his observations of a place which the Arabs
+believed they had safely sealed against all Christian travellers.
+
+Leaving Mecca with a small caravan of pilgrims, on January 15, 1815, he
+reached Medina after a journey of thirteen days, during which he narrowly
+escaped being slain by the Bedouins.
+
+Burckhardt was attacked with fever soon after his arrival at Medina, and
+remained there three months.  The ceremonies prescribed for the pilgrims
+who visit the city are brief and unimportant; but the description of the
+tomb of Mohammed is of sufficient interest to quote.  “The mausoleum,” he
+says, “stands at the southeastern corner of the principal mosque, and is
+protected from the too near approach of visitors by an iron railing,
+painted green, about two-thirds the height of the pillars of the
+colonnade which runs around the interior of the mosque.  The railing is
+of good workmanship, in imitation of filigree, and is interwoven with
+open-worked inscriptions of yellow bronze, supposed by the vulgar to be
+of gold, and of so close a texture that no view can be obtained of the
+interior except by several small windows, about six inches square, which
+are placed in the four sides of the railing, about five feet above the
+ground.  On the south side, where are the two principal windows, before
+which the devout stand when praying, the railing is plated with silver,
+and the common inscription—‘There is no god but God, the Evident
+Truth!’—is wrought in silver letters around the windows.  The tomb
+itself, as well as those of Abu Bekr and Omar, which stand close to it,
+is concealed from the public gaze by a curtain of rich silk brocade of
+various colors, interwoven with silver flowers and arabesques, with
+inscriptions in characters of gold running across the midst of it, like
+that of the covering of the Kaaba.  Behind this curtain, which, according
+to the historian of the city, was formerly changed every six years, and
+is now renewed by the Porte whenever the old one is decayed, or when a
+new Sultan ascends the throne, none but the chief eunuchs, the attendants
+of the mosque, are permitted to enter.  This holy sanctuary once served,
+as the temple of Delphi did among the Greeks, as the public treasury of
+the nation.  Here the money, jewels, and other precious articles of the
+people of Hedjaz were kept in chests, or suspended on silken ropes.
+Among these was a copy of the Koran in Cufic characters; a brilliant star
+set in diamonds and pearls, which was suspended directly over the
+Prophet’s tomb; with all sorts of vessels filled with jewels, earrings,
+bracelets, necklaces, and other ornaments sent as presents from all parts
+of the empire.  Most of these articles were carried away by the Wahabees
+when they sacked and plundered the sacred cities.”
+
+                       [Picture: View of El-Medina]
+
+Burckhardt reached Yambo (the port of Medina), at the end of April, and,
+after running great danger from the plague, succeeded in obtaining
+passage to the Peninsula of Sinai, whence he slowly made his way back to
+Cairo.  Here he waited for two years, vainly hoping for the departure of
+a caravan for Central Africa, and meanwhile assisting Belzoni in his
+explorations at Thebes.  In October, 1817, he died, and the people who
+knew him only as Shekh Abdallah, laid his body in the Moslem
+burying-ground, on the eastern side of Cairo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+WELLSTED’S EXPLORATIONS IN OMAN.
+
+PERHAPS the most satisfactory account of the interior of Oman—the
+southeastern portion of Arabia—has been given by Lieutenant Wellsted.
+While in the Indian Navy he was employed for several years in surveying
+the southern and eastern coasts of Arabia.  Having become somewhat
+familiar with the language and habits of the people, he conceived the
+idea of undertaking a journey to Derreyeh, in Nedjed, the capital of the
+Wahabees, which no traveller had then reached.  The governor of Bombay
+gave him the necessary leave of absence, and he landed at Muscat in
+November, 1835.
+
+The Sultan, Sayid Saeed, received the young Englishman with great
+kindness, promised him all possible aid in his undertaking, and even
+arranged for him the route to be travelled.  He was to sail first to the
+port of Sur, south of Muscat, thence penetrate to the country inhabited
+by the Beni-Abu-Ali tribe, and make his way northward to the Jebel
+Akhdar, or Green Mountains, which were described to him as lofty,
+fruitful, and populous.  Having thus visited the most interesting
+portions of Oman, he was then to be at liberty, if the way was open, to
+take the northern route through the Desert toward Nedjed.  The Sultan
+presented him with a horse and sword, together with letters to the
+governors of the districts through which he should pass.
+
+At Sur, which is a small, insignificant village, with a good harbor, the
+mountains of the interior approach the sea, but they are here divided by
+a valley which furnishes easy access to the country beyond them.  After a
+journey of four days Wellsted reached the tents of the tribe of
+Beni-Abu-Ali, at a point to which the English troops had penetrated in
+1821, to punish the tribe for acts of piracy.  Although no Englishman had
+visited them since that time, they received him with every demonstration
+of friendship.  Sheep were killed, a feast prepared, a guard of honor
+stationed around the tent, and, in the evening, all the men of the
+encampment, 250 in number, assembled for the purpose of exhibiting their
+war-dance.  Wellsted thus describes the scene: “They formed a circle
+within which five of their number entered.  After walking leisurely
+around for some time, each challenged one of the spectators by striking
+him gently with the flat of his sword.  His adversary immediately leaped
+forth and a feigned combat ensued.  They have but two cuts, one directly
+downward, at the head, the other horizontal, across the legs.  They parry
+neither with the sword nor shield, but avoid the blows by leaping or
+bounding backward.  The blade of their sword is three feet in length,
+thin, double-edged, and as sharp as a razor.  As they carry it upright
+before them, by a peculiar motion of the wrist they cause it to vibrate
+in a very remarkable manner, which has a singularly striking effect when
+they are assembled in any considerable number.  It was part of the
+entertainment to fire off their matchlocks under the legs of some one of
+the spectators who appeared too intent on watching the game to observe
+their approach, and any signs of alarm which incautiously escaped the
+individual added greatly to their mirth.”
+
+In the evening a party of the Geneba Bedouins came in from the desert,
+accompanied by one of their chiefs.  The latter readily consented that
+Wellsted should accompany him on a short journey into his country, and
+they set out the following morning.  It was December, and the morning air
+was cold and pure; the party swept rapidly across the broad, barren
+plains, the low hills, dotted with acacia trees, and the stony channels
+which carried the floods of the rainy season to the sea.  After a day’s
+journey of forty-four miles they encamped near some brackish wells.  “You
+wished,” said the chief to Wellsted, “to see the country of the Bedouins;
+_this_,” he continued, striking his spear into the firm sand, “_this_ is
+the country of the Bedouins.”  Neither he nor his companions wore any
+clothing except a single cloth around the loins.  Their hair, which is
+permitted to grow until it reaches the waist, and is usually well
+plastered with grease, is the only covering which protects their heads
+from the sun.
+
+The second day’s journey brought Wellsted to a small encampment, where
+the chief’s wives were abiding.  They conversed with him, unveiled, gave
+him coffee, milk, and dates, and treated him with all the hospitality
+which their scanty means allowed.  The Beni Geneba tribe numbers about
+three thousand five hundred fighting men; they are spread over a large
+extent of Southern Arabia, and are divided into two distinct
+classes—those who live by fishing, and those who follow pastoral
+pursuits.  A race of fishermen, however, is found on all parts of the
+Arabian coast.  In some districts they are considered a separate and
+degraded people, with whom the genuine Bedouins will neither eat,
+associate, nor intermarry; but among the Beni Geneba this distinction
+does not exist.
+
+Wellsted might have penetrated much farther to the westward under the
+protection of this tribe, and was tempted to do so; but it seemed more
+important to move northward, and get upon some one of the caravan tracks
+leading into Central Arabia.  He therefore returned to the camp of the
+Beni-Abu-Ali, where the friendly people would hardly suffer him to
+depart, promising to build a house for him if he would remain a month
+with them.  For two days he travelled northward, over an undulating
+region of sand, sometimes dotted with stunted acacias, and reached a
+district called Bediah, consisting of seven villages, each seated in its
+little oasis of date palms.  One striking feature of these towns is their
+low situation.  They are erected in artificial hollows, which have been
+excavated to the depth of six or eight feet.  Water is then conveyed to
+them in subterranean channels from wells in the neighboring hills, and
+the soil is so fertile that irrigation suffices to produce the richest
+harvest of fruit and vegetables.  A single step carries the traveller
+from the glare and sand of the desert into a spot teeming with the most
+luxuriant vegetation, and embowered by lofty trees, whose foliage keeps
+out the sun.  “Some idea,” says Wellsted, “may be formed of the density
+of this shade by the effect it produces in lessening the terrestrial
+radiation.  A Fahrenheit thermometer which within the house stood at 55°,
+six inches from the ground fell to 45°.  From this cause and the
+abundance of water they are always saturated with damp, and even in the
+heat of the day possess a clammy coldness.”
+
+On approaching Ibrah, the next large town to the north, the country
+became hilly, and the valleys between the abrupt limestone ranges
+increased in fertility.  Wellsted thus describes the place: “There are
+some handsome houses in Ibrah; but the style of building is quite
+peculiar to this part of Arabia.  To avoid the damp and catch an
+occasional beam of the sun above the trees, they are usually very lofty.
+A parapet surrounding the upper part is turreted, and on some of the
+largest houses guns are mounted.  The windows and doors have the
+Saracenic arch, and every part of the building is profusely decorated
+with ornaments of stucco in bas-relief, some in very good taste.  The
+doors are also cased with brass, and have rings and other massive
+ornaments of the same metal.
+
+“Ibrah is justly renowned for the beauty and fairness of its females.
+Those we met on the streets evinced but little shyness, and on my return
+to the tent I found it filled with them.  They were in high glee at all
+they saw; every box I had was turned over for their inspection, and
+whenever I attempted to remonstrate against their proceedings they
+stopped my mouth with their hands.  With such damsels there was nothing
+left but to laugh and look on.”
+
+Travelling two days farther in the northward, Wellsted reached the town
+of Semmed, where he found a fine stream of running water.  The Shekh’s
+house was a large fort, the rooms of which were spacious and lofty, but
+destitute of furniture.  Suspended on pegs protruding from the walls were
+the saddles, cloths, and harness of the horses and camels.  The ceilings
+were painted in various devices, but the floors were of mud, and only
+partially covered with mats.  Lamps formed of shells, a species of murex,
+were suspended by lines from the ceiling.  On returning to the tent,
+after this visit, the traveller found, as usual, a great crowd collected
+there, but kept in order by a boy about twelve years of age.  He had
+taken possession of the tent, as its guardian, and allowed none to enter
+without his permission.  He carried a sword longer than himself, and also
+a stick, with which he occasionally laid about him.  It is a part of the
+Arab system of education to cease treating boys as children at a very
+early age, and they acquire, therefore, the gravity and demeanor of men.
+
+Beyond this place Wellsted was accompanied by a guard of seventy armed
+men, for the country was considered insecure.  For two days and a half he
+passed many small villages, separated by desert tracts, and then reached
+the town of Minnà, near the foot of the Green Mountains.  “Minnà,” he
+says, “differs from the other towns in having its cultivation in the open
+fields.  As we crossed these, with lofty almond, citron, and orange trees
+yielding a delicious fragrance on either hand, exclamations of
+astonishment and admiration burst from us.  ‘Is this Arabia?’ we said;
+‘this the country we have looked on heretofore as a desert?’  Verdant
+fields of grain and sugar-cane stretching along for miles are before us;
+streams of water, flowing in all directions, intersect our path; and the
+happy and contented appearance of the peasants agreeably helps to fill up
+the smiling picture.  The atmosphere was delightfully clear and pure;
+and, as we trotted joyously along, giving or returning the salutations of
+peace or welcome, I could almost fancy that we had at last reached that
+‘Araby the Blessed’ which I had been accustomed to regard as existing
+only in the fictions of our poets.
+
+“Minnà is an old town, said to have been erected at the period of
+Narhirvan’s invasion; but it bears, in common with the other towns, no
+indications of antiquity; its houses are lofty, but do not differ from
+those of Ibrah or Semmed.  There are two square towers, about one hundred
+and seventy feet in height, nearly in the centre of the town; at their
+bases the breadth of the wall is not more than two feet, and neither side
+exceeds in length eight yards.  It is therefore astonishing, considering
+the rudeness of the materials (they have nothing but unhewn stones and a
+coarse but apparently strong cement), that, with proportions so meagre,
+they should have been able to carry them to their present elevation.  The
+guards, who are constantly on the lookout, ascend by means of a rude
+ladder, formed by placing bars of wood in a diagonal direction in one of
+the side angles within the interior of the building.”
+
+The important town of Neswah, at the western base of the Jebel Akdar, or
+Green Mountains, is a short day’s journey from Minnà.  On arriving there
+Wellsted was received in a friendly manner by the governor, and lodged,
+for the first time since leaving Muscat, in a substantial house.  He was
+allowed to visit the fortress, which, in that region, is considered
+impregnable.  He was admitted by an iron door of great strength, and,
+ascending through a vaulted passage, passed through six others equally
+massive before reaching the summit.  The form of the fort is circular,
+its diameter being nearly one hundred yards, and to the height of ninety
+feet it has been filled up by a solid mass of earth and stones.  Seven or
+eight wells have been bored through this, from several of which they
+obtain a plentiful supply of water, while those which are dry serve as
+magazines for their shot and ammunition.  A wall forty feet high
+surrounds the summit, making the whole height of the fortress one hundred
+and fifty feet.  It is a work of extraordinary labor, and from its
+appearance probably of considerable antiquity; but no certain
+intelligence could be obtained on this point.
+
+On Christmas-day Wellsted left Neswah on an excursion to the celebrated
+Green Mountains.  The Shekh of Tanuf, the first village where he
+encamped, endeavored in every possible way to dissuade him from
+undertaking the journey; but his resolute manner and a few gifts overcame
+the difficulty.  Mounted on strong asses, the party commenced ascending a
+precipitous ridge by a track so narrow that they seemed at times to be
+suspended over precipices of unknown depth.  On the second day they
+reached the village of Seyk.  “By means of steps,” he says, “we descended
+the steep side of a narrow glen, about four hundred feet in depth,
+passing in our progress several houses perched on crags or other
+acclivities, their walls built up in some places so as to appear but a
+continuation of the precipice.  These small, snug, compact-looking
+dwellings have been erected by the natives one above the other, so that
+their appearance from the bottom of the glen, hanging as it were in
+mid-air, affords to the spectator a most novel and interesting picture.
+Here we found, amid a great variety of fruits and trees, pomegranates,
+citrons, almonds, nutmegs, and walnuts, with coffee-bushes and vines.  In
+the summer, these together must yield a delicious fragrance; but it was
+now winter, and they were leafless.  Water flows in many places from the
+upper part of the hills, and is received at the lower in small
+reservoirs, whence it is distributed all over the face of the country.
+From the narrowness of this glen, and the steepness of its sides, only
+the lower part of it receives the warmth of the sun’s rays for a short
+period of the day; and even at the time of our arrival we found it so
+chilly, that, after a short halt, we were very happy to continue our
+journey.”
+
+They halted for the night at a village called Shirazi, in the heart of
+the mountains, the highest peaks of which here reach a height of 6,000
+feet above the sea.  The inhabitants belong to a tribe called the Beni
+Ryam, who are considered infidels by the people of Neswah because they
+cultivate the grape for the purpose of making wine.  The next day the
+Arabs who formed Wellsted’s escort left him, and he had considerable
+difficulty in returning to Neswah by another road.  From this point he
+had intended starting for Central Arabia, but the funds which he expected
+did not arrive from Muscat, the British agent there having refused to
+make the necessary advances.  Wellsted thereupon applied directly to the
+Sultan, Sayd Saeed, for a loan, and while waiting an answer, made an
+excursion into the desert, fifty miles to the westward of Neswah.  With a
+view to familiarize himself with the manners and domestic life of the
+Bedouins, he mixed with them during this trip, living and sleeping in
+their huts and tents.  On all occasions he was treated with kindness, and
+often with a degree of hospitality above rather than below the means of
+those who gave it.
+
+Although the Sultan of Muscat was willing to furnish the necessary
+supplies, and arrangements had been made which Wellsted felt sure would
+have enabled him to penetrate into the interior, he was prevented from
+going forward by a violent fever, from the effects of which he remained
+insensible for five days.  Recovering sufficiently to travel, his only
+course was to return at once to the sea-coast, and on January 22, 1836,
+he left Neswah for the little port of Sib, where he arrived after a slow
+journey of eight days.  He relates the following incident, which occurred
+at Semayel, the half-way station: “Weary and faint from the fatigue of
+the day’s journey, in order to enjoy the freshness of the evening breeze
+I had my carpet spread beneath a tree.  An Arab passing by paused to gaze
+upon me, and, touched by my condition and the melancholy which was
+depicted on my countenance, he proffered the salutation of peace, pointed
+to the crystal stream which sparkled at my feet, and said: ‘Look, friend,
+for running water maketh the heart glad!’  With his hands folded over his
+breast, that mute but most graceful of Eastern salutations, he bowed and
+passed on.  I was in a situation to estimate sympathy; and so much of
+that feeling was exhibited in the manner of this son of the desert, that
+I have never since recurred to the incident, trifling as it is, without
+emotion.”
+
+A rest of four weeks at Sib recruited the traveller’s strength, and he
+determined to make another effort to reach Central Arabia.  He therefore
+applied to the Sultan for an escort to Bireimah, the first town of the
+Wahabees, beyond the northern frontier of Oman.  The Sultan sent a guide,
+but objected to the undertaking, as word had just arrived that the
+Wahabees were preparing to invade his territory.  Wellsted, however, was
+not willing to give up his design without at least making the attempt.
+He followed the coast, north of Muscat, as far as the port of Suweik,
+where he was most hospitably received by the wife of the governor, Seyd
+Hilal, who was absent.  “A huge meal, consisting of a great variety of
+dishes, sufficient for thirty or forty people, was prepared in his
+kitchen, and brought to us, on large copper dishes, twice a day during
+the time we remained.  On these occasions there was a great profusion of
+blue and gilt chinaware, cut glass dishes, and decanters containing
+sherbet instead of wine.”
+
+“The Shekh,” Wellsted continues, “after his return, usually spent the
+evening with us.  On one occasion he was accompanied by a professional
+storyteller, who appeared to be a great favorite with him.  ‘Whenever I
+feel melancholy or out of order,’ said he, ‘I send for this man, who very
+soon restores me to my wonted spirits.’  From the falsetto tone in which
+the story was chanted, I could not follow the thread of the tale, and,
+upon my mentioning this to him, the Shekh very kindly sent me the
+manuscript, of which the reciter had availed himself.  With little
+variation I found it to be the identical Sindbad the Sailor, so familiar
+to the readers of the Arabian Nights.  I little thought, when first I
+perused these fascinating tales in my own language, that it would ever be
+my lot to listen to the original in a spot so congenial and so remote.”
+
+                       [Picture: A valley in Oman]
+
+Leaving Suweik on March 4th, Wellsted was deserted by his camel-men at
+the end of the first day’s march, but succeeded in engaging others at a
+neighboring village.  The road, which at first led between low hills, now
+entered a deep mountain-gorge, inclosed by abrupt mountains of rock
+several thousand feet in height.
+
+For two days the party followed this winding defile, where the precipices
+frequently towered from three to four thousand feet over their heads.
+Then, having passed the main chain, the country became more open, and
+they reached the village of Muskin, in the territory of the Beni Kalban
+Arabs.  Their progress beyond this point was slow and tedious, on account
+of the country being divided into separate districts, which are partly
+independent of each other.  At the next town, Makiniyat, the Shekh urged
+them to go no farther, on account of the great risk, but finally
+consented to furnish an escort to Obri, the last town to the northward
+which acknowledges the sway of Muscat.  This was distant two days’
+journey—the first through a broad valley between pyramidal hills, the
+second over sandy plains, which indicated their approach to the Desert.
+
+Obri is one of the largest and most populous towns in Oman.  The
+inhabitants devote themselves almost exclusively to agriculture, and
+export large quantities of indigo, sugar, and dates.  On arriving
+Wellsted went immediately to the residence of the Shekh, whom he found to
+be a very different character from the officials whom he had hitherto
+encountered.  “Upon my producing the Imâm’s letters,” says he, “he read
+them, and took his leave without returning any answer.  About an hour
+afterward he sent a verbal message to request that I should lose no time
+in quitting his town, as he begged to inform me, what he supposed I could
+not have been aware of, that it was then filled with nearly two thousand
+Wahabees.  This was indeed news to us; it was somewhat earlier than we
+anticipated falling in with them, but we put a good face on the matter,
+and behaved as coolly as we could.”
+
+The next morning the Shekh returned, with a positive refusal to allow
+them to proceed farther.  Wellsted demanded a written refusal, as
+evidence which he could present to the Sultan, and this the Shekh at once
+promised to give.  His object was evidently to force the traveller away
+from the place, and such was the threatening appearance of things that
+the latter had no wish to remain.  The Wahabees crowded around the party
+in great numbers, and seemed only waiting for some pretext to commence an
+affray.  “When the Shekh came and presented me with the letter for the
+Sultan,” says Wellsted, “I knew it would be in vain to make any further
+effort to shake his resolution, and therefore did not attempt it.  In the
+meantime news had spread far and wide that two Englishmen, with a box of
+‘dollars,’ but in reality containing only the few clothes that we carried
+with us, had halted in the town.  The Wahabees and other tribes had met
+in deliberation, while the lower classes of the townsfolk were creating
+noise and confusion.  The Shekh either had not the shadow of any
+influence, or was afraid to exercise it, and his followers evidently
+wished to share in the plunder.  It was time to act.  I called Ali on one
+side, told him to make neither noise nor confusion, but to collect the
+camels without delay.  In the meantime we had packed up the tent, the
+crowd increasing every minute; the camels were ready, and we mounted on
+them.  A leader, or some trifling incident, was now only wanting to
+furnish them with a pretext for an onset.  They followed us with hisses
+and various other noises until we got sufficiently clear to push briskly
+forward; and, beyond a few stones being thrown, we reached the outskirts
+of the town without further molestation.  I had often before heard of the
+inhospitable character of the inhabitants of this place.  The neighboring
+Arabs observe that to enter Obri a man must either go armed to the teeth,
+or as a beggar with a cloth, and that not of decent quality, around his
+waist.  Thus, for a second time, ended my hopes of reaching Derreyeh from
+this quarter.”
+
+Wellsted was forced to return to Suweik, narrowly escaping a Bedouin
+ambush on the way.  As a last attempt he followed the coast as far as
+Schinas, near the mouth of the Straits of Ormuz, and thence despatched a
+messenger to the Wahabees at Birsimah.  This plan also failed, and he
+then returned to India.  He has given us, however, the only authentic
+account of the scenery and inhabitants of the interior of Oman, and his
+travels are thus an important contribution to our knowledge of Arabia.
+
+It is a sufficient commentary on the exclusive character of Interior
+Arabia, and the difficulties that bar the way there to free and thorough
+exploration, that, although Lieutenant Wellsted’s journey was in 1835, we
+still (1892) have to turn to his very interesting narrative for almost
+all we know of the interior of Oman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+WELLSTED’S DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT CITY IN HADRAMAUT.
+
+WHILE employed in the survey of the southern coast of Arabia in the
+spring of 1835, Lieutenant Wellsted was occupied for a time near the cape
+called Ras el-Aseïda, in Hadramaut, about one hundred miles east of Aden.
+On this cape there is a watch-tower, with the guardian of which, an
+officer named Hamed, he became acquainted; and on learning from the
+Bedouins of the neighborhood that extensive ruins, which they described
+as having been built by infidels, and of great antiquity, were to be
+found at some distance inland, he prevailed upon the officer to procure
+him camels and guides.
+
+One day, having landed with a midshipman in order to visit some
+inscriptions at a few hours’ distance, the Bedouins who brought the
+camels refused to go to the place, but expressed their willingness to
+convey the two Europeans to the ruined city.  Hamed declined to accompany
+them, on the plea of sickness, and they were unsupplied with provisions
+or presents for the Shekhs of the villages on the way.  Still the chance
+was too tempting to be lost.  Wellsted decided to trust himself to the
+uncertain protection of the Bedouins, sent his boat to the surveying
+vessel with a message that it should meet him at a point farther to the
+westward at the end of three days, and set out for the ruins late in the
+afternoon.
+
+Leaving the sea-shore at sunset, they struck northward into the interior,
+and travelled until after midnight, passing several villages of the
+Diyabi Bedouins, a very fierce and powerful tribe, who are dreaded by all
+their neighbors.  Scraping for themselves beds in the sand, the
+travellers slept until daybreak without being disturbed.  The path soon
+after mounted a ledge about four hundred feet in height, from the summit
+of which they obtained an extensive but dreary view of the surrounding
+country.  Their route lay along a broad valley, skirted on each side by a
+lofty range of mountains.  By eight o’clock the sun became so oppressive
+that the Bedouins halted under the shade of some stunted tamarisk trees.
+“Within these burning hollows,” says Wellsted, “the sun’s rays are
+concentrated and thrown off as from a mirror; the herbs around were
+scorched to a cindery blackness; not a cloud obscured the firmament, and
+the breeze which moaned past us was of a glowing heat, like that escaping
+from the mouth of a furnace.  Our guides dug hollows in the sand, and
+thrust their blistered feet within them.  Although we were not long in
+availing ourselves of the practical lesson they had taught us, I began to
+be far from pleased with their churlish demeanor.”
+
+During the day they travelled over sandy and stony ridges, and late in
+the afternoon entered the Wady Meifah, where they found wells of good
+water and scanty vegetation.  “The country now began to assume a far
+different aspect.  Numerous hamlets, interspersed amid extensive date
+groves, verdant fields of grain, and herds of sleek cattle, showed
+themselves in every direction, and we now fell in with parties of
+inhabitants for the first time since leaving the sea-shore.  Astonishment
+was depicted on their countenances, but as we did not halt they had no
+opportunity of gratifying their curiosity by gazing at us for any length
+of time.”
+
+One of the Bedouins, however, in spite of Wellsted’s remonstrances, told
+the people that the travellers were in search of buried treasure.  When
+the latter attempted to encamp near a village, the inhabitants requested
+them to remove; the guides proved to be ignorant of the road in the
+night, and they would have been suffered to wander about without shelter
+but for the kindness of an old woman, who conducted them to her house.
+This proved to be a kind of khan for travellers, and was already so
+crowded that the travellers were obliged to sleep in an open courtyard.
+
+They were hardly prepared for the scene which daylight disclosed to them.
+“The dark verdure of fields of millet, sorghum, tobacco, etc., extended
+as far as the eye could reach.  Mingled with these we had the soft acacia
+and the stately but more sombre foliage of the date palm; while the
+creaking of numerous wheels with which the grounds were irrigated, and in
+the distance several rude ploughs drawn by oxen, the ruddy and lively
+appearance of the people, who now flocked toward us from all quarters,
+and the delightful and refreshing coolness of the morning air, combined
+to form a scene which he who gazes on the barren aspect of the coast
+could never anticipate.”
+
+After three hours’ travel through this bright and populous region, they
+came in sight of the ruins, which the inhabitants call _Nakab el-Hadjar_
+(meaning “The Excavation from the Rock”).  According to Wellsted’s
+estimate, they are about fifty miles from the coast.
+
+The following is Wellsted’s description of the place: “The hill upon
+which these ruins are situated stands out in the centre of the valley,
+and divides a stream which passes, during floods, on either side of it.
+It is nearly eight hundred yards in length, and about three hundred and
+fifty yards at its extreme breadth.  About a third of the height from its
+base a massive wall, averaging from thirty to forty feet in height, is
+carried completely around the eminence, and flanked by square towers,
+erected at equal distances.  There are but two entrances, north and
+south; a hollow, square tower, measuring fourteen feet, stands on both
+sides of these.  Their bases extend to the plain below, and are carried
+out considerably beyond the rest of the building.  Between the towers, at
+an elevation of twenty feet from the plain, there is an oblong platform
+which projects about eighteen feet without and within the walls.  A
+flight of steps was apparently once attached to either extremity of the
+building.
+
+“Within the entrance, at an elevation of ten feet from the platform, we
+found inscriptions.  They are executed with extreme care, in two
+horizontal lines, on the smooth face of the stones, the letters being
+about eight inches long.  Attempts have been made, though without
+success, to obliterate them.  From the conspicuous situation which they
+occupy, there can be but little doubt but that, when deciphered, they
+will be found to contain the name of the founder of the building, as well
+as the date and purport of its erection. {59}  The whole of the walls and
+towers, and some of the edifices within, are built of the same material—a
+compact grayish-colored marble, hewn to the required shape with the
+utmost nicety.  The dimensions of the slabs at the base were from five to
+seven feet in length, two to three in height, and three to four in
+breadth.
+
+             [Picture: Ruins of Nakab El-Hadjar in Hadramaut]
+
+“Let us now visit the interior, where the most conspicuous object is an
+oblong square building, the walls of which face the cardinal points: its
+dimensions are twenty-seven by seventeen yards.  The walls are fronted
+with a kind of freestone, each slab being cut of the same size, and the
+whole so beautifully put together that I endeavored in vain to insert the
+blade of a small penknife between them.  The outer, unpolished surface is
+covered with small chisel-marks, which the Bedouins have mistaken for
+writing.  From the extreme care displayed in the construction of this
+building, I have no doubt that it is a temple, and my disappointment at
+finding the interior filled up with the ruins of the fallen roof was very
+great.  Had it remained entire, we might have obtained some clew to guide
+us in our researches respecting the form of religion professed by the
+earlier Arabs.  Above and beyond this building there are several other
+edifices, with nothing peculiar in their form or appearance.
+
+“In no portion of the ruins did we succeed in tracing any remains of
+arches or columns, nor could we discover on their surface any of those
+fragments of pottery, colored glass, or metals, which are always found in
+old Egyptian towns, and which I also saw in those we discovered on the
+northwest coast of Arabia.  Except the attempts to deface the
+inscriptions, there is no other appearance of the buildings having
+suffered from any ravages besides those of time; and owing to the dryness
+of the climate, as well as the hardness of the material, every stone,
+even to the marking of the chisel, remains as perfect as the day it was
+hewn.  We were anxious to ascertain if the Arabs had preserved any
+tradition concerning the building, but they refer them, like other Arabs,
+to their pagan ancestors.  ‘Do you believe,’ said one of the Bedouins to
+me upon my telling him that his ancestors were then capable of greater
+works than themselves, ‘that these stones were raised by the unassisted
+hands of the Kafirs?  No! no!  They had devils, legions of devils (God
+preserve us from them!), to aid them.’”
+
+On his return to the sea, which occupied a day and a half, Wellsted was
+kindly treated by the natives, and suffered only from the intense heat.
+The vessel was fortunately waiting at the appointed place.  Since the
+journey was made (in 1836) Baron von Wrede, a German traveller, has
+succeeded in exploring a portion of Hadramaut, penetrating as far as Wady
+Doan, a large and populous valley, more than a hundred miles from the
+coast.  But a thorough exploration of both Yemen and Hadramaut is still
+wanting, and when made, it will undoubtedly result in many important
+discoveries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+BURTON’S PILGRIMAGE.
+
+CAPTAIN RICHARD F. BURTON, the discoverer of the great Lake Tanganyika,
+in Central Africa, first became known to the world by his daring and
+entirely successful visit to Medina and Mecca, in the year 1853, in the
+disguise of a Moslem pilgrim.  Although his journey was that of
+Burckhardt, reversed, and he describes the same ceremonies, his account
+supplies many deficiencies in the narrative of his predecessor, and has
+the merit of a livelier and more graphic style.
+
+Burton’s original design was to cross the Arabian Peninsula from west to
+east, as Palgrave has since done, and the Royal Geographical Society was
+disposed to accept his services.  But he failed to obtain a sufficient
+leave of absence from the East India Company, which only granted him a
+furlough of one year—a period quite insufficient for the undertaking.  He
+therefore determined to prove at least his fitness for the task, by
+making the pilgrimage to the holy cities.  He was already familiar with
+the Arabic and Persian languages, and had the advantage of an Eastern
+cast of countenance.
+
+Like Burckhardt, he assumed an Oriental character at the start, and
+during the voyage from Southampton to Alexandria was supposed to be a
+Persian prince.  For two or three months he laboriously applied himself
+in Egypt to the necessary religious studies, joined a society of
+dervishes, under the name of Shekh Abdullah, kept the severe fast of
+Ramazan, and familiarized himself with all the orthodox forms of
+ablution, prayer, and prostration.  He gave himself out to be an Afghan
+by birth, but long absent from his native country, a character which was
+well adapted to secure him against detection.  During his stay in Cairo
+he made the acquaintance of a boy named Mohammed el-Basyuni, a native of
+Mecca, who became his companion for the journey, and who seems not to
+have suspected his real character until the pilgrimage was over.
+
+Having purchased a tent and laid in an ample supply of provisions, with
+about four hundred dollars in money, he went to Suez about July 1st, with
+the avowed purpose of proceeding to Mecca by way of Jedda, yet with the
+secret intention of visiting Medina on the way.  Here he became
+acquainted with a company of pilgrims, whose good-will he secured by
+small loans of money, and joined them in taking passage in a large Arab
+boat bound for Yembo.  The vessel was called the Golden Wire.  “Immense
+was the confusion,” says Burton, “on the eventful day of our departure.
+Suppose us standing on the beach, on the morning of a fiery July day,
+carefully watching our hurriedly-packed goods and chattels, surrounded by
+a mob of idlers who are not too proud to pick up waifs and strays, while
+pilgrims rush about apparently mad, and friends are weeping,
+acquaintances vociferating adieux, boatmen demanding fees, shopmen
+claiming debts, women shrieking and talking with inconceivable power,
+children crying—in short, for an hour or so we were in the thick of a
+human storm.  To confound confusion, the boatmen have moored their skiff
+half a dozen yards away from the shore, lest the porters should be unable
+to make more than double their fare from the pilgrims.”
+
+They sailed on July 6th, and were five days in reaching the mouth of the
+Gulf of Akaba.  While crossing to the Arabian shore, the pilgrims are
+accustomed to repeat the following prayer, which is a good example of
+Moslem invocation: “O Allah, O Exalted, O Almighty, O All-pitiful, O
+All-powerful, thou art my God, and sufficeth to me the knowledge of it!
+Glorified be the Lord my Lord, and glorified be the faith my faith!  Thou
+givest victory to whom thou pleaseth, and thou art the glorious, the
+merciful!  We pray thee for safety in our goings-forth and in our
+standings-still, in our words and our designs, in our dangers of
+temptation and doubts, and the secret designs of our hearts.  Subject
+unto us this sea, even as thou didst subject the deep to Moses, and as
+thou didst subject the fire to Abraham, and as thou didst subject the
+iron to David, and as thou didst subject the wind, and devils, and genii,
+and mankind to Solomon, and as thou didst subject the moon and El-Burak
+to Mohammed, upon whom be Allah’s mercy and His blessing!  And subject
+unto us all the seas in earth and heaven, in the visible and in thine
+invisible worlds, the sea of this life, and the sea of futurity.  O thou
+who reignest over everything, and unto whom all things return, Khyar!
+Khyar!”
+
+A further voyage of another week, uncomfortable and devoid of incident,
+brought the vessel to Yembo.  As the pilgrims were desirous of pushing on
+to Medina, camels were hired on the day of arrival, and, a week’s
+provisions having been purchased, the little caravan started the next
+afternoon.  Burton, by the advice of his companions, assumed the Arab
+dress, but travelled in a litter, both because of an injury to his foot,
+and because he could thus take notes on the way without being observed.
+On account of the heat the caravan travelled mostly by night; the
+country, thus dimly seen, was low and barren for the first two days, but
+on the third day they reached a wilder region, which Burton thus
+describes: “We travelled through a country fantastic in its desolation—a
+mass of huge hills, barren plains, and desert vales.  Even the sturdy
+acacias here failed, and in some places the camel grass could not find
+earth enough to take root in.  The road wound among mountains, rocks, and
+hills of granite, over broken ground, flanked by huge blocks and
+bowlders, piled up as if man’s art had aided nature to disfigure herself.
+Vast clefts seemed like scars on the hideous face of earth; here they
+widened into dark caves, there they were choked up with glistening drift
+sand.  Not a bird or a beast was to be seen or heard; their presence
+would have argued the vicinity of water, and though my companions opined
+that Bedouins were lurking among the rocks, I decided that these Bedouins
+were the creatures of their fears.  Above, a sky like polished blue
+steel, with a tremendous blaze of yellow light, glared upon us, without
+the thinnest veil of mist or cloud.  The distant prospect, indeed, was
+more attractive than the near view, because it borrowed a bright azure
+tinge from the intervening atmosphere; but the jagged peaks and the
+perpendicular streaks of shadow down the flanks of the mountainous
+background showed that no change for the better was yet in store for us.”
+
+At the little towns of El-Hamra and Bir Abbas the caravan rested a day,
+suffering much from the intense heat, and with continual quarrels between
+the pilgrims and the Arabs to whom the camels belonged.  At the latter
+place they were threatened with a detention of several days, but the
+difficulty was settled, and they set out upon the most dangerous portion
+of the road.  “We travelled that night,” says Burton “up a dry
+river-course in an easterly direction, and at early dawn found ourselves
+in an ill-famed gorge, called _Shuab el-Hadj_ (the ‘Pilgrim’s Pass’).
+The loudest talkers became silent as we neared it, and their countenances
+showed apprehension written in legible characters.  Presently, from the
+high, precipitous cliff on our left, thin blue curls of smoke—somehow or
+other they caught every eye—rose in the air, and instantly afterward rang
+the loud, sharp cracks of the hill-men’s matchlocks, echoed by the rocks
+on the right.  My shugduf had been broken by the camel’s falling during
+the night, so I called out to Mansur that we had better splice the
+frame-work with a bit of rope; he looked up, saw me laughing, and with an
+ejaculation of disgust disappeared.  A number of Bedouins were to be seen
+swarming like hornets over the crests of the rocks, boys as well as men
+carrying huge weapons, and climbing with the agility of cats.  They took
+up comfortable places in the cut-throat eminence, and began firing upon
+us with perfect convenience to themselves.  The height of the hills and
+the glare of the rising sun prevented my seeing objects very distinctly,
+but my companions pointed out to me places where the rock had been
+scarped, and a kind of breastwork of rough stones—the Sangah of
+Afghanistan, piled up as a defence, and a rest for the long barrel of the
+matchlock.  It was useless to challenge the Bedouins to come down and
+fight us upon the plain like men; and it was equally unprofitable for our
+escort to fire upon a foe ensconced behind stones.  We had, therefore,
+nothing to do but to blaze away as much powder and to veil ourselves in
+as much smoke as possible; the result of the affair was that we lost
+twelve men, besides camels and other beasts of burden.  Though the
+bandits showed no symptoms of bravery, and confined themselves to
+slaughtering the enemy from their hill-top, my companions seemed to
+consider this questionable affair a most gallant exploit.”
+
+After two more days of severe travel, the pilgrims, at early dawn, came
+in sight of the holy city of Medina.  Burton thus describes the approach,
+and the view from the western ridge: “Half an hour after leaving the Wady
+el-Akik, or ‘Blessed Valley,’ we came to a huge flight of steps, roughly
+cut in a long, broad line of black, scoriaceous basalt.  This is called
+the _Mudarraj_, or flight of steps over the western ridge of the
+so-called El-Harratain; it is holy ground, for the Prophet spoke well of
+it.  Arrived at the top, we passed through a lane of black scoria, with
+deep banks on both sides, and, after a few minutes a full view of the
+city suddenly opened on us.  We halted our beasts as if by word of
+command.  All of us descended, in imitation of the pious of old, and sat
+down, jaded and hungry as we were, to feast our eyes with a view of the
+Holy City.  The prayer was, ‘O Allah! this is the _Haram_ (sanctuary) of
+the Prophet; make it to us a protection from hell fire, and a refuge from
+eternal punishment!  O, open the gates of thy mercy, and let us pass
+through them to the land of joy!’
+
+“As we looked eastward, the sun arose out of the horizon of low hills,
+blurred and dotted with small tufted trees, which gained a giant stature
+from the morning mists, and the earth was stained with gold and purple.
+Before us lay a spacious plain, bounded in front by the undulating ground
+of Nedjed; on the left was a grim barrier of rocks, the celebrated Mount
+Ohod, with a clump of verdure and a white dome or two nestling at its
+base.  Rightward, broad streaks of lilac-colored mists were thick with
+gathered dew, there pierced and thinned by the morning rays, stretched
+over the date-groves and the gardens of Kuba, which stood out in emerald
+green from the dull tawny surface of the plain.  Below, at the distance
+of about two miles, lay El Medina; at first sight it appeared a large
+place, but a closer inspection proved the impression to be an erroneous
+one.”
+
+On arriving at Medina, Burton became the guest of one of the company he
+had met at Suez, and during his stay of a month in the city performed all
+the religious ceremonies and visitations which are prescribed for the
+pilgrim.  He gives the following description of the Prophet’s mosque:
+“Passing through muddy streets—they had been freshly watered before
+evening time—I came suddenly upon the mosque.  Like that at Mecca, the
+approach is choked up by ignoble buildings, some actually touching the
+holy ‘enceinte,’ others separated by a lane compared with which the road
+around St. Paul’s is a Vatican square.  There is no outer front, no
+general aspect of the Prophet’s mosque; consequently, as a building it
+has neither beauty nor dignity.  And entering the Bab el-Rahmah—the Gate
+of Pity—by a diminutive flight of steps, I was astonished at the mean and
+tawdry appearance of a place so universally venerated in the Moslem
+world.  It is not like the Meccan mosque, grand and simple—the expression
+of a single sublime idea; the longer I looked at it the more it suggested
+the resemblance of a museum of second-rate art, a curiosity-shop, full of
+ornaments that are not accessories, and decorated with pauper splendor.”
+
+                 [Picture: View of Medina from the West]
+
+We must also quote the traveller’s account of his manner of spending the
+day during his residence in Medina: “At dawn we arose, washed, prayed,
+and broke our fast upon a crust of stale bread, before smoking a pipe,
+and drinking a cup of coffee.  Then it was time to dress, to mount, and
+to visit the Haram in one of the holy places outside the city.  Returning
+before the sun became intolerable, we sat together, and with
+conversation, shishas and chibouques, coffee and cold water perfumed with
+mastich-smoke, we whiled away the time till our _ariston_, an early
+dinner which appeared at the primitive hour of 11 A.M.  The meal was
+served in the _majlis_ on a large copper tray sent from the upper
+apartments.  Ejaculating ‘Bismillah’—the Moslem grace—we all sat round
+it, and dipped equal hands in the dishes set before us.  We had usually
+unleavened bread, different kinds of meat and vegetable stews, and at the
+end of the first course plain boiled rice, eaten with spoons; then came
+the fruits, fresh dates, grapes, and pomegranates.  After dinner I used
+invariably to find some excuse—such as the habit of a ‘Kaylúlah’ (midday
+siesta), or the being a ‘Saudawi,’ or person of melancholy temperament,
+to have a rug spread in the dark passage, and there to lie reading,
+dozing, smoking, or writing, all through the worst part of the day, from
+noon to sunset.  Then came the hour for receiving and paying visits.  The
+evening prayers ensued, either at home or in the Haram, followed by our
+supper, another substantial meal like the dinner, but more plentiful, of
+bread, meat, vegetables, rice, and fruits.  In the evening we sometimes
+dressed in common clothes and went to the café; sometimes on festive
+occasions we indulged in a late supper of sweetmeats, pomegranates, and
+dried fruits.  Usually we sat upon mattresses spread upon the ground in
+the open air, at the Shekh’s door, receiving evening visits, chatting,
+telling stories, and making merry, till each, as he felt the approach of
+the drowsy god, sank down into his proper place, and fell asleep.”
+
+Burton was charmed with the garden and date-groves about Medina, and
+enjoyed the excursions, which were enjoined upon him as a pilgrim, to
+Jebel Ohod, the mosque of Kuba, and other places in the vicinity of the
+city.  On August 28th the caravan of pilgrims from Damascus arrived, and,
+on account of danger from the Bedouins, decided to leave on the fourth
+day afterward, taking the Desert road to Mecca, the same travelled by the
+Caliph Haroun El-Raschid and his wife Zobeida, instead of the longer road
+nearer the coast, which Burckhardt had followed.  When this plan was
+announced, Burton and his companions had but twenty-four hours to make
+the necessary preparations; but by hard work they were ready.  Leaving
+Medina, they hastened onward to secure good places in the caravan, which
+was composed of about seven thousand pilgrims, and extended over many
+miles of the road.
+
+For the first four days they travelled southward over a wild, desolate
+country, almost destitute of water and vegetation.  On account of heat,
+as well as for greater security, the journey was made chiefly by night,
+although the forced marches between the wells obliged them sometimes to
+endure the greatest heat of the day.  Burton says: “I can scarcely find
+words to express the weary horrors of a long night’s march, during which
+the hapless traveller, fuming, if a European, with disappointment in his
+hopes of ‘seeing the country,’ is compelled to sit upon the back of a
+creeping camel.  The day sleep, too, is a kind of lethargy, and it is all
+but impossible to preserve an appetite during the hours of heat.”
+
+After making ninety-nine miles from Medina, they reached the village of
+El Suwayrkiyah, which is included within the Meccan territory.  The town,
+consisting of about one hundred houses, is built at the base and on the
+sides of a basaltic mass which rises abruptly from the hard clayey plain.
+The summit is converted into a rude fortalice by a bulwark of uncut
+stone, piled up so as to make a parapet.  The lower part of the town is
+protected by a mud wall, with the usual semicircular towers.  Inside
+there is a bazaar, well supplied with meat (principally mutton) by the
+neighboring Bedouins, and wheat, barley, and dates are grown near the
+town.  There is little to describe in the narrow streets and the mud
+houses, which are essentially Arab.  The fields around are divided into
+little square plots by earthen ridges and stone walls; some of the palms
+are fine grown trees, and the wells appeared numerous.  The water is near
+the surface and plentiful, but it has a brackish taste, highly
+disagreeable after a few days’ use, and the effects are the reverse of
+chalybeate.
+
+Seventeen miles beyond El Suwayrkiyah is the small village of Sufayuah,
+beyond which the country becomes again very wild and barren.  Burton thus
+describes the scenery the day after leaving Sufayuah: “This day’s march
+was peculiarly Arabia.  It was a desert peopled only with echoes—a place
+of death for what little there is to die in it—a wilderness where, to use
+my companion’s phrase, there is nothing but He (Allah).  Nature, scalped,
+flayed, discovered her anatomy to the gazer’s eye.  The horizon was a sea
+of mirage; gigantic sand-columns whirled over the plain; and on both
+sides of our road were huge piles of bare rock standing detached upon the
+surface of sand and clay.  Here they appeared in oval lumps, heaped up
+with a semblance of symmetry; there a single bowlder stood, with its
+narrow foundation based upon a pedestal of low, dome-shaped rock.  All
+are of a pink coarse-grained granite, which flakes off in large crusts
+under the influence of the atmosphere.”
+
+After four more long marches the caravan reached a station called El
+Zaribah, where the pilgrims halted a day to assume the _ihram_, or
+costume which they wear on approaching Mecca.  They were now in the
+country of the Utaybah Bedouins, the most fierce and hostile of all the
+tribes on the road.  Although only two marches, or fifty miles, from
+Mecca, the pilgrims were by no means safe, as the night after they left
+Zaribah testified.  While threading a narrow pass between high rocks, in
+the twilight, there was a sudden discharge of musketry and some camels
+dropped dead.  The Utaybah, hidden behind the rocks crowning the pass,
+poured down an irregular fire upon the pilgrims, who were panic-stricken
+and fell into great disorder.  The Wahabees, however, commenced scaling
+the rocks, and very soon drove the robbers from their ambush.  The
+caravan then hurried forward in great disorder, leaving the dead and
+severely wounded lying on the ground.
+
+“At the beginning of the skirmish,” says Burton, “I had primed my
+pistols, and sat with them ready for use.  But soon seeing that there was
+nothing to be done, and, wishing to make an impression—nowhere does
+Bobadil now ‘go down’ but in the East—I called aloud for my supper.
+Shekh Nur, exanimate with fear, could not move.  The boy Mohammed
+ejaculated only an ‘Oh, sir!’ and the people around exclaimed in disgust,
+‘By Allah! he eats!’ Shekh Abdullah, the Meccan, being a man of spirit,
+was amused by the spectacle.  ‘Are these Afghan manners, Effendim?’ he
+inquired from the shugduf behind me.  ‘Yes,’ I replied aloud, ‘in my
+country we always dine before an attack of robbers, because that gentry
+is in the habit of sending men to bed supperless.’  The Shekh laughed
+aloud, but those around him looked offended.”
+
+The morning after this adventure the pilgrims reached the Wady Laymun, or
+Valley of Limes, a beautiful region of gardens and orchards, only
+twenty-four miles from Mecca.  Here they halted four hours to rest and
+enjoy the fruits and fresh water; then the line of march was resumed
+toward the Holy City.  In the afternoon the range of Jebel Kora, in the
+southeast, became visible, and as evening approached all eyes were
+strained, but in vain, for a sight of Mecca.  Night came down, and the
+pilgrims moved slowly onward in the darkness.  An hour after midnight
+Burton was roused by a general excitement in the caravan.  “Mecca!
+Mecca!” cried some voices; “The Sanctuary, O the Sanctuary!” exclaimed
+others, and all burst into loud cries of “_Labeyk_!” not unfrequently
+broken by sobs.  Looking out from his litter the traveller saw by the
+light of the southern stars the dim outlines of a large city.  They were
+passing over the last rocky ridge by an artificial cut.  The winding path
+was flanked on both sides by high watch-towers; a short distance farther
+they entered the northern suburb.
+
+The Meccan boy Mohammed, who had been Burton’s companion during the
+pilgrimage, conducted the latter to his mother’s house, where he remained
+during his stay.  A meal of vermicelli and sugar was prepared on their
+arrival in the night, and after an hour or two of sleep they rose at
+dawn, in order to perform the ceremonies of arrival.  After having
+bathed, they walked in their pilgrim garb to the _Beit Allah_, or “House
+of God.”
+
+“There,” says Burton, “there at last it lay, the bourne of my long and
+weary pilgrimage, realizing the plans and hopes of many and many a year.
+The mirage medium of fancy invested the huge catafalque and its gloomy
+pall with peculiar charms.  There were no giant fragments of hoar
+antiquity as in Egypt, no remains of graceful and harmonious beauty as in
+Greece and Italy, no barbaric gorgeousness as in the buildings of India;
+yet the view was strange, unique, and how few have looked upon the
+celebrated shrine!  I may truly say, that, of all the worshippers who
+clung weeping to the curtain, or who pressed their beating hearts to the
+stone, none felt for the moment a deeper emotion than did the Hadji from
+the far north.  It was as if the poetical legends of the Arab spoke
+truth, and that the waving wings of angels, not the sweet breezes of
+morning, were agitating and swelling the black covering of the shrine.
+But, to confess humbling truth, theirs was the high feeling of religious
+enthusiasm, mine was the ecstasy of gratified pride.”
+
+Burton’s description of the Beit Allah and the Kaaba is more minute and
+careful than that of Burckhardt, but does not differ from it in any
+important particular.  Neither is it necessary to quote his account of
+the ceremonies to be performed by each individual pilgrim, with all their
+mechanical prostrations and repetitions.  His account of the visit to the
+famous Black Stone, however, is both curious and amusing: “For a long
+time I stood looking in despair at the swarming crowd of Bedouin and
+other pilgrims that besieged it.  But the boy Mohammed was equal to the
+occasion.  During our circuit he had displayed a fiery zeal against
+heresy and schism by foully abusing every Persian in his path, and the
+inopportune introduction of hard words into his prayers made the latter a
+strange patchwork.  He might, for instance, be repeating ‘and I take
+refuge with thee from ignominy in this world,’ when, ‘O thou rejected
+one, son of the rejected!’ would be the interpolation addressed to some
+long-bearded Khorassani, ‘and in that to come—O hog and brother of a
+hoggess!’  And so he continued till I wondered that no one dared to turn
+and rend him.  After vainly addressing the pilgrims, of whom nothing
+could be seen but a mosaic of occiputs and shoulder-blades, the boy
+Mohammed collected about half a dozen stalwart Meccans, with whose
+assistance, by sheer strength, we wedged our way into the thin and
+light-legged crowd.  The Bedouins turned round upon us like wildcats, but
+they had no daggers.  The season being autumn, they had not swelled
+themselves with milk for six months; and they had become such living
+mummies that I could have managed single-handed half a dozen of them.
+After thus reaching the stone, despite popular indignation, testified by
+impatient shouts, we monopolized the use of it for at least ten minutes.
+Whilst kissing it and rubbing hands and forehead upon it I narrowly
+observed it, and came away persuaded that it is a big aërolite.”
+
+                     [Picture: Camp at Mount Arafat]
+
+On September 12th the pilgrims set out for Mount Arafat.  Three miles
+from Mecca there is a large village called Muna, noted for three standing
+miracles—the pebbles, there thrown at the Devil, return by angelic agency
+to whence they came; during the three days of drying meat rapacious birds
+and beasts cannot prey there, and flies do not settle upon the articles
+of food exposed in the bazaars.  Beyond the place there is a mosque
+called El Khayf, where, according to some traditions, Adam is buried, his
+head being at one end of the long wall and his feet at the other, while
+the dome is built over his navel.
+
+“Arafat,” says Burton, “is about a six hours’ march, or twelve miles, on
+the Taif road, due east of Mecca.  We arrived there in a shorter time,
+but our weary camels, during the last third of the way, frequently threw
+themselves upon the ground.  Human beings suffered more.  Between Muna
+and Arafat I saw no less than five men fall down and die upon the
+highway; exhausted and moribund, they had dragged themselves out to give
+up the ghost where it departs to instant beatitude.  The spectacle showed
+how easy it is to die in these latitudes; each man suddenly staggered,
+fell as if shot, and, after a brief convulsion, lay still as marble.  The
+corpses were carefully taken up, and carelessly buried that same evening,
+in a vacant space amongst the crowds encamped upon the Arafat plain.
+
+“Nothing can be more picturesque than the view the mountain affords of
+the blue peaks behind, and the vast encampment scattered over the barren
+yellow plain below.  On the north lay the regularly pitched camp of the
+guards that defend the unarmed pilgrims.  To the eastward was the
+Scherif’s encampment with the bright mahmals and the gilt knobs of the
+grander pavilions; whilst, on the southern and western sides, the tents
+of the vulgar crowded the ground, disposed in dowars, or circles, for
+penning cattle.  After many calculations, I estimated the number to be
+not less than fifty thousand, of all ages and both sexes.”
+
+After the sermon on Arafat, which Burton describes in the same manner as
+Burckhardt, the former gives an account of the subsequent ceremony of
+“stoning the Great Devil” near the village of Muna: “‘The Shaytan
+el-Kabir’ is a dwarf buttress of rude masonry, about eight feet high by
+two and a half broad, placed against a rough wall of stones, at the
+Meccan entrance to Muna.  As the ceremony of ‘Ramy,’ or Lapidation, must
+be performed on the first day by all pilgrims between sunrise and sunset,
+and as the Fiend was malicious enough to appear in a rugged pass, the
+crowd makes the place dangerous.  On one side of the road, which is not
+forty feet broad, stood a row of shops belonging principally to barbers.
+On the other side is the rugged wall of the pillar, with a _chevaux de
+frise_ of Bedouins and naked boys.  The narrow space was crowded with
+pilgrims, all struggling like drowning men to approach as near as
+possible to the Devil; it would have been easy to run over the heads of
+the mass.  Amongst them were horsemen with rearing chargers.  Bedouins on
+wild camels, and grandees on mules and asses, with outrunners, were
+breaking a way by assault and battery.  I had read Ali Bey’s
+self-felicitations upon escaping this place with ‘only two wounds in the
+left leg,’ and had duly provided myself with a hidden dagger.  The
+precaution was not useless.  Scarcely had my donkey entered the crowd
+than he was overthrown by a dromedary, and I found myself under the
+stamping and roaring beast’s stomach.  By a judicious use of the knife, I
+avoided being trampled upon, and lost no time in escaping from a place so
+ignobly dangerous.  Finding an opening at last, we approached within
+about five cubits of the place, and holding each stone between the thumb
+and forefinger of the ring hand, cast it at the pillar, exclaiming: ‘In
+the name of Allah, and Allah is Almighty, I do this in hatred of the
+Fiend and to his shame.’  The seven stones being duly thrown, we retired,
+and entering the barber’s booth, took our places upon one of the earthen
+benches around it.  This was the time to remove the _ihram_ or pilgrim’s
+garb, and to return to the normal state of El Islam.  The barber shaved
+our heads, and, after trimming our beards and cutting our nails, made us
+repeat these words: ‘I purpose loosening my _ihram_, according to the
+practice of the Prophet, whom may Allah bless and preserve!  O Allah,
+make unto me in every hair a light, a purity, and a generous reward!  In
+the name of Allah, and Allah is Almighty!’  At the conclusion of his
+labor the barber politely addressed to us a ‘Naiman’—Pleasure to you!  To
+which we as ceremoniously replied, ‘Allah give thee pleasure!’”
+
+We will conclude these quotations from Burton’s narrative with his
+description of a sermon in the great mosque of Mecca.  “After returning
+to the city from the sacrifice of sheep in the valley of Muna, we bathed,
+and when noon drew nigh we repaired to the Haram for the purpose of
+hearing the sermon.  Descending to the cloisters below the Bab
+el-Ziyadah, I stood wonderstruck by the scene before me.  The vast
+quadrangle was crowded with worshippers sitting in long rows, and
+everywhere facing the central black tower; the showy colors of their
+dresses were not to be surpassed by a garden of the most brilliant
+flowers, and such diversity of detail would probably not be seen massed
+together in any other building upon earth.  The women, a dull and
+sombre-looking group, sat apart in their peculiar place.  The Pasha stood
+on the roof of Zem Zem, surrounded by guards in Nizam uniform.  Where the
+principal ulema stationed themselves the crowd was thicker; and in the
+more auspicious spots naught was to be seen but a pavement of heads and
+shoulders.  Nothing seemed to move but a few dervishes, who, censer in
+hand, sidled through the rows and received the unsolicited alms of the
+faithful.  Apparently in the midst, and raised above the crowd by the
+tall, pointed pulpit, whose gilt spire flamed in the sun, sat the
+preacher, an old man with snowy beard.  The style of head-dress called
+‘_taylasan_’ covered his turban, which was white as his robes, and a
+short staff supported his left hand.  Presently he arose, took the staff
+in his right hand, pronounced a few inaudible words, and sat down again
+on one of the lower steps, whilst a Muezzin, at the foot of the pulpit,
+recited the call to sermon.  Then the old man stood up and began to
+preach.  As the majestic figure began to exert itself there was a deep
+silence.  Presently a general ‘Amin’ was intoned by the crowd at the
+conclusion of some long sentence.  And at last, toward the end of the
+sermon, every third or fourth word was followed by the simultaneous rise
+and fall of thousands of voices.
+
+“I have seen the religious ceremonies of many lands, but
+never—nowhere—aught so solemn, so impressive as this spectacle.”
+
+                 [Picture: Costume of Pilgrims to Mecca]
+
+Finding that it was impossible for him to undertake the journey across
+Central Arabia, both for lack of time and the menacing attitude of the
+Desert tribes, Burton left Mecca for Jedda at the end of September.
+Starting in the afternoon, the chance caravan of returning pilgrims
+reached, about midnight, a mass of huts called El Hadda, which is the
+usual half-way halting-place.  It is maintained solely for the purpose of
+supplying travellers with coffee and water.  Here the country slopes
+gradually toward the sea, the hills recede, and every feature denotes
+departure from the upland plateau of Mecca.  After reaching here, and at
+some solitary coffee-houses farther on the way, the pilgrims reached
+Jedda safely at eight in the morning.
+
+From this place Burton took passage on a steamer for Suez, and returned
+to Cairo, but without the Meccan boy, Mohammed, who began to have a
+suspicion of his true character, after seeing him in company with some
+English officers, and who left him before embarking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS IN CENTRAL ARABIA: FROM PALESTINE TO THE DJOWF.
+
+MR. WILLIAM GIFFORD PALGRAVE, son of Sir Francis Palgrave, the historian,
+performed, in 1862–63, a journey in Arabia, which gives us the first
+clear and full account of the interior of the country, including the
+great Wahabee state of Nedjed, the early home of Arabian poetry and also
+of the famous Arabian breed of horses.  Mr. Palgrave’s qualifications for
+the undertaking were in some respects superior to those of either
+Burckhardt or Burton.  To a high degree of general culture and a vigorous
+and picturesque style as a writer, he added a knowledge of the Arabic
+language and literature equal to that of any native scholar; he spoke the
+language as well as his mother tongue; his features were sufficiently
+Oriental to disarm suspicion, and years of residence in the East had
+rendered him entirely familiar with the habits of the people and even
+with all those minor forms of etiquette which are so rarely acquired by a
+stranger.  His narrative, therefore, is as admirable and satisfactory in
+its character as the fields he traversed were new and fascinating.  It
+throws, indeed, so much indirect light upon the experiences of all his
+predecessors, and is so much richer in its illustrations of Arab life and
+character that no brief summary of its contents can do justice to its
+importance.
+
+                   [Picture: William Gifford Palgrave]
+
+Of the first stage of the journey, from Gaza on the Mediterranean to the
+little town of Ma’an, which lies on the route of the caravans from
+Damascus to Mecca, a short distance to the northeast of Petra, and thus
+nearly on the boundary between the country of Moab and Edom, Palgrave
+gives us no account.  Yet, in spite of the comparatively brief distance
+traversed, it must have been both laborious and dangerous.  His narrative
+commences as follows, at the moment of his departure from Ma’an:
+
+“Once for all let us attempt to acquire a fairly correct and
+comprehensive knowledge of the Arabian Peninsula.  With its coasts we are
+already in great measure acquainted; several of its maritime provinces
+have been, if not thoroughly, at least sufficiently, explored; Yemen and
+Hedjaz, Mecca and Medina, are no longer mysteries to us, nor are we
+wholly without information on the districts of Hadramaut and Oman.  But
+of the interior of the vast region, of its plains and mountains, its
+tribes and cities, of its governments and institutions, of its
+inhabitants, their ways and customs, of their social condition, how far
+advanced in civilization or sunk in barbarism, what do we as yet really
+know, save from accounts necessarily wanting in fulness and precision?
+It is time to fill up this blank in the map of Asia, and this, at
+whatever risks, we will now endeavor; either the land before us shall be
+our tomb, or we will traverse it in its fullest breadth, and know what it
+contains from shore to shore.  _Vestigia nulla retrorsum_.”
+
+“Such were my thoughts, and such, more or less, I should suppose, those
+of my companion, when we found ourselves at fall of night without the
+eastern gate of Ma’an, while the Arabs, our guides and fellow-travellers,
+filled their water-skins from a gushing source hard by the town walls,
+and adjusted the saddles and the burdens of their camels, in preparation
+for the long journey that lay before us and them.  It was the evening of
+June 16, 1862; the largest stars were already visible in the deep blue
+depths of a cloudless sky, while the crescent moon, high to the west,
+shone as she shines in those heavens, and promised us assistance for some
+hours of our night march.  We were soon mounted on our meagre long-necked
+beasts, ‘as if,’ according to the expression of an Arab poet, ‘we and our
+men were at mast-heads,’ and now we set our faces to the east.  Behind us
+lay, in a mass of dark outline, the walls and castle of Ma’an, its houses
+and gardens, and farther back in the distance the high and barren range
+of the Sheraa’ Mountains, merging into the coast chain of Hejaz.  Before
+and around us extended a wide and level plain, blackened over with
+countless pebbles of basalt and flint, except where the moonbeams gleamed
+white on little intervening patches of clear sand, or on yellowish
+streaks of withered grass, the scanty product of the winter rains, and
+dried now into hay.  Over all a deep silence, which even our Arab
+companions seemed fearful of breaking; when they spoke it was in a half
+whisper and in a few words, while the noiseless tread of our camels sped
+stealthily but rapidly through the gloom without disturbing its
+stillness.
+
+“Some precaution was not indeed wholly out of place, for that stage of
+the journey on which we were now entering was anything but safe.  We were
+bound for the Djowf, the nearest inhabited district of Central Arabia,
+its outlying station, in fact.  Now the intervening tract offered for the
+most part the double danger of robbers and of thirst, of marauding bands
+and of the summer season.  The distance itself to be traversed was near
+two hundred miles in a straight line, and unavoidable circumstances were
+likely to render it much longer.”
+
+Palgrave’s companion was a native Syrian, named Barakat—a man on whom he
+could fully rely.  Hardy, young, and enterprising, he belonged to a
+locality whose inhabitants are accustomed to danger.  But the Bedouins
+who furnished the camels, and acted as guides, were of another class.
+They were three in number—Salim, their leader, a member of a powerful
+family of the Howeytat tribe, but outlawed for pillage and murder, and
+two men, Alee and Djordee, utter barbarians in appearance no less than in
+character.  Even Salim advised the travellers to avoid all familiarities
+with the latter.
+
+“Myself and my companion,” says Palgrave, “were dressed like ordinary
+class travellers of inner Syria, an equipment in which we had already
+made our way from Gaza on the sea-coast to Ma’an without much remark or
+unseasonable questioning from those whom we fell in with, while we
+traversed a country so often described already by Pococke, Laborde, and
+downward, under the name of Arabia Petra, that it would be superfluous
+for me to enter into any new account of it in the present work.  Our
+dress, then, consisted partly of a long stout blouse of Egyptian hemp,
+under which, unlike our Bedouin fellow-travellers, we indulged in the
+luxury of the loose cotton drawers common in the East, while our colored
+head-kerchiefs, though simple enough, were girt by ’akkals or headbands
+of some pretension to elegance; the loose red-leather boots of the
+country completed our toilet.
+
+“But in the large travelling-sacks at our camels’ sides were contained
+suits of a more elegant appearance, carefully concealed from Bedouin
+gaze, but destined for appearance when we should reach better inhabited
+and more civilized districts.  This reserve toilet numbered articles like
+the following: colored overdresses, the Syrian combaz, handkerchiefs
+whose silk stripes relieved the plebeian cotton, and girdles of good
+material and tasteful coloring; such clothes being absolutely requisite
+to maintain our assumed character.  Mine was that of a native travelling
+doctor, a quack if you will; and accordingly a tolerable dress was
+indispensable for the credit of my medical practice.  My comrade, who in
+a general way passed for my brother-in-law, appeared sometimes as a
+retail merchant, such as not unfrequently visit these countries, and
+sometimes as pupil or associate in my assumed profession.
+
+“Our pharmacopoeia consisted of a few but well selected and efficacious
+drugs, inclosed in small tight-fitting tin boxes, stowed away for the
+present in the ample recesses of our travelling bags; about fifty of
+these little cases contained the wherewithal to kill or cure half the
+sick men of Arabia.  Medicines of a liquid form had been as much as
+possible omitted, not only from the difficulty of insuring them a safe
+transport amid so rough a mode of journeying, but also on account of the
+rapid evaporation unavoidable in this dry and burning climate.  In fact
+two or three small bottles whose contents had seemed to me of absolute
+necessity, soon retained nothing save their labels to indicate what they
+had held, in spite of airtight stoppers and double coverings.  I record
+this, because the hint may be useful to anyone who should be inclined to
+embark in similar guise on the same adventures.
+
+“Some other objects requisite in medical practice, two or three European
+books for my own private use, and kept carefully secret from Arab
+curiosity, with a couple of Esculapian treatises in good Arabic, intended
+for professional ostentation, completed this part of our fitting-out.
+But besides these, an ample provision of cloth handkerchiefs, glass
+necklaces, pipe-bowls, and the like, for sale in whatever localities
+might not offer sufficient facility for the healing art, filled up our
+saddle-bags wellnigh to bursting.  Last, but not least, two large sacks
+of coffee, the sheet-anchor and main hope of our commerce, formed alone a
+sufficient load for a vigorous camel.”
+
+The first days of travel were a monotony of heat and desolation.  The
+deceptive lakes of the mirage covered the tawny plain, and every dark
+basaltic block, lying here and there at random, was magnified into a
+mountain in the heated atmosphere.  “Dreary land of death, in which even
+the face of an enemy were almost a relief amid such utter solitude.  But
+for five whole days the little dried-up lizard of the plain that looks as
+if he had never a drop of moisture in his ugly body, and the jerboa, or
+field-rat of Arabia, were the only living creatures to console our view.
+
+“It was a march during which we might have almost repented of our
+enterprise, had such a sentiment been any longer possible or availing.
+Day after day found us urging our camels to their utmost pace for fifteen
+or sixteen hours together out of the twenty-four, under a wellnigh
+vertical sun, which the Ethiopians of Herodotus might reasonably be
+excused for cursing, with nothing either in the landscape around or in
+the companions of our way to relieve for a moment the eye or the mind.
+Then an insufficient halt for rest or sleep, at most of two or three
+hours, soon interrupted by the oft-repeated admonition, ‘if we linger
+here we all die of thirst,’ sounding in our ears; and then to remount our
+jaded beasts and push them on through the dark night, amid the constant
+probability of attack and plunder from roving marauders.  For myself, I
+was, to mend matters, under the depressing influence of a tertian fever
+contracted at Ma’an, and what between weariness and low spirits, began to
+imagine seriously that no waters remained before us except the waters of
+death for us and of oblivion for our friends.  The days wore by like a
+delirious dream, till we were often almost unconscious of the ground we
+travelled over and the journey on which we were engaged.  One only herb
+appeared at our feet to give some appearance of variety and life; it was
+the bitter and poisonous colocynth of the desert.
+
+“Our order of road was this: Long before dawn we were on our way, and
+paced it till the sun, having attained about half-way between the horizon
+and the zenith, assigned the moment of alighting for our morning meal.
+This our Bedouins always took good care should be in some hollow or low
+ground, for concealment’s sake; in every other respect we had ample
+liberty of choice, for one patch of black pebbles with a little sand and
+withered grass between was just like another; shade or shelter, or
+anything like them, was wholly out of the question in such ‘nakedness of
+the land.’  We then alighted, and my companion and myself would pile up
+the baggage into a sort of wall, to afford a half-screen from the
+scorching sun-rays, and here recline awhile.  Next came the culinary
+preparations, in perfect accordance with our provisions, which were
+simple enough; namely, a bag of coarse flour mixed with salt and a few
+dried dates; there was no third item on the bill of fare.  We now took a
+few handfuls of flour, and one of the Bedouins kneaded it with his
+unwashed hands or dirty bit of leather, pouring over it a little of the
+dingy water contained in the skins, and then patted out this exquisite
+paste into a large round cake, about an inch thick and five or six inches
+across.  Meanwhile another had lighted a fire of dry grass, colocynth
+roots, and dried camels’ dung, till he had prepared a bed of glowing
+embers; among these the cake was now cast, and immediately covered up
+with hot ashes, and so left for a few minutes, then taken out, turned,
+and covered again, till at last, half-kneaded, half-raw, half-roasted,
+and burnt all round, it was taken out to be broken up between the hungry
+band, and eaten scalding hot, before it should cool into an indescribable
+leathery substance, capable of defying the keenest appetite.  A draught
+of dingy water was its sole but suitable accompaniment.
+
+“The meal ended, we had again without loss of time to resume our way from
+mirage to mirage, till ‘slowly flaming over all, from heat to heat, the
+day decreased,’ and about an hour before sunset we would stagger off our
+camels as best we might, to prepare an evening feast of precisely the
+same description as that of the forenoon, or more often, for fear lest
+the smoke of our fire should give notice to some distant rover, to
+content ourselves with dry dates, and half an hour’s rest on the sand.
+At last our dates, like Æsop’s bread-sack, or that of Beyhas, his Arab
+prototype, came to an end; and then our supper was a soldier’s one; what
+that is my military friends will know; but, grit and pebbles excepted,
+there was no bed in our case.  After which, to remount, and travel on by
+moon or starlight, till a little before midnight we would lie down for
+just enough sleep to tantalize, not refresh.
+
+“It was now the 22d of June, and the fifth day since our departure from
+the wells of Wokba.  The water in the skins had little more to offer to
+our thirst than muddy dregs, and as yet no sign appeared of a fresh
+supply.  At last about noon we drew near some hillocks of loose gravel
+and sandstone a little on our right; our Bedouins conversed together
+awhile, and then turned their course and ours in that direction.  ‘Hold
+fast on your camels, for they are going to be startled and jump about,’
+said Salim to us.  Why the camels should be startled I could not
+understand; when, on crossing the mounds just mentioned, we suddenly came
+on five or six black tents, of the very poorest description, pitched near
+some wells excavated in the gravelly hollow below.  The reason of Salim’s
+precautionary hint now became evident, for our silly beasts started at
+first sight of the tents, as though they had never seen the like before,
+and then scampered about, bounding friskily here and there, till what
+between their jolting (for a camel’s run much resembles that of a cow)
+and our own laughing, we could hardly keep on their backs.  However,
+thirst soon prevailed over timidity, and they left off their pranks to
+approach the well’s edge and sniff at the water below.”
+
+The inhabitants of the tents showed the ordinary curiosity, but were not
+unfriendly, and the little caravan rested there for the remainder of the
+day.  A further journey of two days over a region of sand-hills, with an
+occasional well, still intervened before they could reach Wady Sirhan—a
+long valley running directly to the populated region of the Djowf.  While
+passing over this intermediate region an incident occurred which had
+wellnigh put a premature end to the travels and the travellers together.
+“My readers, no less than myself,” says Palgrave, “must have heard or
+read many a story of the simoom, or deadly wind of the desert, but for me
+I had never yet met it in full force; and its modified form, or
+_shelook_, to use the Arab phrase, that is, the sirocco of the Syrian
+waste, though disagreeable enough, can hardly ever be termed dangerous.
+Hence I had been almost inclined to set down the tales told of the
+strange phenomena and fatal effects of this ‘poisoned gale’ in the same
+category with the moving pillars of sand, recorded in many works of
+higher historical pretensions than ‘Thalaba.’  At those perambulatory
+columns and sand-smothered caravans the Bedouins, whenever I interrogated
+them on the subject, laughed outright, and declared that beyond an
+occasional dust-storm, similar to those which anyone who has passed a
+summer in Scinde can hardly fail to have experienced, nothing of the
+romantic kind just alluded to occurred in Arabia.  But when questioned
+about the simoom, they always treated it as a much more serious matter,
+and such in real earnest we now found it.
+
+“It was about noon, the noon of a summer solstice in the unclouded
+Arabian sky over a scorched desert, when abrupt and burning gusts of wind
+began to blow by fits from the south, while the oppressiveness of the air
+increased every moment, till my companion and myself mutually asked each
+other what this could mean, and what was to be its result.  We turned to
+inquire of Salim, but he had already wrapped up his face in his mantle,
+and bowed down and crouching on the neck of his camel, replied not a
+word.  His comrades, the two Sherarat Bedouins, had adopted a similar
+position, and were equally silent.  At last, after repeated
+interrogations, Salim, instead of replying directly to our questioning,
+pointed to a small black tent, providentially at no great distance in
+front, and said: Try to reach _that_; if we can get there we are saved.’
+He added: ‘Take care that your camels do not stop and lie down;’ and
+then, giving his own several vigorous blows, relapsed into muffled
+silence.
+
+“We looked anxiously toward the tent; it was yet a hundred yards off, or
+more.  Meanwhile the gusts grew hotter and more violent, and it was only
+by repeated efforts that we could urge our beasts forward.  The horizon
+rapidly darkened to a deep violet line, and seemed to draw in like a
+curtain on every side, while at the same time a stifling blast, as though
+from some enormous oven opening right on our path, blew steadily under
+the gloom; our camels, too, began, in spite of all we could do, to turn
+round and round and bend their knees, preparing to lie down.  The simoom
+was fairly upon us.
+
+“Of course we had followed our Arabs’ example by muffling our faces, and
+now with blows and kicks we forced the staggering animals onward to the
+only asylum within reach.  So dark was the atmosphere, and so burning the
+heat, that it seemed that hell had risen from the earth, or descended
+from above.  But we were yet in time, and at the moment when the worst of
+the concentrated poison-blast was coming around, we were already
+prostrate, one and all, within the tent, with our heads well wrapped up,
+almost suffocated, indeed, but safe; while our camels lay without like
+dead, their long necks stretched out on the sand, awaiting the passing of
+the gale.
+
+“On our first arrival the tent contained a solitary Bedouin woman, whose
+husband was away with his camels in the Wady Sirhan.  When she saw five
+handsome men like us rush thus suddenly into her dwelling without a word
+of leave or salutation, she very properly set up a scream to the tune of
+the four crown pleas—murder, arson, robbery, and I know not what else.
+Salim hastened to reassure her by calling out ‘friends,’ and without more
+words threw himself flat on the ground.  All followed his example in
+silence.
+
+“We remained thus for about ten minutes, during which a still heat like
+that of red-hot iron slowly passing over us was alone to be felt.  Then
+the tent walls began again to flap in the returning gusts, and announced
+that the worst of the simoom had gone by.  We got up, half dead with
+exhaustion, and unmuffled our faces.  My comrades appeared more like
+corpses than living men, and so, I suppose, did I.  However, I could not
+forbear, in spite of warnings, to step out and look at the camels; they
+were still lying flat as though they had been shot.  The air was yet
+darkish, but before long it brightened up to its usual dazzling
+clearness.  During the whole time that the simoom lasted, the atmosphere
+was entirely free from sand or dust, so that I hardly know how to account
+for its singular obscurity.”
+
+“Late in the evening we continued our way, and next day early entered
+Wady Sirhan, where the character of our journey underwent a considerable
+modification; for the northerly Arabian desert, which we are now
+traversing, offers, in spite of all its dreariness, some spots of
+comparatively better cast, where water is less scanty and vegetation less
+niggard.  These spots are the favorite resorts of Bedouins, and serve,
+too, to direct the ordinary routes of whatever travellers, trade-led or
+from other motives, may venture on this wilderness.  These oases, if
+indeed they deserve the name, are formed by a slight depression in the
+surrounding desert surface, and take at times the form of a long valley,
+or of an oblong patch, where rock and pebble give place to a light soil
+more or less intermixed with sand, and concealing under its surface a
+tolerable supply of moisture at no great distance below ground.  Here, in
+consequence, bushes and herbs spring up, and grass, if not green all the
+year round, is at least of somewhat longer duration than elsewhere;
+certain fruit-bearing plants, of a nature to suffice for meagre Bedouin
+existence, grow here spontaneously; in a word, man and beast find not
+exactly comfortable accommodation, but the absolutely needful supply.
+Such a spot is Wady Sirhan, literally, the ‘Valley of the Wolf.’”
+
+They entered Wady Sirhan on June 21st.  “Passing tent after tent, and
+leaving behind us many a tattered Bedouin and grazing camel, Salim at
+last indicated to us a group of habitations, two or three of which seemed
+of somewhat more ample dimensions than the rest, and informed us that our
+supper that night (for the afternoon was already on the decline) would be
+at the cost of these dwellings.  ‘Ajaweed,’ _i.e._, ‘generous fellow,’ he
+subjoined, to encourage us by the prospect of a handsome reception.  Of
+course we could only defer to his better judgment, and in a few minutes
+were alongside of the black goats’ hair coverings where lodged our
+intended hosts.
+
+“The chief or chieflet, for such he was, came out, and interchanged a few
+words of masonic laconism with Salim.  The latter then came up to us
+where we remained halted in expectation, led our camels to a little
+distance from the tents, made them kneel down, helped us to disburden
+them, and while we installed ourselves on a sandy slope opposite to the
+abodes of the tribe, recommended us to keep a sharp lookout after our
+baggage, since there might be pickers and stealers among our hosts, for
+all ‘Ajaweed’ as they were.  Disagreeable news! for ‘Ajaweed’ in an Arab
+mouth corresponds the nearest possible to our English ‘gentlemen.’  Now,
+if the gentlemen were thieves, what must the blackguards be?  We put a
+good face on it, and then seated ourselves in dignified gravity on the
+sand awaiting the further results of our guide’s negotiations.
+
+“For some time we remained undisturbed, though not unnoticed; a group of
+Arabs had collected round our companions at the tent door, and were
+engaged in getting from them all possible information, especially about
+us and our baggage, which last was an object of much curiosity, not to
+say cupidity.  Next came our turn.  The chief, his family (women
+excepted), his intimate followers, and some twenty others, young and old,
+boys and men, came up, and, after a brief salutation, Bedouinwise seated
+themselves in a semicircle before us.  Every man held a short crooked
+stick for camel-driving in his hand, to gesticulate with when speaking,
+or to play with in the intervals of conversation, while the younger
+members of society, less prompt in discourse, politely employed their
+leisure in staring at us, or in picking up dried pellets of dirt from the
+sand and tossing them about.”
+
+“‘What are you? what is your business?’ so runs the ordinary and
+unprefaced opening of the discourse.  To which we answer, ‘Physicians
+from Damascus, and our business is whatsoever God may put in our way.’
+The next question will be about the baggage; someone pokes it with a
+stick, to draw attention to it, and says, ‘What is this? have you any
+little object to sell us?’
+
+“We fight shy of selling; to open out our wares and chattels in full air,
+on the sand, and amid a crowd whose appearance and circumstances offer
+but a poor guarantee for the exact observance of the eighth commandment,
+would be hardly prudent or worth our while.  After several fruitless
+trials they desist from their request.  Another, who is troubled by some
+bodily infirmity, for which all the united faculties of London and Paris
+might prescribe in vain—a withered hand, for instance, or stone-blind of
+an eye—asks for medicine, which no sooner applied shall, in his
+expectation, suddenly restore him to perfect health and corporal
+integrity.  But I had been already forewarned that to doctor a Bedouin,
+even under the most favorable circumstances, or a camel, is pretty much
+the same thing, and with about an equal chance of success or advantage.
+I politely decline.  He insists; I turn him off with a joke.
+
+“‘So you laugh at us, O you inhabitants of towns.  We are Bedouins, we do
+not know your customs,’ replies he, in a whining tone; while the boys
+grin unconscionably at the discomfiture of their tribesman.
+
+“‘Ya woleyd,’ or young fellow (for so they style every human male from
+eight to eighty without distinction), ‘will you not fill my pipe?’ says
+one, who has observed that mine was not idle, and who, though well
+provided with a good stock of dry tobacco tied up in a rag at his greasy
+waist-belt, thinks the moment a fair opportunity for a little begging,
+since neither medicine nor merchandise is to be had.
+
+“But Salim, seated amid the circle, makes me a sign not to comply.
+Accordingly, I evade the demand.  However, my petitioner goes on begging,
+and is imitated by two or three others, each of whom thrusts forward (a
+true Irish hint) a bit of marrowbone with a hole drilled in one side to
+act for a pipe, or a porous stone, not uncommon throughout the desert,
+clumsily fashioned into a smoking apparatus, a sort of primitive
+meerschaum.
+
+“As they grow rude, I pretend to become angry, thus to cut the matter
+short.  ‘We are your guests, O you Bedouins; are you not ashamed to beg
+of us?’  ‘Never mind, excuse us; those are ignorant fellows, ill-bred
+clowns,’ etc., interposes one close by the chief’s side; and whose dress
+is in somewhat better condition than that of the other half and
+three-quarter naked individuals who complete the assembly.
+
+“‘Will you not people the pipe for your little brother?’ subjoins the
+chief himself, producing an empty one with a modest air.  Bedouin
+language, like that of most Orientals, abounds with not ungraceful
+imagery, and accordingly, ‘people’ here means ‘fill.’  Salim gives me a
+wink of compliance.  I take out a handful of tobacco and put it on his
+long shirt-sleeve, which he knots over it, and looks uncommonly well
+pleased.  At any rate they are easily satisfied, these Bedouins.
+
+“The night air in these wilds is life and health itself.  We sleep
+soundly, unharassed by the anticipation of an early summons to march next
+morning, for both men and beasts have alike need of a full day’s repose.
+When the sun has risen we are invited to enter the chief’s tent and to
+bring our baggage under its shelter.  A main object of our entertainer,
+in proposing this move, is to try whether he cannot render our visit some
+way profitable to himself, by present or purchase.  Whatever politeness
+he can muster is accordingly brought into play, and a large bowl of fresh
+camel’s milk, an excellent beverage, now appears on the stage.  I leave
+to chemical analysis to decide why this milk will not furnish butter, for
+such is the fact, and content myself with bearing witness to its very
+nutritious and agreeable qualities.
+
+“The day passes on.  About noon our host naturally enough supposes us
+hungry, and accordingly a new dish is brought in: it looks much like a
+bowl full of coarse red paste, or bran mixed with ochre.  This is samh, a
+main article of subsistence to the Bedouins of Northern Arabia.
+Throughout this part of the desert grows a small herbaceous and tufted
+plant, with juicy stalks and a little ovate yellow-tinted leaf; the
+flowers are of a brighter yellow, with many stamens and pistils.  When
+the blossoms fall off there remains in place of each a four-leaved
+capsule about the size of an ordinary pea, and this, when ripe, opens to
+show a mass of minute reddish seeds, resembling grit in feel and
+appearance, but farinaceous in substance.  The ripening season is in
+July, when old and young, men and women, all are out to collect the
+unsown and untoiled-for harvest.
+
+“On the 27th of the month we passed with some difficulty a series of
+abrupt sand-hills that close in the direct course of Wady Sirhan.  Here,
+for the first time, we saw the ghada, a shrub almost characteristic, from
+its very frequency, of the Arabian Peninsula, and often alluded to by its
+poets.  It is of the genus _Euphorbia_, with a woody stem, often five or
+six feet in height, and innumerable round green twigs, very slender and
+flexible, forming a large feathery tuft, not ungraceful to the eye, while
+it affords some kind of shelter to the traveller and food to his camels.
+These last are passionately fond of ghada, and will continually turn
+right out of their way, in spite of blows and kicks, to crop a mouthful
+of it, and then swing back their long necks into the former direction,
+ready to repeat the same manœuvre at the next bush, as though they had
+never received a beating for their past voracity.
+
+“I have, while in England, heard and read more than once of the ‘docile
+camel.’  If ‘docile’ means stupid, well and good; in such a case the
+camel is the very model of docility.  But if the epithet is intended to
+designate an animal that takes an interest in its rider so far as a beast
+can, that in some way understands his intentions or shares them in a
+subordinate fashion, that obeys from a sort of submissive or half
+fellow-feeling with his master, like the horse and elephant, then I say
+that the camel is by no means docile, very much the contrary; he takes no
+heed of his rider, pays no attention whether he be on his back or not,
+walks straight on when once set a-going, merely because he is too stupid
+to turn aside; and then, should some tempting thorn or green branch
+allure him out of the path, continues to walk on in this new direction
+simply because he is too dull to turn back into the right road.  His only
+care is to cross as much pasture as he conveniently can while pacing
+mechanically onward; and for effecting this, his long, flexible neck sets
+him at great advantage, and a hard blow or a downright kick alone has any
+influence on him whether to direct or impel.  He will never attempt to
+throw you off his back, such a trick being far beyond his limited
+comprehension; but if you fall off, he will never dream of stopping for
+you, and walks on just the same, grazing while he goes, without knowing
+or caring an atom what has become of you.  If turned loose, it is a
+thousand to one that he will never find his way back to his accustomed
+home or pasture, and the first comer who picks him up will have no
+particular shyness to get over; Jack or Tom is all the same to him, and
+the loss of his old master, and of his own kith and kin, gives him no
+regret, and occasions no endeavor to find them again.”
+
+On coming in sight of the mountains of Djowf the travellers were obliged
+to halt for two days at an encampment of the Sherarat Arabs, because
+Salim could not enter the Djowf with them in person, on account of a
+murder which he had committed there.  He was therefore obliged to procure
+them another guide capable of conducting them safely the remainder of the
+journey.  After much search and discussion, Salim ended by finding a
+good-natured, but somewhat timid, individual, who undertook their
+guidance to the Djowf.
+
+Journeying one whole day and night over an open plateau, where they saw a
+large troop of ostriches, they mounted again on the 30th, by the light of
+the morning star, anxious to enter the Djowf before the intense heat of
+noon should come on; “but we had yet a long way to go, and our track
+followed endless windings among low hills and stony ledges, without any
+symptom of approach to cultivated regions.  At last the slopes grew
+greener, and a small knot of houses, with traces of tillage close by,
+appeared.  It was the little village of Djoon, the most westerly
+appendage of Djowf itself.  I counted between twenty and thirty houses.
+We next entered a long and narrow pass, whose precipitous banks shut in
+the view on either side.  Suddenly several horsemen appeared on the
+opposite cliff, and one of them, a handsome youth, with long, curling
+hair, well armed and well mounted (we shall make his more special
+acquaintance in the next chapter), called out to our guide to halt, and
+answer in his own behalf and ours.  This Suleyman did, not without those
+marks of timidity in his voice and gesture which a Bedouin seldom fails
+to show on his approach to a town, for, when once in it, he is apt to
+sneak about much like a dog who has just received a beating for theft.
+On his answer, delivered in a most submissive tone, the horsemen held a
+brief consultation, and we then saw two of them turn their horses’ heads
+and gallop off in the direction of the Djowf, while our original
+interlocutor called out to Suleyman, ‘All right, go on, and fear
+nothing,’ and then disappeared after the rest of the band behind the
+verge of the upland.
+
+“We had yet to drag on for an hour of tedious march; my camel fairly
+broke down, and fell again and again; his bad example was followed by the
+coffee-laden beast; the heat was terrible in these gorges, and noon was
+approaching.  At last we cleared the pass, but found the onward prospect
+still shut out by an intervening mass of rocks.  The water in our skins
+was spent, and we had eaten nothing that morning.  When shall we get in
+sight of the Djowf? or has it flown away from before us?  While thus
+wearily laboring on our way we turned a huge pile of crags, and a new and
+beautiful scene burst upon our view.
+
+                         [Picture: An Arab Chief]
+
+“A broad, deep valley, descending ledge after ledge till its innermost
+depths are hidden from sight amid far-reaching shelves of reddish rock,
+below everywhere studded with tufts of palm-groves and clustering
+fruit-trees, in dark-green patches, down to the furthest end of its
+windings; a large brown mass of irregular masonry crowning a central
+hill; beyond, a tall and solitary tower overlooking the opposite bank of
+the hollow, and further down small round turrets and flat house-tops,
+half buried amid the garden foliage, the whole plunged in a perpendicular
+flood of light and heat; such was the first aspect of the Djowf as we now
+approached it from the west.  It was a lovely scene, and seemed yet more
+so to our eyes, weary of the long desolation through which we had, with
+hardly an exception, journeyed day after day, since our last farewell
+glimpse of Gaza and Palestine, up to the first entrance on inhabited
+Arabia.  ‘Like the Paradise of eternity, none can enter it till after
+having previously passed over hell-bridge,’ says an Arab poet, describing
+some similar locality in Algerian lands.
+
+“Reanimated by the view, we pushed on our jaded beasts, and were already
+descending the first craggy slope of the valley when two horsemen, well
+dressed and fully armed after the fashion of these parts, came up toward
+us from the town, and at once saluted us with a loud and hearty
+‘Marhaba,’ or ‘welcome;’ and without further preface they added, ‘Alight
+and eat,’ giving themselves the example of the former by descending
+briskly from their light-limbed horses and untying a large leather bag
+full of excellent dates and a water-skin filled from the running spring;
+then, spreading out these most opportune refreshments on the rock, and
+adding, ‘we were sure that you must be hungry and thirsty, so we have
+come ready provided,’ they invited us once more to sit down and begin.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—RESIDENCE IN THE DJOWF.
+
+THE elder of the two cavaliers who welcomed the travellers proved to be
+Ghafil-el-Haboob, the chief of the most important family of the Djowf.
+Ghafil, and also his companion, Dafee, invited the travellers to be his
+guests, and the former, it afterward appeared, had intended that they
+should reside in his house, hoping to make some profit from the
+merchandise which they might have brought.  They felt bound, at least, to
+accompany him to his house and partake of coffee, before going elsewhere.
+Palgrave thus describes the manner of their reception:
+
+“The k’hawah was a large, oblong hall, about twenty feet in height, fifty
+in length, and sixteen, or thereabouts, in breadth; the walls were
+colored in a rudely decorative manner, with brown and white wash, and
+sunk here and there into small triangular recesses, destined to the
+reception of books—though of these Ghafil at least had no
+over-abundance—lamps, and other such like objects.  The roof of timber,
+and flat; the floor was strewed with fine clean sand, and garnished all
+round alongside of the walls with long strips of carpet, upon which
+cushions, covered with faded silk, were disposed at suitable intervals.
+
+“We enter.  On passing the threshold it is proper to say, ‘_Bismillah_,’
+_i.e._, ‘in the name of God;’ not to do so would be looked on as a bad
+augury, alike for him who enters and for those within.  The visitor next
+advances in silence, till, on coming about half-way across the room, he
+gives to all present, but looking specially at the master of the house,
+the customary ‘_Es-salamu’aleykum_,’ or ‘Peace be with you,’ literally,
+‘on you.’  All this while everyone else in the room has kept his place,
+motionless, and without saying a word.  But on receiving the salaam of
+etiquette, the master of the house rises, and if a strict Wahabee, or at
+any rate desirous of seeming such, replies with the full-length
+traditionary formula ‘And with (or, on) you be peace, and the mercy of
+God, and his blessings.’  But should he happen to be of anti-Wahabee
+tendencies, the odds are that he will say ‘Marhaba,’ or ‘Ahlan w’sahlan,’
+_i.e._, ‘welcome,’ or ‘worthy and pleasurable,’ or the like; for of such
+phrases there is an infinite but elegant variety.  All present follow the
+example thus given by rising and saluting.  The guest then goes up to the
+master of the house, who has also made a step or two forward, and places
+his open hand in the palm of his host’s, but without grasping or shaking,
+which would hardly pass as decorous, and, at the same time each repeats
+once more his greeting, followed by the set phrases of polite inquiry,
+‘How are you?’  ‘How goes the world with you?’ and so forth, all in a
+tone of great interest, and to be gone over three or four times, till one
+or other has the discretion to say ‘El hamdu Pillah,’ ‘Praise be to God,’
+or, in equivalent value, ‘all right,’ and this is a signal for a
+seasonable diversion to the ceremonious interrogatory.
+
+“Meantime we have become engaged in active conversation with our host and
+his friends.  But our Sherarat guide, Suleyman, like a true Bedouin,
+feels too awkward when among townsfolk to venture on the upper places,
+though repeatedly invited, and accordingly has squatted down on the sand
+near the entrance.  Many of Ghafil’s relations are present; their
+silver-decorated swords proclaim the importance of the family.  Others,
+too, have come to receive us, for our arrival, announced beforehand by
+those we had met at the entrance pass, is a sort of event in the town;
+the dress of some betokens poverty, others are better clad, but all have
+a very polite and decorous manner.  Many a question is asked about our
+native land and town, that is to say, Syria and Damascus, conformably to
+the disguise already adopted, and which it was highly important to keep
+well up; then follow inquiries regarding our journey, our business, what
+we have brought with us, about our medicines, our goods and wares, etc.
+From the very first it is easy for us to perceive that patients and
+purchasers are likely to abound.  Very few travelling merchants, if any,
+visit the Djowf at this time of year, for one must be mad, or next door
+to it, to rush into the vast desert around during the heats of June and
+July; I for one have certainly no intention of doing it again.  Hence we
+had small danger of competitors, and found the market almost at our
+absolute disposal.
+
+“But before a quarter of an hour has passed, and while blacky is still
+roasting or pounding his coffee, a tall, thin lad, Ghafil’s eldest son,
+appears, charged with a large circular dish, grass-platted like the rest,
+and throws it with a graceful jerk on the sandy floor close before us.
+He then produces a large wooden bowlful of dates, bearing in the midst of
+the heap a cupful of melted butter; all this he places on the circular
+mat, and says, ‘Semmoo,’ literally, ‘pronounce the Name,’ of God,
+understood; this means ‘set to work at it.’  Hereon the master of the
+house quits his place by the fireside and seats himself on the sand
+opposite to us; we draw nearer to the dish, and four or five others,
+after some respectful coyness, join the circle.  Everyone then picks out
+a date or two from the juicy, half-amalgamated mass, dips them into the
+butter, and thus goes on eating till he has had enough, when he rises and
+washes his hands.”
+
+“I will take the opportunity of leading my readers over the whole of the
+Djowf, as a general view will help better to understand what follows in
+the narrative, besides offering much that will be in part new, I should
+fancy, to the greater number.
+
+“This province is a sort of oasis, a large oval depression of sixty or
+seventy miles long, by ten or twelve broad, lying between the northern
+desert that separates it from Syria and the Euphrates, and the southern
+Nefood, or sandy waste, and interposed between it and the nearest
+mountains of the central Arabian plateau.  However, from its comparative
+proximity to the latter, no less than from the character of its climate
+and productions, it belongs hardly so much to Northern as to Central
+Arabia, of which it is a kind of porch or vestibule.  If an equilateral
+triangle were to be drawn, having its base from Damascus to Bagdad, the
+vertex would find itself pretty exactly as the Djowf, which is thus at a
+nearly equal distance, southeast and southwest, from the two localities
+just mentioned, while the same cross-line, if continued, will give at
+about the same intervals of space in the opposite direction, Medina on
+the one hand, and Zulphah, the great commercial door of Eastern Nedjed,
+on the other.  Djebel Shomer lies almost due south, and much nearer than
+any other of the places above specified.  Partly to this central
+position, and partly to its own excavated form, the province owes its
+appropriate name of Djowf, or ‘belly.’
+
+“The principal, or rather the only, town of the district, all the rest
+being mere hamlets, bears the name of the entire region.  It is composed
+of eight villages, once distinct, but which have in process of time
+coalesced into one, and exchanged their separate existence and name for
+that of Sook, or ‘quarter,’ of the common borough.  Of these Sooks, the
+principal is that belonging to the family Haboob, and in which we were
+now lodged.  It includes the central castle already mentioned, and
+numbers about four hundred houses.  The other quarters, some larger,
+others smaller, stretch up and down the valley, but are connected
+together by their extensive gardens.  The entire length of the town thus
+formed, with the cultivation immediately annexed, is full four miles, but
+the average breadth does not exceed half a mile, and sometimes falls
+short of it.
+
+“The size of the domiciles varies with the condition of their occupants,
+and the poor are contented with narrow lodgings, though always separate;
+for I doubt if throughout the whole of Arabia two families, however
+needy, inhabit the same dwelling.  Ghafil’s abode, already described, may
+give a fair idea of the better kind; in such we have an outer court, for
+unlading camels and the like, an inner court, a large reception-room, and
+several other smaller apartments, to which entrance is given by a private
+door, and where the family itself is lodged.
+
+“But another and a very characteristic feature of domestic architecture
+is the frequent addition, throughout the Djowf, of a round tower, from
+thirty to forty feet in height and twelve or more in breadth, with a
+narrow entrance and loop-holes above.  This construction is sometimes
+contiguous to the dwelling-place, and sometimes isolated in a neighboring
+garden belonging to the same master.  These towers once answered exactly
+the same purposes as the ‘torri,’ well known to travellers in many cities
+of Italy, at Bologna, Siena, Rome, and elsewhere, and denoted a somewhat
+analogous state of society to what formerly prevailed there.  Hither, in
+time of the ever-recurring feuds between rival chiefs and factions, the
+leaders and their partisans used to retire for refuge and defence, and
+hence they would make their sallies to burn and destroy.  These towers,
+like all the modern edifices of the Djowf, are of unbaked bricks; their
+great thickness and solidity of make, along with the extreme tenacity of
+the soil, joined to a very dry climate, renders the material a rival
+almost of stone-work in strength and endurance.  Since the final
+occupation of this region by the forces of Telal, all these towers have,
+without exception, been rendered unfit for defence, and some are even
+half-ruined.  Here again the phenomena of Europe have repeated themselves
+in Arabia.
+
+“The houses are not unfrequently isolated each from the other by their
+gardens and plantations; and this is especially the case with the
+dwellings of chiefs and their families.  What has just been said about
+the towers renders the reasons of this isolation sufficiently obvious.
+But the dwellings of the commoner sort are generally clustered together,
+though without symmetry or method.
+
+“The gardens of the Djowf are much celebrated in this part of the East,
+and justly so.  They are of a productiveness and variety superior to
+those of Djebel Shomer or of upper Nedjed, and far beyond whatever the
+Hedjaz and its neighborhood can offer.  Here, for the first time in our
+southward course, we found the date-palm a main object of cultivation;
+and if its produce be inferior to that of the same tree in Nedjed and
+Hasa, it is far, very far, above whatever Egypt, Africa, or the valley of
+the Tigris from Bagdad to Bassora can show.  However, the palm is by no
+means alone here.  The apricot and the peach, the fig-tree and the vine,
+abound throughout these orchards, and their fruit surpasses in
+copiousness and flavor that supplied by the gardens of Damascus or the
+hills of Syria and Palestine.  In the intervals between the trees or in
+the fields beyond, corn, leguminous plants, gourds, melons, etc., etc.,
+are widely cultivated.  Here, too, for the last time, the traveller bound
+for the interior sees the irrigation indispensable to all growth and
+tillage in this droughty climate kept up by running streams of clear
+water, whereas in the Nedjed and its neighborhood it has to be
+laboriously procured from wells and cisterns.
+
+“Besides the Djowf itself, or capital, there exist several other villages
+belonging to the same homonymous province, and all subject to the same
+central governor.  Of these the largest is Sekakah; it lies at about
+twelve miles distant to the northeast, and though inferior to the
+principal town in importance and fertility of soil, almost equals it in
+the number of its inhabitants.  I should reckon the united population of
+these two localities—men, women, and children—at about thirty-three or
+thirty-four thousand souls.  This calculation, like many others before us
+in the course of the work, rests partly on an approximate survey of the
+number of dwellings, partly on the military muster, and partly on what I
+heard on the subject from the natives themselves.  A census is here
+unknown, and no register records birth, marriage, or death.  Yet, by aid
+of the war list, which generally represents about one-tenth of the entire
+population, a fair though not absolute idea may be obtained on this
+point.
+
+“Lastly, around and at no great distance from these main centres, are
+several small villages or hamlets, eight or ten in number, as I was told,
+and containing each of them from twenty to fifty or sixty houses.  But I
+had neither time nor opportunity to visit each separately.  They cluster
+round lesser water springs, and offer in miniature features much
+resembling those of the capital.  The entire population of the province
+cannot exceed forty or forty-two thousand, but it is a brave one, and
+very liberally provided with the physical endowments of which it has been
+acutely said that they are seldom despised save by those who do not
+themselves possess them.  Tall, well-proportioned, of a tolerably fair
+complexion, set off by long curling locks of jet-black hair, with
+features for the most part regular and intelligent, and a dignified
+carriage, the Djowfites are eminently good specimens of what may be
+called the pure northern or Ishmaelitish Arab type, and in all these
+respects they yield the palm to the inhabitants of Djebel Shomer alone.
+Their large-developed forms and open countenance contrast strongly with
+the somewhat dwarfish stature and suspicious under-glance of the Bedouin.
+They are, besides, a very healthy people, and keep up their strength and
+activity even to an advanced age.  It is no uncommon occurrence here, to
+see an old man of seventy set out full-armed among a band of youths;
+though, by the way, such “green old age” is often to be met with also in
+the central province farther south, as I have had frequent opportunity of
+witnessing.  The climate, too, is good and dry, and habits of out-door
+life contribute not a little to the maintenance of health and vigor.
+
+“In manners, as in locality, the worthies of Djowf occupy a sort of
+half-way position between Bedouins and the inhabitants of the cultivated
+districts.  Thus they partake largely in the nomad’s aversion to
+mechanical occupations, in his indifference to literary acquirements, in
+his aimless fickleness too, and even in his treacherous ways.  I have
+said, in the preceding chapter, that while we were yet threading the
+narrow gorge near the first entrance of the valley, several horsemen
+appeared on the upper margin of the pass, and one of them questioned our
+guide, and then, after a short consultation with his companions, called
+out to us to go on and fear nothing.  Now, the name of this individual
+was Suliman-ebn-Dahir, a very adventurous and fairly intelligent young
+fellow, with whom next-door neighborhood and frequent intercourse
+rendered us intimate during our stay at the Djowf.  One day, while we
+were engaged in friendly conversation, he said, half laughing, ‘Do you
+know what we were consulting about while you were in the pass below on
+the morning of your arrival?  It was whether we should make you a good
+reception, and thus procure ourselves the advantage of having you
+residents among us, or whether we should not do better to kill you all
+three, and take our gain from the booty to be found in your baggage.’  I
+replied with equal coolness, ‘It might have proved an awkward affair for
+yourself and your friends, since Hamood your governor could hardly have
+failed to get wind of the matter, and would have taken it out of you.’
+‘Pooh!’ replied our friend, ‘never a bit; as if a present out of the
+plunder would not have tied Hamood’s tongue.’  ‘Bedouins that you are,’
+said I, laughing.  ‘Of course we are,’ answered Suliman, ‘for such we all
+were till quite lately, and the present system is too recent to have much
+changed us.’  However, he admitted that they all had, on second thoughts,
+congratulated themselves on not having preferred bloodshed to
+hospitality, though perhaps the better resolution was rather owing to
+interested than to moral motives.
+
+“The most distinctive good feature of the inhabitants of Djowf is their
+liberality.  Nowhere else, even in Arabia, is the guest, so at least he
+be not murdered before admittance, better treated, or more cordially
+invited to become in every way one of themselves.  Courage, too, no one
+denies them, and they are equally lavish of their own lives and property
+as of their neighbors’.
+
+“Let us now resume the narrative.  On the morning after our arrival—it
+was now the 1st of July—Ghafil caused a small house in the neighborhood,
+belonging to one of his dependents, to be put at our entire disposal,
+according to our previous request.  This, our new abode, consisted of a
+small court with two rooms, one on each side, for warehouse and
+habitation, the whole being surrounded with an outer wall, whose door was
+closed by lock and bolt.  Of a kitchen-room there was small need, so
+constant and hospitable are the invitations of the good folks here to
+strangers; and if our house was not over capacious, it afforded at least
+what we most desired, namely, seclusion and privacy at will; it was,
+moreover, at our host’s cost, rent and reparations.
+
+“Hither, accordingly, we transferred baggage and chattels, and arranged
+everything as comfortably as we best could.  And as we had already
+concluded, from the style and conversation of those around us, that their
+state of society was hardly far enough advanced to offer a sufficiently
+good prospect for medical art, whose exercise, to be generally
+advantageous, requires a certain amount of culture and aptitude in the
+patient, no less than of skill in the physician, we resolved to make
+commerce our main affair here, trusting that by so doing we should gain a
+second advantage, that of lightening our more bulky goods, such as coffee
+and cloth, whose transport had already annoyed us not a little.
+
+“But in fact we were not more desirous to sell than the men, women, and
+children of the Djowf were to buy.  From the very outset our little
+courtyard was crowded with customers, and the most amusing scenes of Arab
+haggling, in all its mixed shrewdness and simplicity, diverted us through
+the week.  Handkerchief after handkerchief, yard after yard of cloth,
+beads for the women, knives, combs, looking-glasses, and what not? (for
+our stock was a thorough miscellany) were soon sold off, some for ready
+money, others on credit; and it is but justice to say that all debts so
+contracted were soon paid in very honestly; Oxford High Street tradesmen,
+at least in former times, were not always equally fortunate.
+
+“Meanwhile we had the very best opportunity of becoming acquainted with
+and appreciating all classes, nay, almost all individuals, of the place.
+Peasants, too, from various hamlets arrived, led by rumor, whose trumpet,
+prone to exaggerate under every sky, had proclaimed us throughout the
+valley of Djowf for much more important characters, and possessed of a
+much larger stock in hand, than was really the case.  All crowded in, and
+before long there were more customers than wares assembled in the
+storeroom.
+
+“Our manner of passing the time was as follows: We used to rise at early
+dawn, lock up the house, and go out in the pure cool air of the morning
+to some quiet spot among the neighboring palm-groves, or scale the wall
+of some garden, or pass right on through the by-lanes to where
+cultivation merges in the adjoining sands of the valley; in short, to any
+convenient place where we might hope to pass an hour of quiet,
+undisturbed by Arab sociability, and have leisure to plan our work for
+the day.  We would then return home about sunrise, and find outside the
+door some tall lad sent by his father, generally one of the wealthier and
+more influential inhabitants of the quarter yet unvisited by us, waiting
+our return, to invite us to an early breakfast.  We would now accompany
+our Mercury to his domicile, where a hearty reception, and some neighbors
+collected for the occasion, or attracted by a cup of good coffee, were
+sure to be in attendance.  Here an hour or so would wear away, and some
+medical or mercantile transaction be sketched out.  We, of course, would
+bring the conversation, whenever it was possible, on local topics,
+according as those present seemed likely to afford us exact knowledge and
+insight into the real state and circumstances of the land.  We would then
+return to our own quarters, where a crowd of customers, awaiting us,
+would allow us neither rest nor pause till noon.  Then a short interval
+for date or pumpkin eating in some neighbor’s house would occur, and
+after that business be again resumed for three or four hours.  A walk
+among the gardens, rarely alone, more often in company with friends and
+acquaintances, would follow; and meanwhile an invitation to supper
+somewhere had unfailingly been given and accepted.”
+
+“After supper all rise, wash their hands, and then go out into the open
+air to sit and smoke a quiet pipe under the still transparent sky of the
+summer evening.  Neither mist nor vapor, much less a cloud, appears; the
+moon dips down in silvery whiteness to the very verge of the palm-tree
+tops, and the last rays of daylight are almost as sharp and clear as the
+dawn itself.  Chat and society continue for an hour or two, and then
+everyone goes home, most to sleep, I fancy, for few Penseroso lamps are
+here to be seen at midnight hour, nor does the spirit of Plato stand much
+risk of unsphering from the nocturnal studies of the Djowf; we, to write
+our journal, or to compare observations and estimate characters.
+
+“Sometimes a comfortable landed proprietor would invite us to pass an
+extemporary holiday morning in his garden, or rather orchard, there to
+eat grapes and enjoy ourselves at will, seated under clustering
+vine-trellises, with palm-trees above and running streams around.  How
+pleasant it was after the desert!  At other times visits of patients,
+prescriptions, and similar duties would take up a part of the day; or
+some young fellow, particularly desirous of information about Syria or
+Egypt, or perhaps curious after history and moral science, would hold us
+for a couple of hours in serious and sensible talk, at any rate to our
+advantage.”
+
+It was necessary that the travellers should not delay in paying their
+official visit to Hamood, the vice-gerent of Telal.  His residence is in
+the centre of the garden region, near a solitary round tower, whose
+massive stone walls are mentioned in Arabian poetry.  Hamood’s residence
+is an irregular structure, of more recent date, with no distinguishing
+feature except a tower about fifty feet in height.  Palgrave and his
+companion were accompanied by a large number of their newly-found
+friends.  After passing through an outer court, filled with armed guards,
+they found the ruler seated in his large reception-hall:
+
+“There, in the place of distinction, which he never yields to any
+individual of Djowf, whatever be his birth or wealth, appeared the
+governor, a strong, broad-shouldered, dark-browed, dark-eyed man, clad in
+the long white shirt of the country, and over it a handsome black cloak,
+embroidered with crimson silk; on his august head a silken handkerchief
+or _keffee’yeh_, girt by a white band of finely woven camel’s hair; and
+in his fingers a grass fan.  He rose graciously on our approach, extended
+to us the palm of his hand, and made us sit down near his side, keeping,
+however, Ghafil, as an old acquaintance, between himself and us, perhaps
+as a precautionary arrangement against any sudden assault or treasonable
+intention on our part, for an Arab, be he who he may, is never off his
+guard when new faces are in presence.  In other respects he showed us
+much courtesy and good-will, made many civil inquiries about our health
+after so fatiguing a journey, praised Damascus and the Damascenes, by way
+of an indirect compliment, and offered us a lodging in the castle.  But
+here Ghafil availed himself of the privileges conceded by Arab custom to
+priority of host-ship to put in his negative on our behalf; nor were we
+anxious to press the matter.  A pound or so of our choicest coffee, with
+which we on this occasion presented his excellency, both as a mute
+witness to the object of our journey, and the better to secure his
+good-will, was accepted very readily by the great man, who in due return
+offered us his best services.  We replied that we stood in need of
+nothing save his long life, this being the Arab formula for rejoinder to
+such fair speeches; and, next in order, of means to get safe on to Ha’yel
+so soon as our business at the Djowf should permit, being desirous to
+establish ourselves under the immediate patronage of Telal.  In this he
+promised to aid us, and kept his word.”
+
+Hamood afterward politely returned their visit, and they frequently went
+to his castle for the purpose of studying the many interesting scenes
+presented by the exercise of the very primitive Arab system of justice.
+Palgrave gives the following case as a specimen:
+
+“One day my comrade and myself were on a visit of mere politeness at the
+castle; the customary ceremonies had been gone through, and business, at
+first interrupted by our entrance, had resumed its course.  A Bedouin of
+the Ma’az tribe was pleading his cause before Hamood, and accusing
+someone of having forcibly taken away his camel.  The governor was seated
+with an air of intense gravity in his corner, half leaning on a cushion,
+while the Bedouin, cross-legged on the ground before him, and within six
+feet of his person, flourished in his hand a large reaping-hook,
+identically that which is here used for cutting grass.  Energetically
+gesticulating with this graceful implement, he thus challenged his
+judge’s attention: ‘You, Hamood, do you hear?’ (stretching out at the
+same time the hook toward the governor, so as almost to reach his body,
+as though he meant to rip him open); ‘he has taken from me my camel; have
+you called God to mind?’ (again putting his weapon close to the
+unflinching magistrate).  ‘The camel is my camel; do you hear?’ (with
+another reminder from the reaping-hook); ‘he is mine, by God’s award, and
+yours too; do you hear, child?’ and so on, while Hamood sat without
+moving a muscle of face or limb, imperturbable and impassible till some
+one of the counsellors quieted the plaintiff with ‘Remember God, child;
+it is of no consequence, you shall not be wronged.’  Then the judge
+called on the witnesses, men of the Djowf, to say their say, and on their
+confirmation of the Bedouin’s statement, gave orders to two of his
+satellites to search for and bring before him the accused party; while he
+added to the Ma’azee, ‘All right, daddy, you shall have your own; put
+your confidence in God,’ and composedly motioned him back to his place.
+
+“A fortnight and more went by, and found us still in the Djowf, ‘honored
+guests’ in Arab phrase, and well rested from the bygone fatigues of the
+desert.  Ghafil’s dwelling was still, so to speak, our official home; but
+there were two other houses where we were still more at our ease; that of
+Dafee, the same who along with Ghafil came to meet us on our first
+arrival; and that of Salim, a respectable and, in his way, a literary old
+man, our near neighbor, and surrounded by a large family of fine
+strapping youths, all of them brought up more or less in the fear of
+Allah and in good example.  Hither we used to retire when wearied of
+Ghafil and his like, and pass a quiet hour in their k’hawah, reciting or
+hearing Arab poetry, talking over the condition of the country and its
+future prospects, discussing points of morality, or commenting on the
+ways and fashions of the day.”
+
+The important question for the travellers was how they should get to
+Djebel Shomer, the great fertile oasis to the south, under the rule of
+the famous Prince Telal.  The terrible _Nefood_, or sand-passes, which
+the Arabs themselves look upon with dread, must be crossed, and it was
+now the middle of summer.  The hospitable people of the Djowf begged
+Palgrave and his friends to remain until September, and they probably
+would have been delayed for some time but for a lucky chance.  The Azzam
+tribe of Bedouins, which had been attacked by Prince Telal, submitted,
+and a dozen of their chiefs arrived at the Djowf, on their way to Djebel
+Shomer, where they purposed to win Telal’s good graces by tendering him
+their allegiance in his very capital.  Hamood received them and lodged
+them for several days, while they rested from their past fatigues, and
+prepared themselves for what yet lay before them.  Some inhabitants of
+the Djowf, whose business required their presence at Ha’yel, were to join
+the party.  “Hamood sent for us,” Palgrave continues, “and gave us notice
+of this expedition, and on our declaring that we desired to profit by it,
+he handed us a scrap of paper, addressed to Telal himself, wherein he
+certified that we had duly paid the entrance fee exacted from strangers
+on their coming within the limits of Shomer rule, and that we were indeed
+respectable individuals, worthy of all good treatment.  We then, in
+presence of Hamood, struck our bargain with one of the band for a couple
+of camels, whose price, including all the services of their master as
+guide and companion for ten days of July travelling, was not extravagant
+either; it came up to just a hundred and ten piastres, equivalent to
+eighteen or nineteen shillings of English money.
+
+“Many delays occurred, and it was not till the 18th of July, when the
+figs were fully ripe—a circumstance which furnished the natives of Djowf
+with new cause of wonder at our rushing away, in lieu of waiting like
+rational beings to enjoy the good things of the land—that we received our
+final ‘Son of Hodeirah, depart.’  This was intimated to us, not by a
+locust, but by a creature almost as queer, namely, our new conductor, a
+half-cracked Arab, neither peasant nor Bedouin, but something anomalous
+between the two, hight Djedey’, and a native of the outskirts of Djebel
+Shomer, who darkened our door in the forenoon, and warned us to make our
+final packing up, and get ready for starting the same day.
+
+“When once clear of the houses and gardens, Djedey’ led us by a road
+skirting the southern side of the valley, till we arrived, before sunset,
+at the other, or eastern, extremity of the town.  Here was the rendezvous
+agreed on by our companions; but they did not appear, and reason good,
+for they had right to a supper more under Hamood’s roof, and were loath
+to lose it.  So we halted and alighted alone.  The chief of this quarter,
+which is above two miles distant from the castle, invited us to supper,
+and thence we returned to our baggage, there to sleep.  To pass a
+summer’s night in the open air on a soft sand bed implies no great
+privation in these countries, nor is anyone looked on as a hero for so
+doing.
+
+“Early next morning, while Venus yet shone like a drop of melted silver
+on the slaty blue, three of our party arrived and announced that the rest
+of our companions would soon come up.  Encouraged by the news, we
+determined to march on without further tarrying, and ere sunrise we
+climbed the steep ascent of the southerly bank, whence we had a
+magnificent view of the whole length of the Djowf, its castle and towers,
+and groves and gardens, in the ruddy light of morning, and beyond the
+drear northern deserts stretching far away.  We then dipped down the
+other side of the bordering hill, not again to see the Djowf till—who
+knows when?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—CROSSING THE NEFOOD.
+
+“OUR way was now to the southeast, across a large plain varied with
+sand-mounds and covered with the ghada-bush, already described, so that
+our camels were much more inclined to crop pasture than to do their
+business in journeying ahead.  About noon we halted near a large tuft of
+this shrub, at least ten feet high.  We constructed a sort of cabin with
+boughs broken off the neighboring plants and suitably arranged shedwise,
+and thus passed the noon hours of intolerable heat till the whole band
+came in sight.
+
+“They were barbarous, nay, almost savage, fellows, like most Sherarat,
+whether chiefs or people; but they had been somewhat awed by the
+grandeurs of Hamood, and yet more so by the prospect of coming so soon
+before the terrible majesty of Telal himself.  All were duly armed, and
+had put on their best suits of apparel, an equipment worthy of a
+scarecrow or of an Irishman at a wake.  Tattered red overalls; cloaks
+with more patches than original substance, or, worse yet, which opened
+large mouths to cry for patching, but had not got it; little broken
+tobacco pipes, and no trousers soever (by the way, all genuine Arabs are
+_sans-culottes_); faces meagre with habitual hunger, and black with dirt
+and weather stains—such were the high-born chiefs of Azzam, on their way
+to the king’s levee.  Along with them were two Bedouins of the Shomer
+tribe, a degree better in guise and person than the Sherarat; and lastly,
+three men of Djowf, who looked almost like gentlemen among such
+ragamuffins.  As to my comrade and myself, I trust that the reader will
+charitably suppose us the exquisites of the party.  So we rode on
+together.
+
+“Next morning, a little after sunrise, we arrived at a white calcareous
+valley, girt round with low hills of marl and sand.  Here was the famous
+Be’er Shekeek, or ‘well of Shekeek,’ whence we were to fill our
+water-skins, and that thoroughly, since no other source lay before us for
+four days’ march amid the sand passes, up to the very verge of Djebel
+Shomer.
+
+“Daughters of the Great Desert, to use an Arab phrase, the ‘Nefood,’ or
+sand-passes, bear but too strong a family resemblance to their unamiable
+mother.  What has been said elsewhere about their origin, their extent,
+their bearings, and their connection with the Dhana, or main sand-waste
+of the south, may exempt me from here entering on a minute enarration of
+all their geographical details; let it suffice for the present that they
+are offshoots—inlets, one might not unsuitably call them—of the great
+ocean of sand that covers about one-third of the peninsula, into whose
+central and comparatively fertile plateau they make deep inroads, nay, in
+some places almost intersect it.  Their general character, of which the
+following pages will, I trust, give a tolerably correct idea, is also
+that of Dahna, or ‘red desert,’ itself.  The Arabs, always prone to
+localize rather than generalize, count these sand-streams by scores, but
+they may all be referred to four principal courses, and he who would
+traverse the centre must necessarily cross two of them, perhaps even
+three, as we did.
+
+                  [Picture: Captain Burton as a Pilgrim]
+
+“The general type of Arabia is that of a central table-land, surrounded
+by a desert ring, sandy to the south, west, and east, and stony to the
+north.  This outlying circle is in its turn girt by a line of mountains,
+low and sterile for the most, but attaining in Yemen and Oman
+considerable height, breadth, and fertility, while beyond these a narrow
+rim of coast is bordered by the sea.  The surface of the midmost
+table-land equals somewhat less than one-half of the entire peninsula,
+and its special demarcations are much affected, nay, often absolutely
+fixed, by the windings and in-runnings of the Nefood.  If to these
+central highlands, or Nedjed, taking that word in its wider sense, we add
+the Djowf, the Ta’yif, Djebel ’Aaseer, Yemen, Oman, and Hasa, in short,
+whatever spots of fertility belong to the outer circles, we shall find
+that Arabia contains about two-thirds of cultivated, or at least of
+cultivable, land, with a remaining third of irreclaimable desert, chiefly
+to the south.  In most other directions the great blank spaces often left
+in maps of this country are quite as frequently indications of
+non-information as of real non-inhabitation.  However, we have just now a
+strip, though fortunately only a strip, of pure, unmitigated desert
+before us, after which better lands await us; and in this hope let us
+take courage and boldly enter the Nefood.
+
+“Much had we heard of them from Bedouins and countrymen, so that we had
+made up our minds to something very terrible and very impracticable.  But
+the reality, especially in these dog days, proved worse than aught heard
+or imagined.
+
+“We were now traversing an immense ocean of loose reddish sand, unlimited
+to the eye, and heaped up in enormous ridges, running parallel to each
+other from north to south, undulation after undulation, each swell two or
+three hundred feet in average height, with slant sides and rounded crests
+furrowed in every direction by the capricious gales of the desert.  In
+the depths between the traveller finds himself as it were imprisoned in a
+suffocating sand-pit, hemmed in by burning walls on every side; while at
+other times, while laboring up the slope, he overlooks what seems a vast
+sea of fire, swelling under a heavy monsoon wind, and ruffled by a cross
+blast into little red-hot waves.”
+
+Palgrave devotes several pages to his journey across the Nefood, bearing
+out in his general description its character, as above.
+
+Lady Anne Blunt, who with her husband and native followers crossed the
+Nefood sixteen years later, however, takes issue with Mr. Palgrave as to
+its character, as will be found in Chapter XVII., largely devoted to her
+travels in Arabia.
+
+Arriving at the eastern edge of the Nefood Palgrave continues:
+
+“The morning broke on us still toiling amid the sands.  By daylight we
+saw our straggling companions like black specks here and there, one far
+ahead on a yet vigorous dromedary, another in the rear dismounted, and
+urging his fallen beast to rise by plunging a knife a good inch deep into
+its haunches, a third lagging in the extreme distance.  Everyone for
+himself and God for us all!—so we quickened our pace, looking anxiously
+before us for the hills of Djobbah, which could not now be distant.  At
+noon we came in sight of them all at once, close on our right, wild and
+fantastic cliffs, rising sheer on the margin of the sand sea.  We coasted
+them awhile, till at a turn the whole plain of Djobbah and its landscape
+opened on our view.
+
+“Here we had before us a cluster of black granite rock, streaked with
+red, and about seven hundred feet, at a rough guess, in height; beyond
+them a large barren plain, partly white and encrusted with salt, partly
+green with tillage, and studded with palm-groves, amongst which we could
+discern, not far off, the village of Djobbah, much resembling that of
+Djowf in arrangement and general appearance, only smaller, and without
+castle or tower.  Beyond the valley glistened a second line of
+sand-hills, but less wild and desolate-looking than those behind us, and
+far in the distance the main range of Djebel Shomer, a long purple sierra
+of most picturesque outline.  Had we there and then mounted, as we
+afterward did, the heights on our right, we should have also seen in the
+extreme southwest a green patch near the horizon, where cluster the palm
+plantations of Teymah, a place famed in Arab history, and by some
+supposed identical with the Teman of Holy Writ.
+
+“But for the moment a drop of fresh water and a shelter from the July sun
+was much more in our thoughts than all the Teymahs or Temans that ever
+existed.  My camel, too, was—not at the end of his wits, for he never had
+any—but of his legs, and hardly capable of advance, while I was myself
+too tired to urge him on vigorously, and we took a fair hour to cross a
+narrow white strip of mingled salt and sand that yet intervened between
+us and the village.
+
+“Without its garden walls was pitched the very identical tent of our
+noble guide, and here his wife and family were anxiously awaiting their
+lord.  Djedey’ invited us—indeed he could not conformably with Shomer
+customs do less—to partake of his board and lodging, and we had no better
+course than to accept of both.  So we let our camels fling themselves out
+like dead or dying alongside of the tabernacle, and entered to drink
+water mixed with sour milk.”  Here the caravan rested for a day.
+
+“About sunrise on the 25th of July we left Djobbah, crossed the valley to
+the southeast, and entered once more on a sandy desert, but a desert, as
+I have before hinted, of a milder and less inhospitable character than
+the dreary Nefood of two days back.  Here the sand is thickly sprinkled
+with shrubs and not altogether devoid of herbs and grass; while the
+undulations of the surface, running invariably from north to south,
+according to the general rule of that phenomenon, are much less deeply
+traced, though never wholly absent.  We paced on all day; at nightfall we
+found ourselves on the edge of a vast funnel-like depression, where the
+sand recedes on all sides to leave bare the chalky bottom-strata below;
+here lights glimmering amid Bedouin tents in the depths of the valley
+invited us to try our chance of a preliminary supper before the repose of
+the night.  We had, however, much ado to descend the cavity, so steep was
+the sandy slope; while its circular form and spiral marking reminded me
+of Edgar Poe’s imaginative ‘Maelstrom.’  The Arabs to whom the
+watch-fires belonged were shepherds of the numerous Shomer tribe, whence
+the district, plain and mountain, takes its name.  They welcomed us to a
+share of their supper; and a good dish of rice, instead of insipid samh
+or pasty, augured a certain approach to civilization.
+
+“At break of day we resumed our march, and met with camels and
+camel-drivers in abundance, besides a few sheep and goats.  Before noon
+we had got clear of the sandy patch, and entered in its stead on a firm
+gravelly soil.  Here we enjoyed an hour of midday halt and shade in a
+natural cavern, hollowed out in a high granite rock, itself an advanced
+guard of the main body of Djebel Shomer.  This mountain range now rose
+before us, wholly unlike any other that I had ever seen; a huge mass of
+crag and stone, piled up in fantastic disorder, with green valleys and
+habitations intervening.  The sun had not yet set when we reached the
+pretty village of Kenah, amid groves and waters—no more, however, running
+streams like those of Djowf, but an artificial irrigation by means of
+wells and buckets.  At some distance from the houses stood a cluster of
+three or four large overshadowing trees, objects of peasant veneration
+here, as once in Palestine.  The welcome of the inhabitants, when we
+dismounted at their doors, was hearty and hospitable, nay, even polite
+and considerate; and a good meal, with a dish of fresh grapes for
+dessert, was soon set before us in the veranda of a pleasant little
+house, much reminding me of an English farm-cottage, whither the good man
+of the dwelling had invited us for the evening.  All expressed great
+desire to profit by our medical skill; and on our reply that we could not
+conveniently open shop except at the capital, Ha’yel, several announced
+their resolution to visit us there; and subsequently kept their word,
+though at the cost of about twenty-four miles of journey.
+
+“We rose very early.  Our path, well tracked and trodden, now lay between
+ridges of precipitous rock, rising abruptly from a level and grassy
+plain; sometimes the road was sunk in deep gorges, sometimes it opened
+out on wider spaces, where trees and villages appeared, while the number
+of wayfarers, on foot or mounted, single or in bands, still increased as
+we drew nearer to the capital.  There was an air of newness and security
+about the dwellings and plantations hardly to be found nowadays in any
+other part of Arabia, Oman alone excepted.  I may add also the great
+frequency of young trees and ground newly enclosed, a cheerful sight, yet
+further enhanced by the total absence of ruins, so common in the East;
+hence the general effect produced by Djebel Shomer, when contrasted with
+most other provinces or kingdoms around, near and far, is that of a newly
+coined piece, in all its sharpness and shine, amid a dingy heap of
+defaced currency.  It is a fresh creation, and shows what Arabia might be
+under better rule than it enjoys for the most part: an inference rendered
+the more conclusive by the fact that in natural and unaided fertility
+Djebel Shomer is perhaps the least favored district in the entire central
+peninsula.
+
+“We were here close under the backbone of Djebel Shomer, whose reddish
+crags rose in the strangest forms on our right and left, while a narrow
+cleft down to the plain-level below gave opening to the capital.  Very
+hard to bring an army through this against the will of the inhabitants
+thought I; fifty resolute men could, in fact, hold the pass against
+thousands; nor is there any other approach to Ha’yel from the northern
+direction.  The town is situated near the very centre of the mountains;
+it was as yet entirely concealed from our view by the windings of the
+road amid huge piles of rock.  Meanwhile from Djobbah to Ha’yel the whole
+plain gradually rises, running up between the sierras, whose course from
+northeast to southwest crosses two-thirds of the upper peninsula, and
+forms the outwork of the central high country.  Hence the name of Nedjed,
+literally ‘highland,’ in contradistinction to the coast and the outlying
+provinces of lesser elevation.
+
+“The sun was yet two hours’ distance above the western horizon, when we
+threaded the narrow and winding defile, till we arrived at its farther
+end.  Here we found ourselves on the verge of a large plain, many miles
+in length and breadth, and girt on every side by a high mountain rampart,
+while right in front of us, at scarce a quarter of an hour’s march, lay
+the town of Ha’yel, surrounded by fortifications of about twenty feet in
+height, with bastion towers, some round, some square, and large folding
+gates at intervals; it offered the same show of freshness, and even of
+something like irregular elegance, that had before struck us in the
+villages on our way.  This, however, was a full-grown town, and its area
+might readily hold three hundred thousand inhabitants or more, were its
+streets and houses close packed like those of Brussels or Paris.  But the
+number of citizens does not, in fact, exceed twenty or twenty-two
+thousand, thanks to the many large gardens, open spaces, and even
+plantations, included within the outer walls, while the immense palace of
+the monarch alone, with its pleasure-grounds annexed, occupies about
+one-tenth of the entire city.  Our attention was attracted by a lofty
+tower, some seventy feet in height, of recent construction and oval form,
+belonging to the royal residence.  The plain all around the town is
+studded with isolated houses and gardens, the property of wealthy
+citizens, or of members of the kingly family, and on the far-off skirts
+of the plain appear the groves belonging to Kafar, ’Adwah, and other
+villages, placed at the openings of the mountain gorges that conduct to
+the capital.  The town walls and buildings shone yellow in the evening
+sun, and the whole prospect was one of thriving security, delightful to
+view, though wanting in the peculiar luxuriance of vegetation offered by
+the valley of Djowf.  A few Bedouin tents lay clustered close by the
+ramparts, and the great number of horsemen, footmen, camels, asses,
+peasants, townsmen, boys, women, and other like, all passing to and fro
+on their various avocations, gave cheerfulness and animation to the
+scene.
+
+“We crossed the plain and made for the town gate, opposite the castle;
+next, with no little difficulty, prevailed on our camels to pace the
+high-walled street, and at last arrived at the open space in front of the
+palace.  It was yet an hour before sunset, or rather more; the business
+of the day was over in Ha’yel, and the outer courtyard where we now stood
+was crowded with loiterers of all shapes and sizes.  We made our camels
+kneel down close by the palace gate, alongside of some forty or fifty
+others, and then stepped back to repose our very weary limbs on a stone
+bench opposite the portal, and awaited what might next occur.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—LIFE IN HA’YEL.
+
+“AT our first appearance a slight stir takes place.  The customary
+salutations are given and returned by those nearest at hand; and a small
+knot of inquisitive idlers, come up to see what and whence we are, soon
+thickens into a dense circle.  Many questions are asked, first of our
+conductor, Djedey’, and next of ourselves; our answers are tolerably
+laconic.  Meanwhile a thin, middle-sized individual, whose countenance
+bears the type of smiling urbanity and precise etiquette, befitting his
+office at court, approaches us.  His neat and simple dress, the long
+silver-circled staff in his hand, his respectful salutation, his politely
+important manner, all denote him one of the palace retinue.  It is Seyf,
+the court chamberlain, whose special duty is the reception and
+presentation of strangers.  We rise to receive him, and are greeted with
+a decorous ‘Peace be with you, brothers,’ in the fulness of every
+inflection and accent that the most scrupulous grammarian could desire.
+We return an equally Priscianic salutation.  ‘Whence have you come?’ is
+the first question.  ‘May good attend you!’  Of course we declare
+ourselves physicians from Syria, for our bulkier wares had been disposed
+of in the Djowf, and we were now resolved to depend on medical practice
+alone.  ‘And what do you desire here in our town? may God grant you
+success!’ says Seyf.  ‘We desire the favor of God most high, and,
+secondly, that of Telal,’ is our answer, conforming our style to the
+correctest formulas of the country, which we had already begun to pick
+up.  Whereupon Seyf, looking very sweet the while, begins, as in duty
+bound, a little encomium on his master’s generosity and other excellent
+qualities, and assures us that we have exactly reached right quarters.
+
+“But alas! while my comrade and myself were exchanging side-glances of
+mutual felicitation at such fair beginnings, Nemesis suddenly awoke to
+claim her due, and the serenity of our horizon was at once overcast by an
+unexpected and most unwelcome cloud.  My readers are doubtless already
+aware that nothing was of higher importance for us than the most absolute
+incognito, above all in whatever regarded European origin and character.
+In fact, once known for Europeans, all intimate access and sincerity of
+intercourse with the people of the land would have been irretrievably
+lost, and our onward progress to Nedjed rendered totally impossible.
+These were the very least inconveniences that could follow such a
+detection; others much more disagreeable might also be well apprehended.
+Now thus far nothing had occurred capable of exciting serious suspicion;
+no one had recognized us, or pretended to recognize.  We, too, on our
+part, had thought that Gaza, Ma’an, and perhaps the Djowf, were the only
+localities where this kind of recognition had to be feared.  But we had
+reckoned without our host; the first real danger was reserved for Ha’yel,
+within the very limits of Nedjed, and with all the desert-belt between us
+and our old acquaintances.
+
+“For while Seyf was running through the preliminaries of his politeness,
+I saw to my horror, amid the circle of bystanders, a figure, a face well
+known to me scarce six months before in Damascus, and well known to many
+others also, now merchant, now trader, now post-contractor, shrewd,
+enterprising, and active, though nigh fifty years of age, and intimate
+with many Europeans of considerable standing in Syria and Bagdad—one, in
+short, accustomed to all kinds of men, and not to be easily imposed on by
+any.
+
+“While I involuntarily stared dismay on my friend, and yet doubted if it
+could possibly be he, all incertitude was dispelled by his cheerful
+salutation, in the confidential tone of an old acquaintance, followed by
+wondering inquiries as to what wind had blown me hither, and what I meant
+to do here in Ha’yel.
+
+“Wishing him most heartily somewhere else, I had nothing for it but to
+‘fix a vacant stare,’ to give a formal return of greeting, and then
+silence.
+
+“But misfortunes never come single.  While I was thus on my defensive
+against so dangerous an antagonist in the person of my free-and-easy
+friend, lo! a tall, sinister-featured individual comes up, clad in the
+dress of an inhabitant of Kaseem, and abruptly breaks in with, ‘And I too
+have seen him at Damascus,’ naming at the same time the place and date of
+the meeting, and specifying exactly the circumstances most calculated to
+set me down for a genuine European.
+
+“Had he really met me as he said?  I cannot precisely say; the place he
+mentioned was one whither men, half-spies, half-travellers, and whole
+intriguers from the interior districts, nay, even from Nedjed itself, not
+unfrequently resort; and, as I myself was conscious of having paid more
+than one visit there, my officious interlocutor might very possibly have
+been one of those present on some such occasion.  So that although I did
+not now recognize him in particular, there was a strong intrinsic
+probability in favor of his ill-timed veracity; and his thus coming in to
+support the first witness in his assertions rendered my predicament,
+already unsafe, yet worse.
+
+“But ere I could frame an answer or resolve what course to hold, up came
+a third, who, by overshooting the mark, put the game into our hands.  He
+too salaams me as an old friend, and then, turning to those around, now
+worked up to a most extraordinary pitch of amazed curiosity, says, ‘And I
+also know him perfectly well; I have often met him at Cairo, where he
+lives in great wealth in a large house near the Kasr-el-’Eynee; his name
+is ’Abd-es-Saleeb; he is married, and has a very beautiful daughter, who
+rides an expensive horse,’ etc.
+
+“Here at last was a pure invention or mistake (for I know not which it
+was) that admitted of a flat denial.  ‘Aslahek Allah,’ ‘May Heaven set
+you right,’ said I; ‘never did I live at Cairo, nor have I the blessing
+of any horse-riding young ladies for daughters.’  Then, looking very hard
+at my second detector, toward whom I had all the right of doubt, ‘I do
+not remember having ever seen you; think well as to what you say; many a
+man besides myself has a reddish beard and straw-colored mustaches,’
+taking pains, however, not to seem particularly ‘careful to answer him in
+this matter,’ but as if merely questioning the precise identity.  But for
+the first of the trio I knew not what to do or to reply, so I continued
+to look at him with a killing air of inquisitive stupidity, as though not
+fully understanding his meaning.
+
+“But Seyf, though himself at first somewhat staggered by this sudden
+downpour of recognition, was now reassured by the discomfiture of the
+third witness, and came to the convenient conclusion that the two others
+were no better worthy of credit.  ‘Never mind them,’ exclaimed he,
+addressing himself to us, ‘they are talkative liars, mere gossipers; let
+them alone, they do not deserve attention; come along with me to the
+k’hawah in the palace, and rest yourselves.’  Then turning to my poor
+Damascene friend, whose only wrong was to have been overmuch in the
+right, he sharply chid him, and next the rest, and led us off, most glad
+to follow the leader, through the narrow and dark portal into the royal
+residence.
+
+“Here we remained whilst coffee was, as wont, prepared and served.  Seyf,
+who had left us awhile, now came back to say that Telal would soon return
+from his afternoon walk in a garden where he had been taking the air, and
+that if we would pass into the outer court we should then and there have
+the opportunity of paying him our introductory respects.  He added that
+we should afterward find our supper ready, and be provided also with good
+lodgings for the night; finally, that the k’hawah and what it contained
+were always at our disposition so long as we should honor Ha’yel by our
+presence.
+
+“We rose accordingly and returned with Seyf to the outside area.  It was
+fuller than ever, on account of the expected appearance of the monarch.
+A few minutes later we saw a crowd approach from the upper extremity of
+the place, namely, that toward the market.  When the new-comers drew
+near, we saw them to be almost exclusively armed men, with some of the
+more important-looking citizens, but all on foot.  In the midst of this
+circle, though detached from those around them, slowly advanced three
+personages, whose dress and deportment, together with the respectful
+distance observed by the rest, announced superior rank.  ‘Here comes
+Telal,’ said Seyf, in an undertone.
+
+“The midmost figure was in fact that of the prince himself.  Short of
+stature, broad-shouldered, and strongly built, of a very dusky
+complexion, with long black hair, dark and piercing eyes, and a
+countenance rather severe than open, Telal might readily be supposed
+above forty years in age, though he is in fact thirty-seven or
+thirty-eight at most.  His step was measured, his demeanor grave and
+somewhat haughty.  His dress, a long robe of cashmere shawl, covered the
+white Arab shirt, and over all he wore a delicately worked cloak of
+camel’s-hair from Oman, a great rarity, and highly valued in this part of
+Arabia.  His head was adorned by a broidered handkerchief, in which silk
+and gold thread had not been spared, and girt by a broad band of
+camel’s-hair entwined with red silk, the manufacture of Meshid ’Alee.  A
+gold-mounted sword hung by his side, and his dress was perfumed with
+musk, in a degree better adapted to Arab than to European nostrils.  His
+glance never rested for a moment; sometimes it turned on his nearer
+companions, sometimes on the crowd; I have seldom seen so truly an ‘eagle
+eye,’ in rapidity and in brilliancy.
+
+“By his side walked a tall, thin individual, clad in garments of somewhat
+less costly material, but of gayer colors and embroidery than those of
+the king himself.  His face announced unusual intelligence and courtly
+politeness; his sword was not, however, adorned with gold, the exclusive
+privilege of the royal family, but with silver only.
+
+“This was Zamil, the treasurer and prime minister—sole minister, indeed,
+of the autocrat.  Raised from beggary by Abdallah, the late king, who had
+seen in the ragged orphan signs of rare capacity, he continued to merit
+the uninterrupted favor of his patron, and after his death, had become
+equally, or yet more, dear to Telal, who raised him from post to post,
+till he at last occupied the highest position in the kingdom after the
+monarch himself.  Of the demurely smiling Abd-el-Mahsin, the second
+companion of the king’s evening walk, I will say nothing for the moment;
+we shall have him before long for a very intimate acquaintance and a
+steady friend.
+
+“Everyone stood up as Telal drew nigh.  Seyf gave us a sign to follow
+him, made way through the crowd, and saluted his sovereign with the
+authorized formula of ‘Peace be with you, O the Protected of God!’  Telal
+at once cast on us a penetrating glance, and addressed a question in a
+low voice to Seyf, whose answer was in the same tone.  The prince then
+looked again toward us, but with a friendlier expression of face.  We
+approached and touched his open hand, repeating the same salutation as
+that used by Seyf.  No bow, hand-kissing, or other ceremony is customary
+on these occasions.  Telal returned our greeting, and then, without a
+word more to us, whispered a moment to Seyf, and passed on through the
+palace gate.
+
+“‘He will give you a private audience to-morrow,’ said Seyf, ‘and I will
+take care that you have notice of it in due time; meanwhile come to
+supper.’  The sun had already set when we re-entered the palace.  This
+time, after passing the arsenal, we turned aside into a large square
+court, distinct from the former, and surrounded by an open veranda,
+spread with mats.  Two large ostriches, presents offered to Telal by some
+chiefs of the Solibah tribe, strutted about the enclosure, and afforded
+much amusement to the negro boys and scullions of the establishment.
+Seyf conducted us to the further side of the court, where we seated
+ourselves under the portico.
+
+“Hither some black slaves immediately brought the supper; the ‘pièce de
+résistance’ was, as usual, a huge dish of rice and boiled meat, with some
+thin cakes of unleavened bread and dates, and small onions with chopped
+gourds intermixed.  The cookery was better than what we had heretofore
+tasted, though it would, perhaps, have hardly passed muster with a Vatel.
+We made a hearty meal, took coffee in the k’hawah, and then returned to
+sit awhile and smoke our pipes in the open air.  Needs not say how lovely
+are the summer evenings, how cool the breeze, how pure the sky, in these
+mountainous districts.”
+
+Palgrave gives a historical sketch of the rise of Prince Telal to a
+position of power and importance in Central Arabia, scarcely secondary to
+that of the Wahabee ruler of Nedjed.  The region of Djebel Shomer was
+subjected to the Wahabee rule during the last century, and the severe
+discipline of the new creed was forced upon its inhabitants.  But, after
+the taking of Derreyeh by Ibrahim Pasha, the people regained a partial
+independence, and a rivalry for the chieftainship ensued between the two
+noble houses of Djaaper and Beyt Alee.  The leader of the former was a
+young man named Abdallah, of more than ordinary character and
+intelligence, wealthy and popular.  But he was defeated in the struggle,
+and about the year 1820 was driven into exile.
+
+With a small band of followers he reached the Wady Sirhan (traversed by
+Palgrave on his way to the Djowf), where they were attacked by the
+Aneyzeh Bedouins, all the rest slain, and Abdallah left for dead on the
+sands.  The Arab story is that the locusts came around them, scattered
+the sand with their wings and feet upon his wounds and thus stopped the
+flow of blood, while a flock of partridges hung above him to screen him
+from the burning sun.  A merchant of Damascus, passing by with his
+caravan, beheld the miracle, took the youth, bound up his wounds, and
+restored him to health by the most tender care.  When he had recovered
+his vigor in Damascus, the generous merchant sent him back to Arabia.
+
+He went first to the Nedjed, entered the service of the Wahabee chief,
+rose to high military rank, and finally, by his own personal bravery,
+secured the sovereignty to Feysul, the present (1863) ruler.  The latter
+then gave him an army to recover his heritage of Djebel Shomer, and about
+the year 1830 his sway was secured in his native country.  The rival clan
+of Beyt Alee was extirpated, only one child being left, whom Telal
+afterward, with a rare but politic generosity, restored to wealth and
+honors.
+
+Abdallah took every means to strengthen his power.  He found it
+necessary, through his dependence on Feysul, to establish the Wahabee
+creed; he used the Bedouins as allies, in order to repress the rivalry of
+the nobles, and thus gained power at the expense of popularity.  Many
+plots were formed against him, many attempts made to assassinate him, but
+they all failed: his lucky star attended him throughout.  Up to this time
+he had dwelt in a quarter of the capital which the old chieftains and the
+nobility had mainly chosen for their domicile, and where the new monarch
+was surrounded by men his equals in birth and of even more ancient title
+to command.  But now he added a new quarter to the town, and there laid
+the foundations of a vast palace destined for the future abode of the
+king and the display of all his grandeur, amid streets and nobles of his
+own creation.  The walls of the projected edifice were fast rising when
+he died, almost suddenly, in 1844 or 1845, leaving three sons—Telal,
+Meta’ab, and Mohammed—the eldest scarce twenty years of age, besides his
+only surviving brother Obeyd, who could not then have been much under
+fifty.
+
+“Telal was already highly popular,” says Palgrave, “much more so than his
+father, and had given early tokens of those superior qualities which
+accompanied him to the throne.  All parties united to proclaim him sole
+heir to the kingdom and lawful successor to the regal power, and thus the
+rival pretensions of Obeyd, hated by many and feared by all, were
+smothered at the outset and put aside without a contest.
+
+“The young sovereign possessed, in fact, all that Arab ideas require to
+insure good government and lasting popularity.  Affable toward the common
+people, reserved and haughty with the aristocracy, courageous and skilful
+in war, a lover of commerce and building in time of peace, liberal even
+to profusion, yet always careful to maintain and augment the state
+revenue, neither over-strict nor yet scandalously lax in religion, secret
+in his designs, but never known to break a promise once given, or violate
+a plighted faith; severe in administration, yet averse to bloodshed, he
+offered the very type of what an Arab prince should be.  I might add,
+that among all rulers or governors, European or Asiatic, with whose
+acquaintance I have ever chanced to be honored, I know few equal in the
+true art of government to Telal, son of Abdallah-ebn-Rasheed.
+
+“His first cares were directed to adorn and civilize the capital.  Under
+his orders, enforced by personal superintendence, the palace commenced by
+his father was soon brought to completion.  But he added, what probably
+his father would hardly have thought of, a long row of warehouses, the
+dependencies and property of the same palace; next he built a
+market-place consisting of about eighty shops or magazines, destined for
+public commerce and trade, and lastly constructed a large mosque for the
+official prayers of Friday.  Round the palace, and in many other parts of
+the town, he opened streets, dug wells, and laid out extensive gardens,
+besides strengthening the old fortifications all round and adding new
+ones.  At the same time he managed to secure at once the fidelity and the
+absence of his dangerous uncle by giving him charge of those military
+expeditions which best satisfied the restless energy of Obeyd.  The first
+of these wars was directed, I know not on what pretext, against Kheybar.
+But as Telal intended rather to enforce submission than to inflict ruin,
+he associated with Obeyd in the military command his own brother Meta’ab,
+to put a check on the ferocity of the former.  Kheybar was conquered, and
+Telal sent thither, as governor in his name, a young man of Ha’yel,
+prudent and gentle, whom I subsequently met when he was on a visit at the
+capital.
+
+“Not long after, the inhabitants of Kaseem, weary of Wahabee tyranny,
+turned their eyes toward Telal, who had already given a generous and
+inviolable asylum to the numerous political exiles of that district.
+Secret negotiations took place, and at a favorable moment the entire
+uplands of that province—after a fashion not indeed peculiar to
+Arabia—annexed themselves to the kingdom of Shomer by universal and
+unanimous suffrage.  Telal made suitable apologies to the Nedjean
+monarch, the original sovereign of the annexed district; he could not
+resist the popular wish; it had been forced on him, etc.—but Western
+Europe is familiar with the style.  Feysul felt the inopportuneness of a
+quarrel with the rapidly growing power to which he himself had given
+origin only a few years before, and, after a wry face or two, swallowed
+the pill.  Meanwhile Telal knowing the necessity of a high military
+reputation, both at home and abroad, undertook in person a series of
+operations against Teyma’ and its neighborhood, and at last against the
+Djowf itself.  Everywhere his arms were successful, and his moderation in
+victory secured the attachment of the vanquished themselves.
+
+“Toward his own subjects his conduct is uniformly of a nature to merit
+their obedience and attachment, and few sovereigns have here met with
+better success.  Once a day, often twice, he gives public audience, hears
+patiently, and decides in person, the minutest causes with great good
+sense.  To the Bedouins, no insignificant portion of his rule, he makes
+up for the restraint he imposes, and the tribute he levies from them, by
+a profusion of hospitality not to be found elsewhere in the whole of
+Arabia from Akabah to Aden.  His guests at the midday and evening meal
+are never less than fifty or sixty, and I have often counted up to two
+hundred at a banquet, while presents of dress and arms are of frequent if
+not daily occurrence.  It is hard for Europeans to estimate how much
+popularity such conduct brings an Asiatic prince.  Meanwhile the
+townsfolk and villagers love him for the more solid advantages of
+undisturbed peace at home, of flourishing commerce, of extended dominion,
+and military glory.
+
+“To capital punishment he is decidedly adverse, and the severest penalty
+with which he has hitherto chastised political offences is banishment or
+prison.  Indeed, even in cases of homicide or murder, he has been known
+not unfrequently to avail himself of the option allowed by Arab custom
+between a fine and retaliation, and to buy off the offender, by bestowing
+on the family of the deceased the allotted price of blood from his own
+private treasury, and that from a pure motive of humanity.  When
+execution does take place, it is always by beheading; nor is indeed any
+other mode of putting to death customary in Arabia.  Stripes, however,
+are not uncommon, though administered on the broad back, not on the sole
+of the foot.  They are the common chastisement for minor offences, like
+stealing, cursing, or quarrelling; in this last case both parties usually
+come in for their share.
+
+“With his numerous retainers he is almost over-indulgent, and readily
+pardons a mistake or a negligence; falsehood alone he never forgives; and
+it is notorious that whoever has once lied to Telal must give up all
+hopes of future favor.”
+
+After describing the public audience which is daily given by this
+excellent prince, Palgrave describes the more private reception which was
+accorded to himself and his companion:
+
+“Telal, once free from the mixed crowd, pauses a moment till we rejoin
+him.  The simple and customary salutations are given and returned.  I
+then present him with our only available testimonial, the scrap written
+by Hamood from the Djowf.  He opens it, and hands it over to Zamil,
+better skilled in reading than his master.  Then laying aside all his
+wonted gravity, and assuming a good-humored smile, he takes my hand in
+his right and my companion’s in his left, and thus walks on with us
+through the court, past the mosque, and down the market-place, while his
+attendants form a moving wall behind and on either side.
+
+“He was in his own mind thoroughly persuaded that we were, as we
+appeared, Syrians; but imagined, nor was he entirely in the wrong thus
+far, that we had other objects in view than mere medical practice.  But
+if he was right in so much, he was less fortunate in the interpretation
+he chose to put on our riddle, having imagined that our real scope must
+be to buy horses for some government, of which we must be the agents; a
+conjecture which had certainly the merit of plausibility.  However, Telal
+had, I believe, no doubt on the matter, and had already determined to
+treat us well in the horse business, and to let us have a good bargain,
+as it shortly appeared.
+
+“Accordingly he began a series of questions and cross-questions, all in a
+jocose way, but so that the very drift of his inquiries soon allowed us
+to perceive what he really esteemed us.  We, following our previous
+resolution, stuck to medicine, a family in want, hopes of good success
+under the royal patronage and much of the same tenor.  But Telal was not
+so easily to be blinkered, and kept to his first judgment.  Meanwhile we
+passed down the street, lined with starers at the king and us, and at
+last arrived at the outer door of a large house near the farther end of
+the Sook or market-place; it belonged to Hasan, the merchant from Meshid
+’Alee.
+
+“Three of the retinue stationed themselves by way of guard at the street
+door, sword in hand.  The rest entered with the king and ourselves; we
+traversed the court-yard, where the remainder of the armed men took
+position, while we went on to the k’hawah.  It was small, but well
+furnished and carpeted.  Here Telal placed us amicably by his side in the
+highest place; his brother Mohammed and five or six others were admitted,
+and seated themselves each according to his rank, while Hasan, being
+master of the house, did the honors.
+
+“Coffee was brought and pipes lighted.  Meantime Ebn-Rasheed renewed his
+interrogatory, skilfully throwing out side remarks, now on the government
+of Syria, now on that of Egypt, then on the Bedouins to the north of
+Djowf, or on the tribes of Hedjaz, or on the banks of the Euphrates, thus
+to gain light whence and to what end we had in fact come.  Next he
+questioned us on medicine, perhaps to discover whether we had the right
+professional tone; then on horses, about which same noble animals we
+affected an ignorance unnatural and very unpardonable in an Englishman;
+but for which I hope afterward to make amends to my readers.  All was in
+vain; and after a full hour our noble friend had only managed by his
+cleverness to get himself farther off the right track than he had been at
+the outset.  He felt it, and determined to let matters have their own
+course, and to await the result of time.  So he ended by assuring us of
+his entire confidence and protection, offering us, to boot, a lodging on
+the palace grounds.  But this we declined, being desirous of studying the
+country as it was in itself, not through the medium of a court
+atmosphere; so we begged that an abode might be assigned us as near the
+market-place as possible; and this he promised, though evidently rather
+put out by our independent ways.
+
+“Excellent water-melons, ready peeled and cut up, with peaches hardly
+ripe, for it was the beginning of the season, were now brought in, and we
+all partook in common.  This was the signal for breaking up; Telal
+renewed his proffers of favor and patronage; and we were at last
+reconducted to our lodgings by one of the royal guard.
+
+“Seyf now went in search of a permanent dwelling-place wherein to install
+us; and, before evening, succeeded in finding one situated in a street
+leading at right angles to the market, and at no unreasonable distance
+from the palace.  Every door was provided with its own distinct lock; the
+keys here are made of iron, and in this respect Ha’yel has the better of
+any other Arab town it was my chance to visit, where the keys were
+invariably wooden, and thus very liable to break and get out of order.
+
+“The court-yard was soon thronged with visitors, some from the palace,
+others from the town.  One had a sick relation, whom he begged us to come
+and see, another some personal ailment, a third had called out of mere
+politeness or curiosity; in short, men of all conditions and of all ages,
+but for the most part open and friendly in manner, so that we could
+already anticipate a very speedy acquaintance with the town and whatever
+it contained.
+
+“The nature of our occupations now led to a certain daily routine, though
+it was often agreeably diversified by incidental occurrences.  Perhaps a
+leaf taken at random from my journal, now regularly kept, may serve to
+set before my readers a tolerable sample of our ordinary course of life
+and society at Ha’yel, while it will at the same time give a more
+distinct idea of the town and people than we have yet supplied.
+
+“Be it, then, the 10th of August, whose jotted notes I will put together
+and fill up the blanks.  I might equally have taken the 9th or the 11th,
+they are all much the same; but the day I have chosen looks a little the
+closer written of the two, and for that sole reason I prefer giving it.
+
+“On that day, then, in 1862, about a fortnight after our establishment at
+Ha’yel, and when we were, in consequence, fully inured to our town
+existence, Seleem Abou Mahmood-el-’Eys and Barakat-esh-Shamee, that is,
+my companion and myself, rose, not from our beds, for we had none, but
+from our roof-spread carpets, and took advantage of the silent hour of
+the first faint dawn, while the stars yet kept watch in the sky over the
+slumbering inhabitants of Shomer, to leave the house for a cool and
+undisturbed walk ere the sun should arise and man go forth unto his work
+and to his labor.  We locked the outer door, and then passed into the
+still twilight gloom down the cross-street leading to the market-place,
+which we next followed up to its farther or southwestern end, where large
+folding-gates separate it from the rest of the town.  The wolfish
+city-dogs, whose bark and bite, too, render walking the streets at night
+a rather precarious business, now tamely stalked away in the gloaming,
+while here and there a crouching camel, the packages yet on his back, and
+his sleeping driver close by, awaited the opening of the warehouse at
+whose door they had passed the night.  Early though it was, the market
+gates were already unclosed, and the guardian sat wakeful in his niche.
+On leaving the market we had yet to go down a broad street of houses and
+gardens cheerfully intermixed, till at last we reached the western wall
+of the town, or, rather, of the new quarter added by ’Abdallah, where the
+high portal between round flanking towers gave us issue on the open
+plain, blown over at this hour by a light gale of life and coolness.  To
+the west, but some four or five miles distant, rose the serrated mass of
+Djebel Shomer, throwing up its black fantastic peaks, now reddened by the
+reflected dawn, against the lead-blue sky.  Northward the same chain
+bends round till it meets the town, and then stretches away for a length
+of ten or twelve days’ journey, gradually losing in height on its
+approach to Meshid ’Alee and the valley of the Euphrates.  On our south
+we have a little isolated knot of rocks, and far off the extreme ranges
+of Djebel Shomer, or ’Aja, to give it its historical name, intersected by
+the broad passes that lead on in the same direction to Djebel Solma.
+Behind us lies the capital.  Telal’s palace, with its high oval keep,
+houses, gardens, walls, and towers, all coming out black against the
+ruddy bars of eastern light, and behind, a huge pyramidal peak almost
+overhanging the town, and connected by lower rocks with the main mountain
+range to north and south, those stony ribs that protect the central heart
+of the kingdom.  In the plain itself we can just distinguish by the
+doubtful twilight several blackish patches irregularly scattered over its
+face, or seen as though leaning upward against its craggy verge; these
+are the gardens and country houses of ’Obeyd and other chiefs, besides
+hamlets and villages, such as Kefar and ’Adwah, with their groves of palm
+and ‘ithel’ (the Arab larch), now blended in the dusk.  One solitary
+traveller on his camel, a troop of jackals sneaking off to their rocky
+cavern, a few dingy tents of Shomer Bedouins, such are the last details
+of the landscape.  Far away over the southern hills beams the glory of
+Canopus, and announces a new Arab year; the pole-star to the north lies
+low over the mountain tops.
+
+“We pace the pebble-strown flat to the south till we leave behind us the
+length of the town wall, and reach the little cluster of rocks already
+mentioned.  We scramble up to a sort of niche near its summit, whence, at
+a height of a hundred feet or more, we can overlook the whole extent of
+the plain and wait the sunrise.  Yet before the highest crags of Shomer
+are gilt with its first rays, or the long giant shadows of the easterly
+chain have crossed the level, we see groups of peasants, who, driving
+their fruit and vegetable-laden asses before them, issue like little
+bands of ants from the mountain gorges around, and slowly approach on the
+tracks converging to the capital.  Horsemen from the town ride out to the
+gardens, and a long line of camels on the westerly Medina road winds up
+toward Ha’yel.  We wait ensconced in our rocky lookout and enjoy the view
+till the sun has risen, and the coolness of the night air warms rapidly
+into the sultry day; it is time to return.  So we quit our solitary perch
+and descend to the plain, where, keeping in the shadow of the western
+fortifications, we regain the town gate and thence the market.
+
+“There all is now life and movement; some of the warehouses, filled with
+rice, flour, spices, or coffee, and often concealing in their inner
+recesses stores of the prohibited American weed, are already open; we
+salute the owners while we pass, and they return a polite and friendly
+greeting.  Camels are unloading in the streets, and Bedouins standing by,
+looking anything but at home in the town.  The shoemaker and the
+blacksmith, those two main props of Arab handicraft, are already at their
+work, and some gossiping bystanders are collected around them.  At the
+corner where our cross-street falls into the market-place, three or four
+country women are seated, with piles of melons, gourds, egg-plant fruits,
+and the other garden produce before them for sale.  My companion falls a
+haggling with one of these village nymphs, and ends by obtaining a dozen
+‘badinjans’ and a couple of water-melons, each bigger than a man’s head,
+for the equivalent of an English twopence.  With this purchase we return
+home, where we shut and bolt the outer door, then take out of a flat
+basket what has remained from over night of our wafer-like Ha’yel bread,
+and with this and a melon make a hasty breakfast.  I say a hasty one, for
+although it is only half an hour after sunrise, repeated knocks at our
+portal show the arrival of patients and visitors: early rising being here
+the fashion, and in reason must be wherever artificial lighting is
+scanty.  However, we do not at once open to our friends, nor will they
+take offence at the delay, but remain where they are, chatting together
+before our door till we admit them; of so little value is time here.
+
+“In comes a young man of good appearance, clad in the black cloak common
+to all of the middle or upper classes in Central Arabia; in his hand he
+bears a wand of the Sidr or lotos-wood.  A silver-hilted sword and a
+glistening Kafee’yah announce him to be a person of some importance,
+while his long, black ringlets, handsome features, and slightly olive
+complexion, with a tall stature and easy gait, declare him a native of
+Djebel Shomer, and townsman of Ha’yel; it is ’Ojeyl, the eldest-born of a
+large family, and successor to the comfortable house and garden of his
+father, not long since deceased, in a quarter of the town some twenty
+minutes’ walk distant.  He leads by the hand his younger brother, a
+modest-looking lad of fair complexion and slim make, but almost blind,
+and evidently out of health also.  After passing through the preliminary
+ceremonies of introduction to Barakat, he approaches my recess, and
+standing without, salutes me with the greatest deference.  Thinking him a
+desirable acquaintance I receive him very graciously, and he begs me to
+see what is the matter with his brother.  I examine the case, finding it
+to be within the limits of my skill, and not likely to require more than
+a very simple course of treatment.  Accordingly I make my bargain for the
+chances of recovery, and find ’Ojeyl docile to the terms proposed, and
+with little disposition, all things considered, to backwardness in
+payment.  Arabs, indeed, are in general close in driving a bargain and
+open in downright giving; they will chaffer half a day about a penny,
+while they will throw away the worth of pounds on the first asker.  But
+’Ojeyl was one of the best specimens of the Ha’yel character, and of the
+clan Ta’i, renowned in all times for their liberal ways and high sense of
+honor.  I next proceed to administer to my patient such drugs as his
+state requires, and he receives them with that air of absolute and
+half-religious confidence which well-educated Arabs show to their
+physician, whom they regard as possessed of an almost sacred and
+supernatural power—a feeling, by the way, hardly less advantageous to the
+patient than to the practitioner, and which may often contribute much to
+the success of the treatment.
+
+“During the rest of my stay at Ha’yel, ’Ojeyl continued to be one of my
+best friends, I had almost said disciples; our mutual visits were
+frequent, and always pleasing and hearty.  His brother’s cure, which
+followed in less than a fortnight, confirmed his attachment, nor had I
+reason to complain of scantiness in his retribution.
+
+“Meanwhile the court-yard has become full of visitors.  Close by my door
+I see the intelligent and demurely smiling face of ’Abd-el-Mahsin, where
+he sits between two pretty and well-dressed boys; they are the two elder
+children of Telal—Bedr and Bander.  Their guardsman, a negro slave with a
+handsome cloak and sword, is seated a little lower down; farther on are
+two townsmen, one armed, the other with a wand at his side.  A rough,
+good-natured youth, of a bronzed complexion, and whose dingy clothes
+bespeak his mechanical profession, is talking with another of a dress
+somewhat different in form and coarser in material than that usually worn
+in Ha’yel; this latter must be a peasant from some one of the mountain
+villages.  Two Bedouins, ragged and uncouth, have straggled in with the
+rest; while a tall, dark-featured youth, with a gilded hilt to his sword,
+and more silk about him than a Wahabee would approve, has taken his place
+opposite to ’Abd-el-Mahsin, and is trying to draw him into conversation.
+But this last has asked Barakat to lend him one of my Arabic books to
+read, and is deeply engaged in its perusal.
+
+“’Ojeyl has taken leave, and I give the next turn of course to
+’Abd-el-Mahsin.  He informs me that Telal has sent me his two sons, Bedr
+and Bander, that I may examine their state of health, and see if they
+require doctoring.  This is in truth a little stroke of policy on Telal’s
+part, who knows equally with myself that the boys are perfectly well and
+want nothing at all.  But he wishes to give us a mark of his confidence,
+and at the same time to help us in establishing our medical reputation in
+the town; for though by no means himself persuaded of the reality of our
+doctoral title, he understands the expediency of saving appearances
+before the public.
+
+“Well, the children are passed in review with all the seriousness due to
+a case of heart complaint or brain fever, while at a wink from me Barakat
+prepares in the kitchen a draught of cinnamon water, which, with sugar,
+named medicine for the occasion, pleases the young heirs of royalty and
+keeps up the farce; ’Abd-el-Mahsin expatiating all the time to the
+bystanders on the wonderful skill with which I have at once discovered
+the ailments and their cure, and the small boys thinking that if this be
+medicine they will do their best to be ill for it every day.
+
+“’Abd-el-Mahsin now commits them to the negro, who, however, before
+taking them back to the palace, has his own story to tell of some
+personal ache, for which I prescribe without stipulating for payment,
+since he belongs to the palace, where it is important to have the
+greatest number of friends possible, even on the back stairs.  But
+’Abd-el-Mahsin remains, reading, chatting, quoting poetry, and talking
+history, recent events, natural philosophy, or medicine, as the case may
+be.
+
+“Let us now see some of the other patients.  The gold-hilted swordsman
+has naturally a special claim on our attention.  He is the son of
+Rosheyd, Telal’s maternal uncle.  His palace stands on the other side of
+the way, exactly opposite to our house; and I will say nothing more of
+him for the present, intending to pay him afterward a special visit, and
+thus become more thoroughly acquainted with the whole family.
+
+“Next let us take notice of those two townsmen who are conversing, or
+rather ‘chaffing,’ together.  Though both in plain apparel, and much
+alike in stature and features, there is yet much about them to
+distinguish the two; one has a civilian look, the other a military.  He
+of the wand is no less a personage than Mohammed-el-Kadee, chief justice
+of Ha’yel, and of course a very important individual in the town.
+However, his exterior is that of an elderly, unpretentious, little man,
+and one, in spite of the proverb which attributes gravity to judges, very
+fond of a joke, besides being a tolerable representative of what may here
+be called the moderate party, neither participating in the fanaticism of
+the Wahabee, nor yet, like the most of the indigenous chiefs, hostile to
+Mahometanism; he takes his cue from the court direction and is popular
+with all factions because belonging properly to none.
+
+“He requires some medical treatment for himself, and more for his son, a
+big, heavy lad with a swollen arm, who has accompanied him hither.  Here,
+too, is a useful acquaintance, well up to all the scandal and small talk
+of the town, and willing to communicate it.  Our visits were frequent,
+and I found his house well stored with books, partly manuscript, partly
+printed in Egypt, and mainly on legal or religious subjects.
+
+“Of the country folks in the villages around, like Mogah, Delhemee’eh,
+and the rest, Mohammed-el-Kadee used to speak with a sort of
+half-contemptuous pity, much like a Parisian talking of Low Bretons; in
+fact, the difference between these rough and sturdy boors and the more
+refined inhabitants of the capital is, all due proportion allowed, no
+less remarkable here than in Europe itself.  We will now let one of them
+come forward in his own behalf, and my readers shall be judges.
+
+“It is accordingly a stout clown from Mogah, scantily dressed in working
+wear, and who has been occupied for the last half hour in tracing sundry
+diagrams on the ground before him with a thick peach-tree switch, thus to
+pass his time till his betters shall have been served.  He now edges
+forward, and taking his seat in front of the door, calls my attention
+with an ‘I say, doctor.’  Whereon I suggest to him that his bulky
+corporation not being formed of glass or any other transparent material,
+he has by his position entirely intercepted whatever little light my
+recess might enjoy.  He apologizes, and shuffles an inch or two sideways.
+Next I inquire what ails him, not without some curiosity to hear the
+answer, so little does the herculean frame before me announce disease.
+Whereto Do’eymis, or whatever may be his name, replies, ‘I say, I am all
+made up of pain.’  This statement, like many others, appears to me rather
+too general to be exactly true.  So I proceed in my interrogatory: ‘Does
+your head pain you?’  ‘No.’  (I might have guessed that; these fellows
+never feel what our cross-Channel friends entitle ‘_le mal des beaux
+esprits_.’)  ‘Does your back ache?’  ‘No.’  ‘Your arms?’  ‘No.’  ‘Your
+legs?’  ‘No.’  ‘Your body?’  ‘No.’  ‘But,’ I conclude, ‘if neither your
+head nor your body, back, arms, or legs pain you, how can you possibly be
+such a composition of suffering?’  ‘I am all made up of pain, doctor,’
+replies he, manfully intrenching himself within his first position.  The
+fact is, that there is really something wrong with him, but he does not
+know how to localize his sensations.  So I push forward my inquiries,
+till it appears that our man of Mogah has a chronic rheumatism; and on
+ulterior investigation, conducted with all the skill that Barakat and I
+can jointly muster, it comes out that three or four months before he had
+an attack of the disease in its acute form, accompanied by high fever,
+since which he has never been himself again.
+
+“This might suffice for the diagnosis, but I wish to see how he will find
+his way out of more intricate questions; besides, the townsmen sitting
+by, and equally alive to the joke with myself, whisper, ‘Try him again.’
+In consequence, I proceed with, ‘What was the cause of your first
+illness?’  ‘I say, doctor, its cause was God,’ replies the patient.  ‘No
+doubt of that,’ say I; ‘all things are caused by God: but what was the
+particular and immediate occasion?’  ‘Doctor, its cause was God, and
+secondly, that I ate camel’s flesh when I was cold,’ rejoins my
+scientific friend.  ‘But was there nothing else?’ I suggest, not quite
+satisfied with the lucid explanation just given.  ‘Then, too, I drank
+camel’s milk; but it was all, I say, from God, doctor,’ answers he.
+
+“Well, I consider the case, and make up my mind regarding the treatment.
+Next comes the grand question of payment, which must be agreed on
+beforehand, and rendered conditional on success; else no fees for the
+doctor, not at Ha’yel only, but throughout Arabia.  I inquire what he
+will give me on recovery.  ‘Doctor,’ answers the peasant, ‘I will give
+you, do you hear?  I say, I will give you a camel.’  But I reply that I
+do not want one.  ‘I say, remember God,’ which being interpreted here
+means, ‘do not be unreasonable; I will give you a fat camel, everyone
+knows my camel; if you choose, I will bring witnesses, I say.’  And while
+I persist in refusing the proffered camel, he talks of butter, meal,
+dates, and such like equivalents.
+
+“There is a patient and a paymaster for you.  However, all ends by his
+behaving reasonably enough; he follows my prescriptions with the ordinary
+docility, gets better, and gives me for my pains an eighteen-penny fee.”
+
+During this residence in Ha’yel, Palgrave made many friends, and soon
+established those relations of familiar intercourse which are so much
+easier in Moslem than in Christian lands—a natural result of the
+preservation of the old importance, which in the earliest Hebrew days was
+attached to “the stranger.”  Palgrave’s intimacies embraced many families
+related to Telal, and others, whose knowledge of Arabian history or
+literature made their acquaintance welcome.  His own knowledge of these
+subjects, fortunately, was equal to theirs, and, from the number of his
+invitations to dinners and suppers, he seems to have been a welcome guest
+to the better classes of Ha’yel.  One of the aristocracy, by name Dohey,
+was his most agreeable acquaintance; and we quote the following pleasant
+account of his intercourse:
+
+“Dohey’s invitations were particularly welcome, both from the
+pleasantness of his dwelling-place, and from the varied and interesting
+conversation that I was sure to meet with there.  This merchant, a tall
+and stately man of between fifty and sixty years of age, and whose thin
+features were lighted up by a lustre of more than ordinary intelligence,
+was a thorough Ha’yelite of the old caste, hating Wahabees from the
+bottom of his heart, eager for information on cause and effect, on lands
+and governments, and holding commerce and social life for the main props
+if not the ends of civil and national organization.  His uncle, now near
+eighty years old, to judge by conjecture in a land where registers are
+not much in use, had journeyed to India, and traded at Bombay; in token
+whereof he still wore an Indian skullcap and a cashmere shawl.  The rest
+of the family were in keeping with the elder members, and seldom have I
+seen more dutiful children or a better educated household.  My readers
+will naturally understand that by education I here imply its moral not
+its intellectual phase.  The eldest son, himself a middle-aged man, would
+never venture into his father’s presence without unbuckling his sword and
+leaving it in the vestibule, nor on any account presume to sit on a level
+with him or by his side in the divan.
+
+“The divan itself was one of the prettiest I met with in these parts.  It
+was a large square room, looking out on the large house-garden, and
+cheerfully lighted up by trellised windows on two sides, while the wall
+of the third had purposely been discontinued at about half its height,
+and the open space thus left between it and the roof propped by pillars,
+between which ‘a fruitful vine by the sides of the house’ was intertwined
+so as to fill up the interval with a gay net-work of green leaves and
+tendrils, transparent like stained glass in the eastern sunbeams.  Facing
+this cheerful light, the floor of the apartment was raised about two feet
+above the rest, and covered with gay Persian carpets, silk cushions, and
+the best of Arab furniture.  In the lower half of the k’hawah, and at its
+farthest angle, was the small stone coffee-stove, placed at a distance
+where its heat might not annoy the master and his guests.  Many of the
+city nobility would here resort, and the talk generally turned on serious
+subjects, and above all on the parties and politics of Arabia; while
+Dohey would show himself a thorough Arab patriot, and at the same time a
+courteous and indulgent judge of foreigners, qualities seldom to be met
+with together in any notable degree, and therefore more welcome.
+
+“Many a pleasant hour have I passed in this half greenhouse, half
+k’hawah, mid cheerful faces and varied talk, while inly commenting on the
+natural resources of this manly and vigorous people, and straining the
+eye of forethought to discern through the misty curtain of the future by
+what outlet their now unfruitful, because solitary, good may be brought
+into fertilizing contact with that of other more advanced nations, to the
+mutual benefit of each and all.
+
+“Talk went on with the ease and decorum characteristic of good Eastern
+society, without the flippancy and excitement which occasionally mars it
+in some countries, no less than over-silence does in others.  To my mind
+the Easterns are generally superior in the science of conversation to the
+inhabitants of the West; perhaps from a greater necessity of cultivating
+it, as the only means of general news and intercourse where newspapers
+and pamphlets are unknown.
+
+“Or else some garden was the scene of our afternoon leisure, among
+fruit-trees and palms, by the side of a watercourse, whose constant
+supply from the well hid from view among thick foliage, seemed the work
+not of laborious art, but of unassisted nature.  Here, stretched in the
+cool and welcome shade, would we for hours canvass with ’Abd-el-Mahsin,
+and others of similar pursuits, the respective merits of Arab poets and
+authors, of Omar-ebn-el-Farid or Aboo’l ’Ola, in meetings that had
+something of the Attic, yet with just enough of the Arab to render them
+more acceptable by their Semitic character of grave cheerfulness and
+mirthful composure.
+
+“Or when the stars came out, Barakat and myself would stroll out of the
+heated air of the streets and market to the cool open plain, and there
+pass an hour or two alone, or in conversation with what chance passer-by
+might steal on us, half-unperceived and unperceiving in the dusk, and
+amuse ourselves with his simplicity if he were a Bedouin, or with his
+shrewdness if a townsman.
+
+“Thus passed our ordinary life at Ha’yel.  Many minor incidents occurred
+to diversify it, many of the little ups and downs that human intercourse
+never fails to furnish; sometimes the number of patients and the urgency
+of their attendance allowed of little leisure for aught except our
+professional duties; sometimes a day or two would pass with hardly any
+serious occupation.  But of such incidents my readers have a sufficient
+sample in what has been already set down.  Suffice to say, that from the
+27th of July to the 8th of September we remained doctoring in the capital
+or in its immediate neighborhood.”
+
+By this time Palgrave had obtained sufficient knowledge of the country,
+and was anxious to advance farther eastward before the autumn—the best
+season for travel—should be spent.  Now, the journey across the Shomer
+frontier could only be pursued with Telal’s cognizance, and by his good
+will.  In fact, a passport bearing the royal signature is indispensable
+for all who desire to cross the boundary, especially into the Wahabee
+territory; without such a document in hand no one would venture to
+conduct them.
+
+“Accordingly,” he says, “we requested and obtained a special audience at
+the palace.  Telal, of whose good-will we had received frequent, indeed
+daily, proofs during our sojourn at Ha’yel, proved a sincere
+friend—patron would be a juster word—to the last; exemplifying the Scotch
+proverb about the guest not only who ‘will stay,’ but also who ‘maun
+gang.’  To this end he then dictated to Zamil, for Telal himself is no
+scribe, a passport or general letter of safe conduct, enough to insure us
+good treatment within the limits of his rule, and even beyond.
+
+“When this was written, Telal affixed his seal, and rose to leave us
+alone with Zamil, after a parting shake of the hand, and wishing us a
+prosperous journey and speedy return.  Yet with all these motives for
+going, I could not but feel reluctant to quit a pleasing town, where we
+certainly possessed many sincere friends and well-wishers, for countries
+in which we could by no means anticipate equal favor, or even equal
+safety.  Indeed, so ominous was all that we heard about Wahabee Nedjed,
+so black did the landscape before us look, on nearer approach, that I
+almost repented of my resolution, and was considerably inclined to say,
+‘Thus far enough, and no farther.’
+
+“’Obeyd, Telal’s uncle, had left Ha’yel the day before on a military
+expedition against the Bedouins of the West.  In common with all the
+sight-seers of the town, we had gone to witness his departure.  It was a
+gay and interesting scene.  ’Obeyd had caused his tent to be pitched in
+the plain without the northern walls, and there reviewed his forces.
+About one-third were on horseback, the rest were mounted on light and
+speedy camels; all had spears and matchlocks, to which the gentry added
+swords; and while they rode hither and thither in sham manœuvres over the
+parade ground, the whole appearance was very picturesque and tolerably
+martial.  ’Obeyd now unfurled his own peculiar standard, in which the
+green color, distinctive of Islam, had been added border-wise to the
+white ground of the ancestral Nedjean banner, mentioned fourteen
+centuries back by ’Omar-ebn-Kelthoom, the poet of Taghleb, and many
+others.  Barakat and myself mixed with the crowd of spectators.  ’Obeyd
+saw us, and it was now several days since we had last met.  Without
+hesitating he cantered up to us, and while he tendered his hand for a
+farewell shake, he said: ‘I have heard that you intend going to Ri’ad;
+there you will meet with ’Abdallah, the eldest son of Feysul; he is my
+particular friend; I should much desire to see you high in his good
+graces, and to that end I have written him a letter in your behalf, of
+which you yourselves are to be the bearers; you will find it in my house,
+where I have left it for you with one of my servants.’  He then assured
+us that if he found us still at Ha’yel on his return, he would continue
+to befriend us in every way; but that if we journeyed forward to Nedjed,
+we should meet with a sincere friend in ’Abdallah, especially if we gave
+him the letter in question.
+
+“He then took his leave with a semblance of affectionate cordiality that
+made the bystanders stare; thus supporting to the last the profound
+dissimulation which he had only once belied for a moment.  The letter was
+duly handed over to us the same afternoon by his head steward, whom he
+had left to look after the house and garden in his absence.  Doubtless my
+readers will be curious to know what sort of recommendation ’Obeyd had
+provided us with.  It was written on a small scrap of thick paper, about
+four inches each way, carefully folded up and secured by three seals.
+However, ‘our fears forgetting manners,’ we thought best with Hamlet to
+make perusal of this grand commission before delivering it to its
+destination.  So we undid the seals with precautions admitting of
+reclosing them in proper form, and read the royal knavery.  I give it
+word for word; it ran thus: ‘In the name of God the Merciful, the
+Compassionate, we, ’Obeyd-ebn-Rasheed, salute you, O ’Abdallah, son of
+Feysul-ebn-Sa’ood, and peace be on you, and the mercy of God and His
+blessings.’  (This is the invariable commencement of all Wahabee
+epistles, to the entire omission of the complimentary formulas used by
+other Orientals.)  ‘After which,’ so proceeded the document, ‘we inform
+you that the bearers of this are one Seleem-el-’Eys, and his comrade,
+Barakat-esh-Shamee, who give themselves out for having some knowledge
+in’—here followed a word of equivocal import, capable of interpretation
+alike by ‘medicine’ or ‘magic,’ but generally used in Nedjed for the
+latter, which is at Ri’ad a capital crime.  ‘Now may God forbid that we
+should hear of any evil having befallen you.  We salute also your father,
+Feysul, and your brothers, and all your family, and anxiously await your
+news in answer.  Peace be with you.’  Here followed the signet
+impression.
+
+“A pretty recommendation, especially under the actual circumstances!
+However, not content with this, ’Obeyd found means to transmit further
+information regarding us, and all in the same tenor, to Ri’ad, as we
+afterward discovered.  For his letter, I need hardly say that it never
+passed from our possession, where it yet remains as an interesting
+autograph, to that of ’Abdallah; with whom it would inevitably have
+proved the one only thing wanting, as we shall subsequently see, to make
+us leave the forfeit of our lives in the Nedjean man-trap.
+
+“Before evening three men knocked at our door; they were our future
+guides.  The eldest bore the name of Mubarek, and was a native of the
+suburbs of Bereydah; all three were of the genuine Kaseem breed, darker
+and lower in stature than the inhabitants of Ha’yel, but not ill-looking,
+and extremely affable in their demeanor.
+
+“We had soon made all necessary arrangements for our departure, got in a
+few scattered debts, packed up our pharmacopoeia, and nothing now
+remained but the pleasurable pain of farewells.  They were many and
+mutually sincere.  Meta’ab had indeed made his a few days before, when he
+a second time left Ha’yel for the pastures; Telal we had already taken
+leave of, but there remained his younger brother Mohammed to give us a
+hearty adieu of good augury.  Most of my old acquaintance or patients,
+Dohey the merchant, Mohammed the judge, Doheym and his family, not
+forgetting our earliest friend Seyf the chamberlain, Sa’eed, the cavalry
+officer, and others of the court, freemen and slaves, white or black (for
+negroes readily follow the direction indicated by their masters, and are
+not ungrateful if kindly treated, while kept in their due position), and
+many others of whose names Homer would have made a catalogue and I will
+not, heard of our near departure and came to express their regrets, with
+hopes of future meeting and return.”
+
+“Early next morning, before day, Mubarek and another of his countrymen,
+named Dahesh, were at our door with the camels.  Some of our town friends
+had also come, even at this hour, to accompany us as far as the city
+gates.  We mounted our beasts, and while the first sunbeams streamed
+level over the plain, passed through the southwestern portal beyond the
+market-place, the 8th of September, 1862, and left the city of Ha’yel.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—JOURNEY TO BEREYDAH.
+
+ANOTHER stage of our way.  From Gaza to Ma’an, from Ma’an to the Djowf,
+from the Djowf to Ha’yel, three such had now been gone over, not indeed
+without some fatigue or discomfort, yet at comparatively little personal
+risk, except what nature herself, not man, might occasion.  For to cross
+the stony desert of the northern frontier, or the sandy Nefood in the
+very height of summer, could not be said to be entirely free from danger,
+where in these waterless wastes thirst, if nothing else, may alone, and
+often does, suffice to cause the disappearance of the over-venturous
+traveller, nay, even of many a Bedouin, no less effectually than a
+lance-thrust or a musket-ball.  But if nature had been so far unkind, of
+man at least we had hitherto not much to complain; the Bedouins on the
+route, however rough and uncouth in their ways, had, with only one
+exception, meant us fairly well, and the townsmen in general had proved
+friendly and courteous beyond our expectation.  Once within the
+established government limits of Telal, and among his subjects, we had
+enjoyed our share in the common security afforded to wayfarers and
+inhabitants for life and property, while good success had hitherto
+accompanied us.  ‘Judge of the day by its dawn,’ say the Arabs; and
+although this proverb, like all proverbs, does not always hold exactly
+true, whether for sunshine or cloud, yet it has its value at times.  And
+thus, whatever unfavorable predictions or dark forebodings our friends
+might hint regarding the inner Nedjed and its denizens, we trusted that
+so favorable a past augured somewhat better things for the future.
+
+“From physical and material difficulties like those before met with,
+there was henceforward much less to fear.  The great heats of summer were
+past, the cooler season had set in; besides, our path now lay through the
+elevated table-land of Central Arabia, whose northern rim we had already
+surmounted at our entrance on the Djebel Shomer.  Nor did there remain
+any uncultivated or sandy track to cross comparable to the Nefood of
+Djowf between Ha’yel and Ri’ad; on the contrary, we were to expect
+pasture lands and culture, villages and habitations, cool mountain air,
+and a sufficiency, if not an abundance, of water.  Nor were our
+fellow-companions now mere Bedouins and savages, but men from town or
+village life, members of organized society, and so far civilized beings.
+
+“When adieus, lookings back, wavings of the hand, and all the customary
+signs of farewell and good omen were over between our Ha’yel friends and
+ourselves, we pursued our road by the plain which I have already
+described as having been the frequent scene of our morning walks; but
+instead of following the southwesterly path toward Kefar, whose groves
+and roof-tops now rose in a blended mass before us, we turned eastward,
+and rounded, though at some distance, the outer wall of Ha’yel for nearly
+half an hour, till we struck off by a southeasterly track across stony
+ground, diversified here and there by wells, each with a cluster of
+gardens and a few houses in its neighborhood.  At last we reached a
+narrow winding pass among the cliffs of Djebel ’Aja’, whose mid-loop
+encircles Ha’yel on all sides, and here turned our heads to take a last
+far-off view of what had been our home, or the agreeable semblance of a
+home, for several weeks.
+
+“Our only companions as yet were Mubarek and Dahesh.  We had outstripped
+the rest, whose baggage and equipments had required a more tedious
+arrangement than our own.  Before long they came up—a motley crew.  Ten
+or thereabouts of the Kaseem, some from Bereydah itself, others from
+neighboring towns; two individuals, who gave themselves out, but with
+more asseveration than truth, to be natives of Mecca itself; three
+Bedouins, two of whom belonged to the Shomer clan, the third an ’Anezah
+of the north; next a runaway negro, conducting four horses, destined to
+pass the whole breadth of Arabia, and to be shipped off at Koweyt, on the
+Persian Gulf, for Indian sale; two merchants, one from Zulphah, in the
+province of Sedeyr, the other from Zobeyr, near Bussora; lastly, two
+women, wives of I know not exactly whom in the caravan, with some small
+children; all this making up, ourselves included, a band of twenty-seven
+or twenty-eight persons, the most mounted on camels, a few on horseback,
+and accompanied by a few beasts of burden alongside—such was our
+Canterbury pilgrims’ group.
+
+“Thus assembled, on we went together, now amid granite rocks, now
+crossing grassy valleys, till near sunset we stopped under a high cliff,
+at the extreme southerly verge of Djebel ’Aja’, or, in modern parlance,
+of Djebel Shomer.  The mountain here extended far away to right and left,
+but in front a wide plain of full twenty miles across opened out before
+us, till bounded southward by the long bluish chain of Djebel Solma,
+whose line runs parallel to the heights we were now to leave, and belongs
+to the same formation and rocky mass denominated in a comprehensive way
+the mountains of Ta’i or Shomer.
+
+“At about three in the afternoon, next day, we saw, some way off to our
+west, a troop of Bedouins coming up from the direction of Medina.  While
+they were yet in the distance, and half-hidden from view by the shrubs
+and stunted acacias of the plain, we could not precisely distinguish
+their numbers; but they were evidently enough to make us desire, with
+Orlando, ‘that we might be better strangers.’  On our side we mustered
+about fifteen matchlocks, besides a few spears and swords.  The Bedouins
+had already perceived us, and continued to approach, though in the
+desultory and circuitous way which they affect when doubtful of the
+strength of their opponent; still they gained on us more than was
+pleasant.
+
+“Fourteen armed townsmen might stand for a reasonable match against
+double the number of Bedouins, and in any case we had certainly nothing
+better to do than to put a bold face on the matter.  The ’Eyoon chief,
+Foleyh, with two of his countrymen and Ghashee, carefully primed their
+guns, and then set off at full gallop to meet the advancing enemy,
+brandishing their weapons over their heads, and looking extremely fierce.
+Under cover of this manœuvre the rest of our band set about getting their
+arms ready, and an amusing scene ensued.  One had lost his match, and was
+hunting for it in his housings; another, in his haste to ram the bullet
+home had it stick midway in the barrel, and could neither get it up nor
+down; the lock of a third was rusty and would not do duty; the women
+began to whine piteously; the two Meccans, who for economy’s sake were
+both riding one only camel, a circumstance which caused between them many
+international squabbles, tried to make their beast gallop off with them,
+and leave the others to their fate; while the more courageous animal,
+despising such cowardly measures, insisted on remaining with his
+companions and sharing their lot; all was thoroughly Arab, much hubbub
+and little done.  Had the menacing feint of the four who protected our
+rear proved insufficient, we might all have been in a very bad
+predicament, and this feeling drew every face with reverted gaze in a
+backward direction.  But the Harb banditti, intimidated by the bold
+countenance of Foleyh and his companions, wheeled about and commenced a
+skirmishing retreat, in which a few shots, guiltless of bloodshed, were
+fired for form’s sake on either side, till at last our assailants fairly
+disappeared in the remote valley.
+
+“Our valiant champions now returned from pursuit, much elated with their
+success, and we journeyed on together, skirting the last rocky spur of
+Solma, close by the spot where Hatim Ta’i, the well-known model, half
+mythic and half historical, of Arab hospitality and exaggerated
+generosity, is said to be buried.  Here we crossed some low hills that
+form a sort of offshoot to the Solma mountain, and limit the valley; and
+the last rays of the setting sun gilding to our view, in a sandy bottom
+some way off, the palm-trees of Feyd.
+
+“Feyd may be taken as a tolerable sample of the villages met with
+throughout Northern or Upper Kaseem, for they all bear a close likeness
+in their main features, though various in size.  Imagine a little sandy
+hillock of about sixty or seventy feet high, in the midst of a wide and
+dusty valley; part of the eminence itself and the adjoining bottom is
+covered by low earth-built houses, intermixed with groups of the feathery
+ithel.  The grounds in the neighborhood are divided by brick walls into
+green gardens, where gourds and melons, leguminous plants and maize, grow
+alongside of an artificial irrigation from the wells among them; palms in
+plenty—they were now heavy laden with red-brown fruits; and a few peach
+or apricot trees complete the general lineaments.  The outer walls are
+low, and serve more for the protection of the gardens than of the
+dwellings; here are neither towers nor trenches, nor even, at least in
+many places, any central castle or distinguishable residence for the
+chief; his habitation is of the same one-storied construction as those of
+his neighbors, only a little larger.  Some of the townlets are quite
+recent, and date from the Shomer annexation, which gave this part of the
+province a degree of quiet and prosperity unknown under their former
+Wahabee rulers.
+
+“Next morning, the 10th of September, we were all up by moonlight, two or
+three hours before dawn, and off on our road to the southeast.  The whole
+country that we had to traverse for the next four days was of so uniform
+a character that a few words of description may here serve for the
+landscape of this entire stage of our journey.
+
+“Upper Kaseem is an elevated plateau or steppe, and forms part of a long
+upland belt, crossing diagonally the northern half of the peninsula; one
+extremity reaches the neighborhood of Zobeyr and the Euphrates, while the
+other extends downward to the vicinity of Medina.  Its surface is in
+general covered with grass in the spring and summer seasons, and with
+shrubs and brushwood at all times, and thus affords excellent pasture for
+sheep and camels.  Across it blows the fresh eastern gale, so celebrated
+in Arab poetry under the name of ‘Seba Nedjin,’ or ‘Zephyr of Nedjed’
+(only it comes from precisely the opposite corner to the Greek or Roman
+Zephyr), and continually invoked by sentimental bards to bring them news
+of imaginary loves or pleasing reminiscences.  No wonder; for most of
+these versifiers being themselves natives of the barren Hedjaz or the
+scorching Tehama, perhaps inhabitants of Egypt and Syria, and knowing
+little of Arabia, except what they have seen on the dreary Meccan pilgrim
+road, they naturally look back to with longing, and frequently record,
+whatever glimpses chance may have allowed them of the cooler and more
+fertile highlands of the centre, denominated by them Nedjed, in a general
+way, with their transient experience of its fresh and invigorating
+climate, of its courteous men and sprightly maidens.
+
+“But when, nor is this seldom, the sweet smell of the aromatic thyme-like
+plants that here abound mixes with the light morning breeze and enhances
+its balmy influence, then indeed can one excuse the raptures of an Arab
+Ovid or Theocritus, and appreciate—at least I often did—their yearnings
+after Nedjed, and all the praises they lavish on its memory.
+
+    “Then said I to my companion, while the camels were hastening
+       To bear us down the pass between Meneefah and Demar,
+    ‘Enjoy while thou canst the sweets of the meadows of Nedjed:
+       With no such meadows and sweets shalt thou meet after this
+    evening.
+
+    Ah! heaven’s blessing on the scented gales of Nedjed,
+       And its greensward and groves glittering from the spring shower,
+    And thy dear friends, when thy lot was cast awhile in Nedjed,
+       Little hadst thou to complain of what the days brought thee;
+
+    Months flew past, they passed and we perceived not,
+       Nor when their moons were new, nor when they waned.’”
+
+For three days more they travelled forward over this undulating
+table-land, making from sixty to seventy miles a day.  The view was
+extensive, but rather monotonous.  There were no high mountains, no
+rivers, no lakes, no deep valleys; but a constant repetition of stony
+uplands, shallow and sandy hollows, and villages surrounded by belts of
+palm-groves, the extent and direction of which indicated the subterranean
+water-courses.
+
+On the third evening they reached Kowarah, the most southern station in
+Telal territory—a large village, lying in a wooded and well-watered
+hollow.  Here they still found the order and security which that ruler
+had established, and maintained everywhere throughout his dominions.
+Leaving the next morning, the 14th of September, they crossed a few low
+hills, came to a sudden dip in the general level of the country, and then
+the extent of Southern Kaseem burst suddenly upon their view.
+
+                 [Picture: The village of El Suwayrkiyah]
+
+“Now, for the first time,” says Palgrave, “we could in some measure
+appreciate the strength of the Wahabee in his mastery over such a land.
+Before us to the utmost horizon stretched an immense plain, studded with
+towns and villages, towers and groves, all steeped in the dazzling noon,
+and announcing everywhere life, opulence, and activity.  The average
+breadth of this populous district is about sixty miles, its length twice
+as much, or more; it lies full two hundred feet below the level of the
+uplands, which here break off like a wall.  Fifty or more good-sized
+villages and four or five large towns form the commercial and
+agricultural centres of the province, and its surface is moreover thickly
+strewn with smaller hamlets, isolated wells, and gardens, and traversed
+by a net-work of tracks in every direction.  Here begin, and hence extend
+to Djebel Toweyk itself, the series of high watch-towers that afford the
+inhabitants a means, denied otherwise by their level flats, of discerning
+from afar the approach of foray or invasion, and thus preparing for
+resistance.  For while no part of Central Arabia has an older or a better
+established title to civilization or wealth, no part also has been the
+starting-point and theatre of so many wars, or witnessed the gathering of
+such numerous armies.
+
+“We halted for a moment on the verge of the uplands to enjoy the
+magnificent prospect before us.  Below lay the wide plain; at a few
+miles’ distance we saw the thick palm-groves of ’Eyoon, and what little
+of its towers and citadel the dense foliage permitted to the eye.  Far
+off on our right, that is, to the west, a large dark patch marked the
+tillage and plantations which girdle the town of Rass; other villages and
+hamlets, too, were thickly scattered over the landscape.  All along the
+ridge where we stood, and visible at various distances down the level,
+rose the tall, circular watch-towers of Kaseem.  But immediately before
+us stood a more remarkable monument, one that fixed the attention and
+wonder even of our Arab companions themselves.
+
+“For hardly had we descended the narrow path where it winds from ledge to
+ledge down to the bottom, when we saw before us several huge stones, like
+enormous bowlders, placed endways perpendicularly on the soil, while some
+of them yet upheld similar masses laid transversely over their summit.
+They were arranged in a curve, once forming part, it would appear, of a
+large circle, and many other like fragments lay rolled on the ground at a
+moderate distance; the number of those still upright was, to speak by
+memory, eight or nine.  Two, at about ten or twelve feet apart one from
+the other, and resembling huge gate-posts, yet bore their horizontal
+lintel, a long block laid across them; a few were deprived of their upper
+traverse, the rest supported each its headpiece in defiance of time and
+of the more destructive efforts of man.  So nicely balanced did one of
+these cross-bars appear that, in hope it might prove a rocking-stone, I
+guided my camel right under it, and then stretching up my riding-stick at
+arm’s-length could just manage to touch and push it, but it did not stir.
+Meanwhile the respective heights of camel, rider, and stick taken
+together would place the stone in question full fifteen feet from the
+ground.
+
+“These blocks seem, by their quality, to have been hewn from the
+neighboring limestone cliff, and roughly shaped, but present no further
+trace of art, no groove or cavity of sacrificial import, much less
+anything intended for figure or ornament.  The people of the country
+attribute their erection to Darim, and by his own hands, too, seeing that
+he was a giant; perhaps, also, for some magical ceremony, since he was a
+magician.  Pointing toward Rass, our companions affirmed that a second
+and similar stone circle, also of gigantic dimensions, existed there;
+and, lastly, they mentioned a third toward the southwest, that is, on the
+confines of Hedjaz.
+
+“Here, as in most parts of Arabia, the staple article of cultivation is
+the date-palm.  Of this tree there are, however, many widely differing
+species, and Kaseem can boast of containing the best known anywhere, the
+Khalas of Hasa alone excepted.  The ripening season coincides with the
+latter half of August and the first of September, and we had thus an
+ample opportunity for testing the produce.  Those who, like most
+Europeans at home, only know the date from the dried specimens of that
+fruit shown beneath a label in shop-windows, can hardly imagine how
+delicious it is when eaten fresh and in Central Arabia.  Nor is it, when
+newly gathered, heating, a defect inherent to the preserved fruit
+everywhere; nor does its richness, however great, bring satiety: in
+short, it is an article of food alike pleasant and healthy.  Its
+cheapness in its native land might astonish a Londoner.  Enough of the
+very best dates from the Bereydah gardens to fill a large Arab
+handkerchief, about fifteen inches each way, almost to bursting, cost
+Barakat and myself the moderate sum of three farthings.  We hung it up
+from the roof-beam of our apartment to preserve the luscious fruit from
+the ants, and it continued to drip molten sweetness into a sugary pool on
+the floor below for three days together, before we had demolished the
+contents, though it figured at every dinner and supper during that
+period.
+
+“We were soon under the outer walls of ’Eyoon, a good-sized town
+containing at least ten thousand inhabitants according to my rough
+computation.  Its central site, at the very juncture of the great
+northern and western lines of communication, renders it important, and
+for this reason it is carefully fortified, that is, for the country, and
+furnished with watchtowers much resembling manufactory chimneys, in size
+and shape, beside a massive and capacious citadel.  My readers may
+anticipate analogous, though proportionate, features in most other towns
+and villages of this province.
+
+“Between the town-walls and the sand-hills close by was a sheltered spot,
+where we took about four hours of sleep, till the waning moon rose.  Then
+all were once more in movement, camels gnarling, men loading, and the
+doctor and his apprentice mounting their beasts, all for Bereydah.  But
+that town was distant, and when day broke at last there was yet a long
+road to traverse.  This now lay amid mounds and valleys, thick with the
+vegetation already described; and somewhat after sunrise we took a full
+hour to pass the gardens and fields of Ghat, a straggling village, where
+a dozen wells supplied the valley with copious irrigation.  On the
+adjoining hillocks—I may not call them heights—was continued the series
+of watch-towers, corresponding with others farther off that belonged to
+villages seen by glimpses in the landscape; I heard, but soon forgot,
+their names.
+
+“A march of ten or twelve hours had tired us, and the weather was
+oppressively close, no uncommon phenomenon in Kaseem, where, what between
+low sandy ground and a southerly latitude, the climate is much more
+sultry than in Djebel Shomer, or the mountains of Toweyk.  So that we
+were very glad when the ascent of a slight eminence discovered to our
+gaze the long-desired town of Bereydah, whose oval fortifications rose to
+view amid an open and cultivated plain.  It was a view for Turner.  An
+enormous watch-tower, near a hundred feet in height, a minaret of scarce
+inferior proportions, a mass of bastioned walls, such as we had not yet
+witnessed in Arabia, green groves around and thickets of ithel, all under
+the dreamy glare of noon, offered a striking spectacle, far surpassing
+whatever I had anticipated, and announced populousness and wealth.  We
+longed to enter those gates and walk those streets.  But we had yet a
+delay to wear out.  At about a league from the town our guide, Mubarek,
+led us off the main road to the right, up and down several little but
+steep sand-hills, and hot declivities, till about two in the afternoon,
+half-roasted with the sun, we reached, never so weary, his garden gate.
+
+“The morning was bright, yet cool, when we got free of the maze of ithel
+and sand-slopes, and entered the lanes that traverse the garden circle
+round the town, in all quiet and security.  But our approach to Bereydah
+was destined to furnish us an unexpected and undesired surprise, though
+indeed less startling than that which discomposed our first arrival at
+Ha’yel.  We had just passed a well near the angle of a garden wall, when
+we saw a man whose garb and appearance at once bespoke him for a muleteer
+of the north, watering a couple of mules at the pool hard by.  Barakat
+and I stared with astonishment, and could hardly believe our eyes.  For
+since the day we left Gaza for the southeastern desert we had never met
+with a like dress, nor with these animals; and how, then, came they here?
+But there was no mistaking either the man or the beasts, and as the
+muleteer raised his head to look at the passers-by, he also started at
+our sight, and evidently recognized in us something that took him
+unawares.  But the riddle was soon solved.  A few paces farther on, our
+way opened out on the great plain that lies immediately under the town
+walls to the north.  This space was now covered with tents and thronged
+with men of foreign dress and bearing, mixed with Arabs of town and
+desert, women and children, talking and quarrelling, buying and selling,
+going and coming; everywhere baskets full of dates and vegetables,
+platters bearing eggs and butter, milk and whey, meat hung on poles,
+bundles of firewood, etc., stood ranged in rows, horsemen and camel-men
+were riding about between groups seated round fires or reclining against
+their baggage; in the midst of all this medley a gilt ball surmounted a
+large white pavilion of a make that I had not seen since last I left
+India, some eleven years before, and numerous smaller tents of striped
+cloth, and certainly not of Arab fashion, clustered around; a lively
+scene, especially of a clear morning, but requiring some explanation from
+its exotic and non-Arab character.  These tents belonged to the great
+caravan of Persian pilgrims, on their return from Medina to Meshid ’Alee
+by the road of Kaseem, and hence all this unusual concourse and bustle.
+
+                      [Picture: An Arab Encampment]
+
+“Passing a little on to the east, we left the crowded encampment on one
+side and turned to enter the city gates.  Here, and this is generally the
+case in the larger Arab towns of old date, the fortifications surround
+houses alone, and the gardens all lie without, sometimes defended—at
+’Oneyzah, for example—by a second outer girdle of walls and towers, but
+sometimes, as at Bereydah, devoid of any mural protection.  The town
+itself is composed exclusively of streets, houses, and market-places, and
+bears in consequence a more regular appearance than the recent and
+village-like arrangements of the Djowf and even of Ha’yel.  We passed a
+few streets, tolerably large but crooked, and then made the camels kneel
+down in a little square or public place, where I remained seated by them
+on the baggage, switch in hand, like an ordinary Arab traveller, and
+Barakat with Mubarek went in search of lodgings.
+
+“Very long did the half-hour seem to me during which I had thus to mount
+guard till my companions returned from their quest; the streets were full
+of people, and a disagreeable crowd of the lower sort was every moment
+collecting round myself and my camels, with all the inquisitiveness of
+the idle and vulgar in every land.  At last my companions came back to
+say that they had found what they wanted; a kick or two brought the
+camels on their legs again, and we moved off to our new quarters.
+
+“The house in question was hardly more than five minutes’ walk from the
+north gate, and at about an equal distance only from the great
+market-place on the other side.  Its position was therefore good.  It
+possessed two large rooms on the ground story, and three smaller, besides
+a spacious court-yard, surrounded by high walls.  A winding stair of
+irregular steps and badly lighted, like all in the Nedjed, led up to an
+extent of flat roof, girt round by a parapet six feet high, and divided
+into two compartments by a cross-wall, thus affording a very tolerable
+place for occupation morning and evening, at the hours when the
+side-walls might yet project enough shade to shelter those seated
+alongside of them, besides an excellent sleeping place for night.”
+
+The day after their arrival they made a call upon Mohanna, the ruler of
+Bereydah, in order to ask his assistance in proceeding to Nedjed.  But he
+was too busy in devising means to exact more tribute-money from the
+Persian pilgrims to give any notice to two persons whose dress and
+appearance gave no token of wealth.  This neglect afterward proved to be
+a piece of good fortune.  They then spent several days in a vain attempt
+to find camels and guides; no one was willing to undertake the service.
+The central province of Nedjed, the genuine Wahabee country, is to the
+rest of Arabia a sort of lion’s den, into which few venture and yet fewer
+return.  An elderly man of Bereydah, of whom Palgrave demanded
+information, simply replied, “It is Nedjed; he who enters it does not
+come out again,” and this is almost literally true.  Its mountains, once
+the fastnesses of robbers and assassins, are at the present day equally,
+or even more, formidable as the stronghold of fanatics who consider
+everyone save themselves an infidel or a heretic, and who regard the
+slaughter of an infidel or a heretic as a duty, at least a merit.  In
+addition to this general cause of anticipating a worse than cold
+reception in Nedjed, wars and bloodshed, aggression and tyranny, have
+heightened the original antipathy of the surrounding population into
+special and definite resentment for wrongs received, perhaps inflicted,
+till Nedjed has become for all but her born sons doubly dangerous and
+doubly hateful.
+
+Another circumstance, which seemed to make Palgrave’s situation more
+difficult, although it was equally fortunate in the end, was a rebellion
+which had broken out in the neighboring city of ’Oneyzah, headed by
+Zamil, a native chief.  The town was at that time besieged by the
+Wahabees, yet held out gallantly, and the sympathy of the people of all
+Kaseem was so strongly on the side of Zamil, that only the presence of
+the Wahabee troops in Bereydah kept that city, also, from revolt.  The
+rebels had sent deputations to Mecca and also to Djebel Shomer for
+assistance, and there seemed to be some possibility of a general Central
+Arabian revolt against the hated Wahabee supremacy.  It seemed thus to be
+a most unpropitious time for penetrating the stronghold of Nedjed.
+Palgrave did not so much fear the suspicion of being a European, as that
+of being an Ottoman spy.  His first need, however, was the means of going
+forward safely.  He thus described how an apparent chance made him
+acquainted with the man to whom almost the entire success of his later
+travels was due:
+
+“It was the sixth day after our arrival, and the 22d of September, when
+about noon I was sitting alone and rather melancholy, and trying to
+beguile the time with reading the incomparable Divan of Ebn-el-Farid, the
+favorite companion of my travels.  Barakat had at my request betaken
+himself out of doors, less in hopes of success than to ‘go to and fro in
+the earth and walk up and down in it;’ nor did I now dare to expect that
+he would return any wiser than he had set forth.  When lo! after a long
+two hours’ absence he came in with cheerful face, index of good tidings.
+
+“Good, indeed, they were, none better.  Their bearer said, that after
+roaming awhile to no purport through the streets and market-place, he had
+bethought him of a visit to the Persian camp.  There, while straying
+among the tents, ‘like a washerwoman’s dog,’ as a Hindoo would say, he
+noticed somewhat aloof from the crowd a small group of pilgrims seated
+near their baggage on the sand, while curls of smoke going up from amid
+the circle indicated the presence of a fire, which at that time of day
+could be for nothing else than coffee.  Civilized though Barakat
+undoubtedly was, he was yet by blood and heart an Arab, and for an Arab
+to see coffee-making and not to put himself in the way of getting a share
+would be an act of self-restraint totally unheard of.  So he approached
+the group, and was of course invited to sit down and drink.  The party
+consisted of two wealthy Persians, accompanied by three or four of that
+class of men, half-servants, half-companions, who often hook on to
+travellers at Bagdad or its neighborhood, besides a mulatto of
+Arabo-negrine origin, and his master, this last being the leader of the
+band, and the giver of the aromatic entertainment.
+
+“Barakat’s whole attention was at once engrossed by this personage.  A
+remarkably handsome face, of a type evidently not belonging to the Arab
+peninsula, long hair curling down to the shoulders, an over-dress of fine
+spun silk, somewhat soiled by travel, a colored handkerchief of Syrian
+manufacture on the head, a manner and look indicating an education much
+superior to that ordinary in his class and occupation, a camel-driver’s,
+were peculiarities sufficient of themselves to attract notice, and give
+rise to conjecture.  But when these went along with a welcome and a
+salute in the forms and tone of Damascus or Aleppo, and a ready flow of
+that superabundant and overcharged politeness for which the Syrian
+subjects of the Turkish empire are renowned, Barakat could no longer
+doubt that he had a fellow-countryman, and one, too, of some note, before
+him.
+
+“Such was in fact the case.  Aboo-’Eysa, to give him the name by which he
+was commonly known in these parts, though in his own country he bears
+another denomination, was a native of Aleppo, and son of a not
+unimportant individual in that fair city.  His education, and the
+circumstances of his early youth, had rendered him equally conversant
+with townsmen and herdsmen, with citizens and Bedouins, with Arabs and
+Europeans.  By lineal descent he was a Bedouin, since his grandfather
+belonged to the Mejadimah, who are themselves an offshoot of the
+Benoo-Khalid; but in habits, thoughts, and manners he was a very son of
+Aleppo, where he had passed the greater part of his boyhood and youth.
+When about twenty-five years of age he became involved, culpably or not,
+in the great conspiracy against the Turkish government which broke out in
+the Aleppine insurrection of 1852.  Like many others he was compelled to
+anticipate consequences by a prompt flight.
+
+“After trying commerce in order to retrieve his ruined fortunes, but with
+ill success, Aboo-’Eysa engaged in the horse trade between Persia and
+Arabia, and also failed.  He then went to Ri’ad, the capital of Nedjed,
+and by presents to Feysul, the chief, obtained a post as guide to the
+Persian caravans of pilgrims to Mecca, across Arabia.  At this time he
+had followed that career for three years, and had amassed considerable
+wealth, for his politeness, easy manners, and strict probity made him
+popular with the pilgrims.
+
+“He recognized a fellow-countryman in Barakat,” says Palgrave, “received
+him with marked politeness, and carefully informed himself of our whence
+and whither.  Barakat, overjoyed to find at last a kind of opening after
+difficulties that had appeared to obstruct all further progress, made no
+delay in inquiring whether he would undertake our guidance to Ri’ad.
+Aboo-’Eysa replied that he was just on the point of separating from his
+friends the Persians, whose departure would leave camels enough and to
+spare at his disposition, and that so far there was no hindrance to the
+proposal.  As for the Wahabees and their unwillingness to admit strangers
+within their limits, he stated himself to be well known to them, and that
+in his company we should have nothing to fear from their suspicious
+criticism.”
+
+The agreement was made at once, and the travellers now only waited until
+their new companion should have made some final arrangements with the
+Persian pilgrims, who were to travel directly from Bereydah to Bagdad.
+In the meantime, the former took advantage of the delay to see as much as
+possible of the place, and even to make excursions in the neighborhood,
+especially in the direction of the beleaguered city of ’Oneyzah.
+Palgrave’s description of the place shows that it possesses the same
+general features as the other Arabian towns, yet may be quoted for its
+intrinsic picturesqueness:
+
+“Barakat and myself have made our morning household purchases at the
+fair, and the sun being now an hour or more above the horizon, we think
+it time to visit the market-place of the town, which would hardly be open
+sooner.  We re-enter the city gate, and pass on our way by our house
+door, where we leave our bundle of eatables, and regain the high street
+of Bereydah.  Before long we reach a high arch across the road; this gate
+divides the market from the rest of the quarter.  We enter.  First of all
+we see a long range of butchers’ shops on either side, thick hung with
+flesh of sheep and camel, and very dirtily kept.  Were not the air pure
+and the climate healthy, the plague would assuredly be endemic here; but
+in Arabia no special harm seems to follow.  We hasten on, and next pass a
+series of cloth and linen warehouses, stocked partly with home
+manufacture, but more imported; Bagdad cloaks and head-gear, for
+instance, Syrian shawls and Egyptian slippers.  Here markets follow the
+law general throughout the East, that all shops or stores of the same
+description should be clustered together, a system whose advantages on
+the whole outweigh its inconveniences, at least for small towns like
+these.  In the large cities and capitals of Europe greater extent of
+locality requires evidently a different method of arrangement; it might
+be awkward for the inhabitants of Hyde Park were no hatters to be found
+nearer than the Tower.  But what is Bereydah compared even with a
+second-rate European city?  However, in a crowd, it yields to none; the
+streets at this time of the day are thronged to choking, and to make
+matters worse, a huge, splay-footed camel comes every now and then,
+heaving from side to side like a lubber-rowed boat, with a long beam on
+his back menacing the heads of those in the way, or with two enormous
+loads of firewood, each as large as himself, sweeping the road before him
+of men, women, and children, while the driver, high-perched on the hump,
+regards such trifles with the most supreme indifference, so long as he
+brushes his path open.  Sometimes there is a whole string of these
+beasts, the head-rope of each tied to the crupper of his precursor, very
+uncomfortable passengers when met with at a narrow turning.
+
+“Through such obstacles we have found or made our way, and are now amid
+leather and shoemakers’ shops, then among coppersmiths and ironsmiths,
+whose united clang might waken the dead or kill the living, till at last
+we emerge on the central town-square, not a bad one either, nor very
+irregular, considering that it is in Kaseem.
+
+“The vegetable and fruit market is very extensive, and kept almost
+exclusively by women; so are also the shops for grocery and spices.  Nor
+do the fair sex of Bereydah seem a whit inferior to their rougher
+partners in knowledge of business and thrifty diligence.
+‘Close-handedness beseems a woman no less than generosity a man,’ says an
+Arab poet, unconsciously coinciding with Lance of Verona in his comments
+on the catalogue of his future spouse’s ‘conditions.’
+
+“The whole town has an aspect of old but declining prosperity.  There are
+few new houses, but many falling into ruin.  The faces, too, of most we
+meet are serious, and their voices in an undertone.  Silk dresses are
+prohibited by the dominant faction, and tobacco can only be smoked within
+doors, and by stealth.  Every now and then zealous Wahabee missionaries
+from Ri’ad pay a visit of reform and preaching to unwilling auditors, and
+disobedience to the customs of the Nedjean sect is noticed and punished,
+often severely.
+
+“Enough of the town; the streets are narrow, hot, and dusty; the day,
+too, advances; but the gardens are yet cool.  So we dash at a venture
+through a labyrinth of by-ways and cross-ways till we find ourselves in
+the wide street that, like a boulevard in France, runs immediately along
+but inside the walls.
+
+“We stroll about in the shade, hide ourselves amid the high maize to
+smoke a quiet pipe unobserved by prying Nedjean eyes, and then walk on
+till at some distance we come under a high ridge of sand.
+
+“While on one of our suburban excursions we took the direction of
+’Oneyzah, but found it utterly impossible to arrive within its walls; so
+we contented ourselves with an outside and distant view of this large and
+populous town; the number of its houses, and their size, judging by the
+overtopping summits that marked out the dwelling of Zamil and his family,
+far surpassed anything in Bereydah.  The outer fortifications are
+enormously thick, and the girdle of palm-trees between them and the town
+affords a considerable additional defence to the latter.  For all I could
+see there is little stonework in the construction; they appear almost
+exclusively of unbaked bricks; yet even so they are formidable defences
+for Arabia.  The whole country around, and whatever lay northeast toward
+Bereydah, was more or less ravaged by the war; and we were blamed by our
+friends as very rash in having ventured thus far; in fact, it was a mere
+chance that we did not fall in with skirmishers or plunderers; and in
+such a case the military discipline of Kaseem would hardly have insured
+our safety.
+
+“When all was ready for the long-expected departure, it was definitely
+fixed for the 3d of October, a Friday, I think, at nightfall.  Since our
+first interview Barakat and myself had not again presented ourselves
+before Mohanna, except in chance meetings, accompanied by distant
+salutations in the street or market-place; and we did not see any need
+for paying him a special farewell call.  Indeed, after learning who and
+what he was, we did our best not to draw his gray eye on us, and thereby
+escaped some additional trouble and surplus duties to pay, nor did any
+one mention us to him.  At star-rise we bade our host and householder
+Ahmed a final adieu, and left the town with Aboo-’Eysa for our guide.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—JOURNEY TO RI’AD THE CAPITAL OF NEDJED.
+
+TWO roads lay before us.  The shorter, and for that reason the more
+frequented of the two, led southeast-by-east through Woshem and Wady
+Haneefah to Ri’ad.  But this track passed through a district often
+visited at the present moment by the troops of ’Oneyzah and their allies,
+and hence our companions, not over-courageous for the most, were afraid
+to follow it.  Another road, much more circuitous, but farther removed
+from the scene of military operations, led northeast to Zulphah, and
+thence entered the province of Sedeyr, which it traversed in a
+southeasterly or southern direction, and thus reached the ’Aared.  Our
+council of war resolved on the latter itinerary, nor did we ourselves
+regret a roundabout which promised to procure us the sight of much that
+we might scarcely have otherwise an opportunity of visiting.  Barakat and
+I were mounted on two excellent dromedaries of Aboo-’Eysa’s stud; the
+Na’ib {201} was on a lovely gray she camel with a handsome saddle,
+crimson and gold.  The Meccans shared between them a long-backed black
+beast; the rest were also mounted on camels or dromedaries, since the
+road before us was impracticable for horses, at any rate at this time of
+year.
+
+“Our road lay in Kaseem, whose highlands we rejoined once more, and
+traversed till sunset.  The view was very beautiful from its extent and
+variety of ups and downs, in broad, grassy hills; little groups of trees
+stood in scattered detachments around; and had a river, that desideratum
+of Arabia, been in sight, one might almost have fancied one’s self in the
+country bordering the Lower Rhine for some part of its course; readers
+may suppose, too, that there was less verdure here than in the European
+parallel—my comparison bears only on the general turn of the view.  No
+river exists nearer Kaseem than Shatt (Euphrates), some hundred leagues
+off, and our eyes had been too long accustomed to the deceptive pools of
+the mirage to associate with them even a passing idea of aught save
+drought and heat.
+
+“We journeyed on till dark, and then reached certain hillocks of a
+different character from the hard ground lately under our feet.  Here
+began the Nefood, whose course from the southwest to northeast, and then
+north, parts between Kaseem, Woshem, and Sedeyr.  I have already said
+something of these sandy inlets when describing that which we crossed
+three months ago between Djowf and Shomer.
+
+“On the verge of the desert strip we now halted a little to eat a hasty
+supper, and to drink—the Arabs coffee and the Persians tea.  But
+journeying in these sands, under the heat of the day, is alike killing to
+man and beast, and therefore Aboo-’Eysa had resolved that we should cross
+the greater portion under favor of the cooler hours of night.
+
+“All night, a weary night, we waded up and down through waves of sand, in
+which the camels often sank up to their knees, and their riders were
+obliged to alight and help them on.
+
+“Now by full daylight appeared the true character of the region which we
+were traversing; its aspect resembled the Nefood north of Djebel Shomer,
+but the undulations were here higher and deeper, and the sand itself
+lighter and less stable.  In most spots neither shrub nor blade of grass
+could fix its root, in others a scanty vegetation struggled through, but
+no trace of man anywhere.  The camels ploughed slowly on; the Persians,
+unaccustomed to such scenes, were downcast and silent; all were tired,
+and no wonder.  At last, a little before noon, and just as the sun’s heat
+was becoming intolerable, we reached the verge of an immense crater-like
+hollow, certainly three or four miles in circumference, where the
+sand-billows receded on every side, and left in the midst a pit seven or
+eight hundred feet in depth, at whose base we could discern a white gleam
+of limestone rock, and a small group of houses, trees, and gardens, thus
+capriciously isolated in the very heart of the desert.
+
+“This was the little village and oasis of Wasit, or ‘the intermediary,’
+so called because a central point between the three provinces of Kaseem,
+Sedeyr, and Woshem, yet belonging to none of them.  Nor is it often
+visited by wayfarers, as we learned from the inhabitants, men simple and
+half-savage, from their little intercourse with the outer world, and
+unacquainted even with the common forms of Islamitic prayer, though
+dwelling in the midst of the Wahabee dominions.
+
+“A long, winding descent brought us to the bottom of the valley, where on
+our arrival men and boys came out to stare at the Persians, and by
+exacting double prices for fruit and camel’s milk proved themselves not
+altogether such fools as they looked.  For us, regarded as Arabs, we
+enjoyed their hospitality—it was necessarily a limited one—gratis;
+whereupon the Na’ib grew jealous, and declaimed against the Arabs as
+‘infidels,’ for not treating with suitable generosity pilgrims like
+themselves returning from the ‘house of God.’
+
+“To get out of this pit was no easy matter; _facilis descensus_, etc.,
+thought I; no ascending path showed itself in the required direction, and
+every one tried to push up his floundering beast where the sand appeared
+at a manageable slope, and firm to the footing.  Camels and men fell and
+rolled back down the declivity, till some of the party shed tears of
+vexation, and others, more successful, laughed at the annoyance of their
+companions.  Aboo-’Eysa ran about from one to the other, attempting to
+direct and keep them together, till finally, as Heaven willed, we reached
+the upper rim to the north.
+
+“Before us lay what seemed a storm-driven sea of fire in the red light of
+afternoon, and through it we wound our way, till about an hour before
+sunset we fell in with a sort of track or furrow.  Next opened out on our
+road a long descent, at whose extreme base we discerned the important and
+commercial town of Zulphah.  Beyond it rose the wall-like steeps of
+Djebel Toweyk, so often heard of, and now seen close at hand.  Needless
+to say how joyfully we welcomed the first view of that strange ridge, the
+heart and central knot of Arabia, beyond which whatever lay might almost
+be reckoned as a return journey.
+
+“We had now, in fact, crossed the Nefood, and had at our feet the great
+valley which constitutes the main line of communication between Nedjed
+and the north, reaching even to the Tigris and Bagdad.
+
+“We passed the whole length of the town of Zulphah, several streets of
+which had been lately swept away by the winter torrents that pour at
+times their short-lived fury down this valley.  Before us to the
+southeast stretched the long hollow; on our right was the Nefood, on our
+left Djebel Toweyk and the province of Sedeyr.  The mountain air blew
+cool, and this day’s journey was a far pleasanter one than its
+predecessor.  We continued our march down the valley till the afternoon,
+when we turned aside into a narrow gorge running up at a sharp angle to
+the northeast, and thus entered between the heights of Djebel Toweyk
+itself.
+
+“This mountain essentially constitutes Nedjed.  It is a wide and flat
+chain, or rather plateau, whose general form is that of a huge crescent.
+If I may be permitted here to give my rough guess regarding the elevation
+of the main plateau, a guess grounded partly on the vegetation, climate,
+and similar local features, partly on an approximate estimate of the
+ascent itself, and of the subsequent descent on the other or sea side, I
+should say that it varies from a height of one to two thousand feet above
+the surrounding level of the peninsula, and may thus be about three
+thousand feet at most above the sea.  Its loftiest ledges occur in the
+Sedeyr district, where we shall pass them before long; the centre and the
+southwesterly arm is certainly lower.  Djebel Toweyk is the middle knot
+of Arabia, its Caucasus, so to say; and is still, as it has often been in
+former times, the turning-point of the whole, or almost the whole,
+peninsula in a political and national bearing.
+
+“The climate of the northern part of Djebel Toweyk, whether plateau or
+valley, coincident with the province of Sedeyr, is perhaps one of the
+healthiest in the world; an exception might be made in favor of Djebel
+Shomer alone.  The above named districts resemble each other closely in
+dryness of atmosphere, and the inhabitants of Sedeyr, like those of
+Shomer, are remarkable for their ruddy complexion and well-developed
+stature.  But when we approach the centre of the mountain crescent, where
+its whole level lowers, while the more southerly latitude brings it
+nearer to the prevailing influences of the tropical zone, the air becomes
+damper and more relaxing, and a less salubrious climate pictures itself
+in the sallower faces and slender make of its denizens.
+
+“Two days later we attained the great plateau, of which I have a few
+pages since given an anticipated description.
+
+“About noon we halted in a brushwood-covered plain to light fire and
+prepare coffee.  After which we pursued our easterly way, still a little
+to the north, now and then meeting with travellers or peasants; but a
+European would find these roads very lonely in comparison with those of
+his own country.  All the more did I admire the perfect submission and
+strict police enforced by the central government, so that even a casual
+robbery is very rare in the provinces, and highwaymen are totally out of
+the question.  At last, near the same hour of afternoon that had brought
+us the day before to Ghat, we came in sight of Mejmaa’, formerly capital
+of the province, and still a place of considerable importance, with a
+population, to judge by appearances and hearsay, of between ten and
+twelve thousand souls.
+
+“We were up early next morning, for the night air was brisk, and a few
+hours of sleep had sufficed us.
+
+“After sunrise we came on a phenomenon of a nature, I believe, without a
+second or a parallel in Central Arabia, yet withal most welcome, namely,
+a tolerably large source of running water, forming a wide and deepish
+stream, with grassy banks, and frogs croaking in the herbage.  We opened
+our eyes in amazement; it was the first of the kind that we had beheld
+since leaving the valley of Djowf.  But though a living, it is a
+short-lived rivulet, reaching only four or five hours’ distance to
+Djelajil, where it is lost amid the plantations of the suburbs.
+
+“We had not long traversed the Meteyr encampment, when we came in view of
+the walls of Toweym, a large town, containing between twelve and fifteen
+thousand inhabitants, according to the computation here in use, and which
+I follow for want of better.  The houses are here built compactly, of two
+stories in general, sometimes three; the lower rooms are often fifteen or
+sixteen feet high, and the upper ten or twelve; while the roof itself is
+frequently surrounded by a blind wall of six feet or more, till the whole
+attains a fair altitude, and is not altogether unimposing.
+
+“Early next day, at a short distance from Toweym, we passed another large
+village with battlemented walls, and on the opposite side of the road a
+square castle, looking very mediæval; this was Hafr.  A couple of hours
+further on we reached Thomeyr, a straggling townlet, more abounding in
+broken walls than houses; close by was a tall white rock, crowned by the
+picturesque remains of an old outwork or fort, overlooking the place.
+Here our party halted for breakfast in the shadow of the ruins.  Barakat
+and myself determined to try our fortune in the village itself; no guards
+appeared at its open gate; we entered unchallenged, and roamed through
+silent lanes and heaps of rubbish, vainly seeking news of milk and dates
+in this city of the dead.  At last we met a meagre townsman, in look and
+apparel the apothecary of Romeo; and of him, not without misgivings of
+heart, we inquired where aught eatable could be had for love or money.
+He apologized, though there was scarce need of that, for not having any
+such article at his disposal; ‘but,’ added he, ‘in such and such a house
+there will certainly be something good,’ and thitherward he preceded us
+in our search.  We found indeed a large dwelling, but the door was shut;
+we knocked to no purpose: nobody at home.
+
+                      [Picture: Death on the Desert]
+
+“Our man now set us a bolder example, and we altogether scrambled through
+a breach in the mud wall, and found ourselves amid empty rooms and a
+desolate court-yard.  ‘Everybody is out in the fields, women only
+excepted,’ said our guide, and we separated, no better off than before.
+Despairing of the village commissariat, we climbed a turret on the outer
+walls, and looked round.  Now we saw at some distance a beautiful
+palm-grove, where we concluded that dates could not be wanting, and off
+we set for it across the stubble fields.  But on arriving we found our
+paradise surrounded by high walls, and no gate discoverable.  While thus
+we stood without, like Milton’s fiend at Eden, but unable, like him, ‘by
+one high bound to overleap all bound,’ up came a handsome Solibah lad,
+all in rags, half-walking, half-dancing, in the devil-may-care way of his
+tribe.  ‘Can you tell us which is the way in?’ was our first question,
+pointing to the garden before us; and, ‘Shall I sing you a song?’ was his
+first answer.  ‘We don’t want your songs, but dates; how are we to get at
+them?’ we replied.  ‘Or shall I perform you a dance?’ answered the
+grinning young scoundrel, and forthwith began an Arabian polka-step,
+laughing all the while at our undisguised impatience.  At last he
+condescended to show us the way, but no other than what befitted an
+orchard-robbing boy, like himself, for it lay a little farther off, right
+over the wall, which he scaled with practised ingenuity, and helped us to
+follow.  So we did, though perhaps with honester intentions, and, once
+within, stood amid trees, shade, and water.  The ‘tender juvenile’ then
+set up a shout, and soon a man appeared, ‘old Adam’s likeness set to
+dress this garden,’ save that he was not old but young, as Adam might
+himself have been while yet in Eden.  We were somewhat afraid of a surly
+reception, too well merited by our very equivocal introduction; but the
+gardener was better-tempered than many of his caste, and after saluting
+us very politely, offered his services at our disposal.  We then proposed
+to purchase a stock of dates for our onward way, whereon the gardener
+conducted us to an outhouse where heaps of three or four kinds of this
+fruit, red and yellow, round or long, lay piled up, and bade us choose.
+At his recommendation we filled a large cloth, which we had brought with
+us for the purpose, with excellent ruddy dates, and gave in return a
+small piece of money, welcome here as elsewhere.  We then took leave and
+returned, but this time through the garden gate, to the stubble fields,
+and passing under the broken walls of the village, reached our
+companions, who had become anxious at our absence.”
+
+For three days longer the travellers journeyed southward, through the
+valleys branching out from Djebel Toweyk, encamping for the night near
+some of the small towns.  “In the early gray of the fourth morning,” says
+Palgrave, “we passed close under the plantations of Rowdah down the
+valley, now dry and still, once overflowed with the best blood of Arabia,
+and through the narrow and high-walled pass which gives entrance to the
+great strongholds of the land.  The sun rose and lighted up to our view
+wild precipices on either side, with a tangled mass of broken rock and
+brushwood below, while coveys of partridges started up at our feet, and
+deer scampered away by the gorges to right or left, or a cloud of dust
+announced the approach of peasant bands or horsemen going to and fro, and
+gardens or hamlets gleamed through side openings or stood niched in the
+bulging passes of the Wady itself, till before noon we arrived at the
+little hamlet of Malka, or ‘the junction.’
+
+“Its name is derived from its position.  Here the valley divides in form
+of a Y, sending off two branches—one southerly to Derey’eeyah, the other
+southeast-by-east through the centre of the province, and communicating
+with the actual capital, Ri’ad.
+
+“Aboo-’Eysa had meditated bringing us on that very evening to Ri’ad.  But
+eight good leagues remained from Malka to the capital; and when the Na’ib
+had terminated his cosmetic operations, the easterly turning shadows left
+us no hope of attaining Ri’ad before nightfall.  However, we resumed our
+march, and took the arm of the valley leading to Derey’eeyah; but before
+reaching it we once more quitted the Wady, and followed a shorter path by
+the highlands to the left.  Our way was next crossed by a long range of
+towers, built by Ibraheem Pasha, as outposts for the defence of this
+important position.  Within their line stood the lonely walls of a large,
+square barrack; the towers were what we sometimes call Martello—short,
+large, and round.
+
+“The level rays of the setting sun now streamed across the plain, and we
+came on the ruins of Derey’eeyah, filling up the whole breadth of the
+valley beneath.  The palace walls, of unbaked brick, like the rest, rose
+close under the left or northern edge, but unroofed and tenantless; a
+little lower down a wide extent of fragments showed where the immense
+mosque had been, and hard by, the market-place; a tower on an isolated
+height was, I suppose, the original dwelling-place of the Sa’ood family,
+while yet mere local chieftains, before growing greatness transferred
+them to their imperial palace.  The outer fortifications remained almost
+uninjured for much of their extent, with turrets and bastions reddening
+in the western light; in other places the Egyptian artillery, or the
+process of years, had levelled them with the earth; within the town many
+houses were yet standing, but uninhabited, and the lines of the streets
+from gate to gate were distinct as in a ground plan.  From the great size
+of the town (for it is full half a mile in length, and not much less in
+breadth), and from the close packing of the houses, I should estimate its
+capacity at above forty thousand indwellers.  The gardens lie without,
+and still ‘living waved where man had ceased to live,’ in full beauty and
+luxuriance, a deep green ring around the gray ruins.  For although the
+Nedjeans, holding it for an ill omen to rebuild and reinhabit a town so
+fatally overthrown, have transplanted the seat of government, and with it
+the bulk of the city population, to Ri’ad, they have not deemed it
+equally necessary to abandon the rich plantations and well-watered fields
+belonging to the old capital; and thus a small colony of gardeners in
+scattered huts and village dwellings close under the walls protract the
+blighted existence of Derey’eeyah.
+
+“While from our commanding elevation we gazed thoughtfully on this scene,
+so full of remembrances, the sun set, and darkness grew on.  We naturally
+proposed a halt, but Aboo-’Eysa turned a deaf ear, and affirmed that a
+garden belonging to ’Abd-er-Rahman, already mentioned as grandson of the
+first Wahabee, was but a little farther before us, and better adapted to
+our night’s rest than the ruins.  In truth, three hours of brisk
+travelling yet intervened between Derey’eeyah and the place in question;
+but our guide was unwilling to enter Derey’eeyah in company of Persians
+and Syrians, Shiya’ees and Christians; and this he afterward confessed to
+me.  For, whether from one of those curious local influences which
+outlast even the change of races, and give one abiding color to the
+successive tenants of the same spot, or whether it be occasioned by the
+constant view of their fallen greatness and the triumph of their enemies,
+the scanty population of Derey’eeyah comprises some of the bitterest and
+most bigoted fanatics that even ’Aared can offer.  Accordingly we moved
+on, still keeping to the heights, and late at night descended a little
+hollow, where, amid an extensive garden, stood the country villa of
+’Abd-er-Rahman.
+
+“We did not attempt to enter the house; indeed, at such an hour no one
+was stirring to receive us.  But a shed in the garden close by sufficed
+for travellers who were all too weary to desire aught but sleep; and this
+we soon found in spite of dogs and jackals, numerous here and throughout
+Nedjed.
+
+“From this locality to the capital was about four miles’ distance.  Our
+party divided next morning; the Na’ib and his associates remaining
+behind, while Barakat and myself, with Aboo-’Eysa, set off straight for
+the town, where our guide was to give notice at the palace of the
+approach of the Persian dignitary, that the honors due to his reception
+might meet him half-way.  At our request the Meccans stayed also in the
+rear; we did not desire the equivocal effect of their company on a first
+appearance.
+
+“For about an hour we proceeded southward, through barren and undulating
+ground, unable to see over the country to any distance.  At last we
+attained a rising eminence, and crossing it, came at once in full view of
+Ri’ad, the main object of our long journey—the capital of Nedjed and half
+Arabia, its very heart of hearts.
+
+“Before us stretched a wild open valley, and in its foreground,
+immediately below the pebbly slope on whose summit we stood, lay the
+capital, large and square, crowned by high towers and strong walls of
+defence, a mass of roofs and terraces, where overtopping all frowned the
+huge but irregular pile of Feysul’s royal castle, and hard by it rose the
+scarce less conspicuous palace, built and inhabited by his eldest son,
+’Abdallah.  Other edifices, too, of remarkable appearance broke here and
+there through the maze of gray roof-tops, but of their object and
+indwellers we were yet to learn.  All around for full three miles over
+the surrounding plain, but more especially to the west and south, waved a
+sea of palm-trees above green fields and well-watered gardens; while the
+singing, droning sound of the water-wheels reached us even where we had
+halted, at a quarter of a mile or more from the nearest town-walls.  On
+the opposite side southward, the valley opened out into the great and
+even more fertile plains of Yemamah, thickly dotted with groves and
+villages, among which the large town of Manfoohah, hardly inferior in
+size to Ri’ad itself, might be clearly distinguished.  Farther in the
+background ranged the blue hills, the ragged Sierra of Yemamah, compared
+some thirteen hundred years since, by ’Amroo-ebn-Kelthoom, the Shomerite,
+to drawn swords in battle array; and behind them was concealed the
+immeasurable Desert of the South, or Dahna.  On the west the valley
+closes in and narrows in its upward windings toward Derey’eeyah, while to
+the southwest the low mounds of Aflaj are the division between it and
+Wady Dowasir.  Due east in the distance a long blue line marks the
+farthest heights of Toweyk, and shuts out from view the low ground of
+Hasa and the shores of the Persian Gulf.  In all the countries which I
+have visited, and they are many, seldom has it been mine to survey a
+landscape equal to this in beauty and in historical meaning, rich and
+full alike to eye and mind.  But should any of my readers have ever
+approached Damascus from the side of the Anti-Lebanon, and surveyed the
+Ghootah from the heights above Mazzeh, they may thence form an
+approximate idea of the valley of Ri’ad when viewed from the north.  Only
+this is wider and more varied, and the circle of vision here embraces
+vaster plains and bolder mountains; while the mixture of tropical aridity
+and luxuriant verdure, of crowded population and desert tracks, is one
+that Arabia alone can present, and in comparison with which Syria seems
+tame, and Italy monotonous.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—ADVENTURES IN RI’AD.
+
+“BARAKAT and myself stopped our dromedaries a few minutes on the height
+to study and enjoy this noble prospect, and to forget the anxiety
+inseparable from a first approach to the lion’s own den.  Aboo-’Eysa,
+too, though not unacquainted with the scene, willingly paused with us to
+point out and name the main features of the view, and show us where lay
+the onward road to his home in Hasa. We then descended the slope and
+skirted the walls of the first outlying plantations which gird the town.
+
+“At last we reached a great open square: its right side, the northern,
+consists of shops and warehouses; while the left is entirely absorbed by
+the huge abode of Nedjean royalty; in front of us, and consequently to
+the west, a long covered passage, upborne high on a clumsy colonnade,
+crossed the breadth of the square, and reached from the palace to the
+great mosque, which it thus joins directly with the interior of the
+castle and affords old Feysul a private and unseen passage at will from
+his own apartments to his official post at the Friday prayers, without
+exposing him on his way to vulgar curiosity, or perhaps to the dangers of
+treachery.  For the fate of his father and of his great-uncle, his
+predecessors on the throne, and each of them pierced by the dagger of an
+assassin during public worship, has rendered Feysul very timid on this
+score, though not at prayer-time only.  Behind this colonnade, other
+shops and warehouses make up the end of the square, or, more properly,
+parallelogram; its total length is about two hundred paces, by rather
+more than half the same width.  In the midst of this space, and under the
+far-reaching shadow of the castle walls, are seated some fifty or sixty
+women, each with a stock of bread, dates, milk, vegetables, or firewood
+before her for sale.
+
+“But we did not now stop to gaze, nor indeed did we pay much attention to
+all this; our first introduction to the monarch and the critical position
+before us took up all our thoughts.  So we paced on alongside of the long
+blind wall running out from the central keep, and looking more like the
+outside of a fortress than of a peaceful residence, till we came near a
+low and narrow gate, the only entry to the palace.  Deep-sunk between the
+bastions, with massive folding doors iron bound, though thrown open at
+this hour of the day, and giving entrance into a dark passage, one might
+easily have taken it for the vestibule of a prison; while the number of
+guards, some black, some white, but all sword-girt, who almost choked the
+way, did not seem very inviting to those without, especially to
+foreigners.  Long earth seats lined the adjoining walls, and afforded a
+convenient waiting-place for visitors; and here we took up our rest at a
+little distance from the palace gate; but Aboo-’Eysa entered at once to
+announce our arrival, and the approach of the Na’ib.
+
+“The first who drew near and saluted us was a tall, meagre figure, of a
+sallow complexion, and an intelligent but slightly ill-natured and
+underhand cast of features.  He was very well dressed, though of course
+without a vestige of unlawful silk in his apparel, and a certain air of
+conscious importance tempered the affability of his politeness.  This was
+’Abd-el-’Azeez, whom, for want of a better title, I shall call the
+minister of foreign affairs, such being the approximate translation of
+his official style.
+
+“Accompanied by some attendants from the palace, he came stately up, and
+seated himself by our side.  He next began the customary interrogations
+of whence and what, with much smiling courtesy and show of welcome.
+After hearing our replies, the same of course as those given elsewhere,
+he invited us to enter the precincts, and partake of his Majesty’s coffee
+and hospitality, while he promised us more immediate communications from
+the king himself in the course of the day.
+
+“If my readers have seen, as most of them undoubtedly will, the Paris
+Tuileries, they may hereby know that the whole extent of Feysul’s palace
+equals about two-thirds of that construction, and is little inferior to
+it in height; if indeed we except the angular pyramidal roofs or
+extinguishers peculiar to the French edifice.  But in ornament the
+Parisian pile has the better of it, for there is small pretensions to
+architectural embellishment in this Wahabee Louvre.  Without, within,
+every other consideration has been sacrificed to strength and security;
+and the outer view of Newgate, at any rate, bears a very strong
+resemblance to the general effect of Feysul’s palace.
+
+“Aboo-’Eysa meanwhile, in company with the outriders sent from the
+palace, had gone to meet the Na’ib and introduce him to the lodgings
+prepared for his reception.  Very much was the Persian astounded to find
+none of the royal family among those who thus came, no one even of high
+name or office; but yet more was his surprise when, instead of immediate
+admittance to Feysul’s presence and eager embrace, he was quietly led
+aside to the very guest-room whither we had been conducted, and a dinner
+not a whit more sumptuous than ours was set before him, after which he
+was very coolly told that he might pray for Feysul and retire to his
+quarters, while the king settled the day and hour whereon he would
+vouchsafe him the honor of an audience.
+
+“Afterward, the minister of foreign affairs condescended to come in
+person, and, sweetly smiling, informed us that our temporary habitation
+was ready, and that Aboo-’Eysa would conduct us thither without delay.
+We then begged to know, if possible, the king’s good-will and pleasure
+regarding our stay and our business in the town.  For on our first
+introduction we had duly stated, in the most correct Wahabee phraseology,
+that we had come to Ri’ad ‘desiring the favor of God, and secondly of
+Feysul; and that we begged of God, and secondly of Feysul, permission to
+exercise in the town our medical profession, under the protection of God,
+and in the next place of Feysul.’  For Dogberry’s advice to ‘set God
+first, for God defend but God should go before such villains,’ is here
+observed to the letter; whatever is desired, purported, or asked, the
+Deity must take the lead.  Nor this only, but even the subsequent mention
+of the creature must nowise be coupled with that of the Creator by the
+ordinary conjunction ‘w’,’ that is, ‘and,’ since that would imply
+equality between the two—flat blasphemy in word or thought.  Hence the
+disjunctive ‘thumma,’ or ‘next after,’ ‘at a distance,’ must take the
+place of ‘w’,’ under penalty of prosecution under the statute.  ‘Unlucky
+the man who visits Nedjed without being previously well versed in the
+niceties of grammar,’ said Barakat; ‘under these schoolmasters a mistake
+might cost the scholar his head.’  But of this more anon; to return to
+our subject, ’Abd-el-’Azeez, a true politician, answered our second
+interrogation with a vague assurance of good-will and unmeaning
+patronage.  Meantime the Na’ib and his train marched off in high dudgeon
+to their quarters, and Aboo-’Eysa gave our dromedaries a kick, made them
+rise, and drove them before us to our new abode.”
+
+In the course of a day or two the travellers discovered what a sensation
+the arrival of their caravan had produced at court.  The old king,
+Feysul, now in the thirty-third year of his reign, possessed all the
+superstition and bigotry of the old Wahabees, and the sudden presence of
+Syrians, suspected of being Christians, Persians, and Meccans, in his
+capital, was too much for him.  He at once left the palace, took up his
+temporary residence in a house outside the city, and a strong guard was
+posted around him until the court officials should have time to examine
+the strangers, discover, if possible, their secret designs, and report
+them to the king.  The first spy was a shrewd and intelligent Affghan, a
+pretended convert to the Wahabee doctrine, who discovered nothing, and
+consequently made an unfavorable report.  The second was a “man of zeal,”
+one of a committee of twenty-two inquisitors, appointed by the king to
+exercise constant espionage upon the inhabitants, with the power of
+punishing them at will for any infraction or neglect of the Wahabee
+discipline.  Palgrave gives the following account of his visit:
+
+“Abbood, for such was his name, though I never met the like before or
+after in Arabia proper, however common it may be in Syria and Lebanon,
+took a different and more efficacious mode of espionage than
+’Abd-el-Hameed had done before him.  Affecting to consider us Mahometans,
+and learned ones too, he entered at once on religious topics, on the true
+character of Islam, its purity or corruptions, and inquired much after
+the present teaching and usages of Damascus and the North, evidently in
+the view of catching us in our words.  But he had luckily encountered his
+match; for every citation of the Koran we replied with two, and proved
+ourselves intimately acquainted with the ‘greater’ and the ‘lesser’
+polytheism of foreign nations and heterodox Mahometans, with the
+commentaries of Beydowee and the tales of the Hadeeth, till our visitor,
+now won over to confidence, launched out full sail on the sea of
+discussion, and thereby rendered himself equally instructive and
+interesting to men who had nothing more at heart than to learn the tenets
+of the sect from one of its most zealous professors, nay, a Zelator in
+person.  In short, he ended by becoming half a friend, and his regrets at
+our being, like other Damascenes, yet in the outer porch of darkness,
+were tempered by a hope, which he did not disguise, of at least putting a
+window in our porch for its better enlightenment.”
+
+Next day, in the forenoon, while the travellers were sauntering about the
+market-place, they met the minister ’Abd-el-’Azeez, who had that morning
+returned to the capital.  With a smiling face and an air of great
+benignity he took them aside, and informed them the king did not consider
+Ri’ad a proper field for their medical skill; that they had better at
+once continue their journey to Hofhoof, whither Aboo-’Eysa should conduct
+them straightway; and that the king would furnish each of them with a
+camel, a new suit of clothes, and some money.  To these arguments
+Palgrave could only answer that he greatly desired the profit to be
+expected from a few weeks of medical practice in Ri’ad, since his success
+there would give him an immediate reputation in Hofhoof, while his
+departure might deprive him of all reputation at the latter place.  The
+minister promised to present his plea to Feysul, but gave him no hope of
+a favorable answer.  The order to leave was repeated, and then, as a last
+experiment, Palgrave sent to two of the ministers a pound of the fragrant
+wood, which is burned as pastilles in Arabia, and is highly prized by the
+upper classes.  The next day he received permission to remain longer in
+Ri’ad and exercise his profession.  He thereupon took another residence,
+not so near the palace, and within convenient reach of one of the city
+gates.  Before describing the place he gives the following account of the
+famous Arabian coffee:
+
+“Be it then known, by way of prelude, that coffee, though one in name, is
+manifold in fact; nor is every kind of berry entitled to the high
+qualifications too indiscriminately bestowed on the comprehensive genus.
+The best coffee, let cavillers say what they will, is that of the Yemen,
+commonly entitled ‘Mokha,’ from the main place of exportation.  Now, I
+should be sorry to incur a lawsuit for libel or defamation from our
+wholesale or retail salesmen; but were the particle NOT prefixed to the
+countless labels in London shop windows that bear the name of the Red Sea
+haven, they would have a more truthy import than what at present they
+convey.  Very little, so little indeed as to be quite inappreciable, of
+the Mocha or Yemen berry ever finds its way westward of Constantinople.
+Arabia itself, Syria, and Egypt consume fully two-thirds, and the
+remainder is almost exclusively absorbed by Turkish and Armenian
+œsophagi.  Nor do these last get for their limited share the best or the
+purest.  Before reaching the harbors of Alexandria, Jaffa, Beyrout, etc.,
+for further exportation, the Mokhan bales have been, while yet on their
+way, sifted and resifted, grain by grain, and whatever they may have
+contained of the hard, rounded, half-transparent, greenish-brown berry,
+the only one really worth roasting and pounding, has been carefully
+picked out by experienced fingers; and it is the less generous residue of
+flattened, opaque, and whitish grains which alone, or almost alone, goes
+on board the shipping.  So constant is this selecting process, that a
+gradation regular as the degrees on a map may be observed in the quality
+of Mokha, that is, Yemen, coffee even within the limits of Arabia itself,
+in proportion as one approaches to or recedes from Wadi Nejran and the
+neighborhood of Mecca, the first stages of the radiating mart.  I have
+myself been times out of number an eye-witness of this sifting; the
+operation is performed with the utmost seriousness and scrupulous
+exactness, reminding me of the diligence ascribed to American
+diamond-searchers when scrutinizing the torrent sands for their minute
+but precious treasure.
+
+“The berry, thus qualified for foreign use, quits its native land on
+three main lines of export—that of the Red Sea, that of the inner Hedjaz,
+and that of Kaseem.  The terminus of the first line is Egypt, of the
+second Syria, of the third Nedjed and Shomer.  Hence Egypt and Syria are,
+of all countries without the frontiers of Arabia, the best supplied with
+its specific produce, though under the restrictions already stated; and
+through Alexandria or the Syrian seaports, Constantinople and the North
+obtain their diminished share.  But this last stage of transport seldom
+conveys the genuine article, except by the intervention of private
+arrangements and personal friendship or interest.  Where mere sale and
+traffic are concerned, substitution of an inferior quality, or an
+adulteration almost equivalent to substitution, frequently takes place in
+the different storehouses of the coast, till whatever Mokha-marked coffee
+leaves them for Europe and the West, is often no more like the real
+offspring of the Yemen plant than the log-wood preparations of a London
+fourth-rate retail wine-seller resemble the pure libations of an Oporto
+vineyard.
+
+“The second species of coffee, by some preferred to that of Yemen, but in
+my poor opinion inferior to it, is the growth of Abyssinia; its berry is
+larger, and of a somewhat different and a less heating flavor.  It is,
+however, an excellent species; and whenever the rich land that bears it
+shall be permitted by man to enjoy the benefits of her natural fertility,
+it will probably become an object of extensive cultivation and commerce.
+With this stops, at least in European opinion and taste, the list of
+coffee, and begins the list of beans.
+
+“While we were yet in the Djowf I described with sufficient minuteness
+how the berry is prepared for actual use; nor is the process any way
+varied in Nedjed or other Arab lands.  But in Nedjed an additional
+spicing of saffron, cloves, and the like, is still more common; a fact
+which is easily explained by the want of what stimulus tobacco affords
+elsewhere.  A second consequence of non-smoking among the Arabs is the
+increased strength of their coffee decoctions in Nedjed, and the
+prodigious frequency of their use; to which we must add the larger
+‘finjans,’ or coffee-cups, here in fashion.  So sure are men, when
+debarred of one pleasure or excitement, to make it up by another.”
+
+Palgrave gives the following picturesque description of the Wahabee
+capital: “We wrap our headgear, like true Arabs, round our chins, put on
+our grave-looking black cloaks, take each a long stick in hand, and
+thread the narrow streets intermediate between our house and the
+market-place at a funeral pace, and speaking in an undertone.  Those whom
+we meet salute us, or we salute them; be it known that the lesser number
+should always be the first to salute the greater, he who rides him who
+walks, he who walks him who stands, the stander the sitter, and so forth;
+but never should a man salute a woman; difference of age or even of rank
+between men does not enter into the general rules touching the priority
+of salutation.  If those whom we have accosted happen to be acquaintances
+or patients, or should they belong to the latitudinarian school, our
+salutation is duly returned.  But if, by ill fortune, they appertain to
+the strict and high orthodox party, an under-look with a half scowl in
+silence is their only answer to our greeting.  Whereat we smile,
+Malvolio-like, and pass on.
+
+“At last we reach the market-place; it is full of women and peasants,
+selling exactly what we want to buy, besides meat, firewood, milk, etc.;
+around are customers, come on errands like our own.  We single out a
+tempting basket of dates, and begin haggling with the unbeautiful
+Phyllis, seated beside her rural store.  We find the price too high.  ‘By
+him who protects Feysul,’ answers she, ‘I am the loser at that price.’
+We insist.  ‘By Him who shall grant Feysul a long life, I cannot bate
+it,’ she replies.  We have nothing to oppose to such tremendous
+asseverations, and accede or pass on, as the case may be.
+
+“Half of the shops, namely, those containing grocery, household articles
+of use, shoemakers’ stalls and smithies, are already open and busily
+thronged.  For the capital of a strongly centralized empire is always
+full of strangers, come will they nill they on their several affairs.
+But around the butchers’ shops awaits the greatest human and canine
+crowd.  My readers, I doubt not, know that the only licensed scavengers
+throughout the East are the dogs.  Nedjeans are great flesh-eaters, and
+no wonder, considering the cheapness of meat (a fine fat sheep costs at
+most five shillings, often less) and the keenness of mountaineer
+appetites.  I wish that the police regulations of the city would enforce
+a little more cleanliness about these numerous shambles; every refuse is
+left to cumber the ground at scarce two yards’ distance.  But dogs and
+dry air much alleviate the nuisance—a remark I made before at Ha’yel and
+Bereydah; it holds true for all Central Arabia.
+
+“Barakat and I resolve on continuing our walk through the town.  Ri’ad is
+divided into four quarters: one, the northeastern, to which the palaces
+of the royal family, the houses of the state officers, and the richer
+class of proprietors and government men belong.  Here the dwellings are
+in general high, and the streets tolerably straight and not over-narrow;
+but the ground level is low, and it is perhaps the least healthy locality
+of all.  Next the northwestern, where we are lodged; a large irregular
+mass of houses, varying in size and keeping from the best to the worst;
+here strangers, and often certain equivocal characters, never wanting in
+large towns, however strictly regulated, chiefly abide; here too are many
+noted for disaffection, and harboring other tenets than those of the son
+of ’Abdel-Wahab, men prone to old Arab ways and customs in ‘Church and
+State,’ to borrow our own analogous phrase; here are country chiefs, here
+Bedouins and natives of Zulphah and the outskirts find a lodging; here,
+if anywhere, is tobacco smoked or sold, and the Koran neglected in
+proportion.  However, I would not have my readers to think our entire
+neighborhood so absolutely disreputable.
+
+“But we gladly turn away our eyes from so dreary a view to refresh them
+by a survey of the southwestern quarter, the chosen abode of formalism
+and orthodoxy.  In this section of Ri’ad inhabit the most energetic
+Zelators, here are the most irreproachable five-prayers-a-day Nedjeans,
+and all the flower of Wahabee purity.  Above all, here dwell the
+principal survivors of the family of the great religions Founder, the
+posterity of ’Abd-el-Wahab escaped from the Egyptian sword, and free from
+every stain of foreign contamination.  Mosques of primitive simplicity
+and ample space, where the great dogma, not however confined to Ri’ad,
+that ‘we are exactly in the right, and everyone else is in the wrong,’ is
+daily inculcated to crowds of auditors, overjoyed to find Paradise all
+theirs and none’s but theirs; smaller oratories of Musallas, wells for
+ablution, and Kaabah-directed niches adorn every corner, and fill up
+every interval of house or orchard.  The streets of this quarter are
+open, and the air healthy, so that the invisible blessing is seconded by
+sensible and visible privileges of Providence.  Think not, gentle reader,
+that I am indulging in gratuitous or self-invented irony; I am only
+rendering expression for expression, and almost word for word, the talk
+of true Wahabees, when describing the model quarter of their model city.
+This section of the town is spacious and well-peopled, and flourishes,
+the citadel of national and religious intolerance, pious pride, and
+genuine Wahabeeism.
+
+“Round the whole town run the walls, varying from twenty to thirty feet
+in height; they are strong, in good repair, and defended by a deep trench
+and embankment.  Beyond them are the gardens, much similar to those of
+Kaseem, both in arrangement and produce, despite the difference of
+latitude, here compensated by a higher ground level.  But immediately to
+the south, in Yemamah, the eye remarks a change in the vegetation to a
+more tropical aspect; of this, however, I will not say more for the
+present.
+
+“According to promise, Aboo-’Eysa played his part to bring us in patients
+and customers, and the very second morning that dawned on us in our new
+house ushered in an invalid who proved a very godsend.  This was no other
+than Djowhar, treasurer of Feysul, and of the Wahabee empire.  My readers
+may be startled to learn that this great functionary was jet black, a
+negro in fact, though not a slave, having obtained his freedom from
+Turkee, the father of the present king.  He was tall, and, for a negro,
+handsome; about forty-five years of age, splendidly dressed, a point
+never neglected by wealthy Africans, whatever be their theoretical creed,
+and girt with a golden-hilted sword.  ‘But,’ said he, ‘gold, though
+unlawful if forming a part of apparel or mere ornament, may be employed
+with a safe conscience in decorating weapons.’
+
+“After ceremonies and coffee, I took my dusky patient into the
+consulting-room, where, by dint of questioning and surmise, for negroes
+in general are much less clear and less to the point than Arabs in their
+statements, I obtained the requisite elucidation of his case.  The
+malady, though painful, was fortunately one admitting of simple and
+efficacious treatment, so that I was able on the spot to promise him a
+sensible amendment of condition within a fortnight, and that in three
+weeks’ time he should be in plight to undertake his journey to Bahreyn.
+I added that with so distinguished a personage I could not think of
+exacting a bargain and fixing the amount of fees; the requital of my care
+should be left to his generosity.  He then took leave, and was
+re-conducted to his rooms in the palace by his fellow blacks of less
+degree.”
+
+The next visitor was Abd el-Kereem, of the oldest nobility of Nedjed,
+related to the ruling family; a bitter Wahabee, a strong, intelligent,
+bad, and dangerous man, who was both hated and feared by the people.  His
+visit was a distinction for Palgrave, yet an additional danger.  The
+latter, however, determined to draw as much information from him
+concerning Wahabee doctrine as he might be inclined to give; and, in
+reality, found him quite communicative.  One day Palgrave asked him to
+define the difference between the _great_ sins and the _little_ ones—that
+is, those to be punished in the next world, or at least deserving of it,
+and those whose penalty is remissible in this life.
+
+“Abd-el-Kereem doubted not that he had a sincere scholar before him, nor
+would refuse his hand to a drowning man.  So, putting on a profound air,
+and with a voice of first-class solemnity, he uttered his oracle, that
+‘the first of the great sins is the giving divine honors to a creature.’
+A hit, I may observe, at ordinary Mahometans, whose whole doctrine of
+intercession, whether vested in Mahomet or in ’Alee, is classed by
+Wahabees along with direct and downright idolatry.  A Damascene Shekh
+would have avoided the equivocation by answering, ‘infidelity.’
+
+“‘Of course,’ I replied, ‘the enormity of such a sin is beyond all doubt.
+But if this be the first, there must be a second; what is it?’
+
+“‘Drinking the shameful,’ in English, ‘smoking tobacco,’ was the
+unhesitating answer.
+
+“‘And murder, and adultery, and false witness?’ I suggested.
+
+“‘God is merciful and forgiving,’ rejoined my friend; that is, these are
+merely little sins.
+
+“‘Hence two sins alone are great, polytheism and smoking,’ I continued,
+though hardly able to keep countenance any longer.  And Abd-el-Kereem,
+with the most serious asseveration, replied that such was really the
+case.  On hearing this, I proceeded humbly to entreat my friend to
+explain to me the especial wickedness inherent in tobacco leaves, that I
+might the more detest and eschew them hereafter.
+
+“Accordingly he proceeded to instruct me, saying that, Firstly, all
+intoxicating substances are prohibited by the Koran; but tobacco is an
+intoxicating substance—ergo, tobacco is prohibited.
+
+“I insinuated that it was not intoxicating, and appealed to experience.
+But, to my surprise, my friend had experience too on his side, and had
+ready at hand the most appalling tales of men falling down dead drunk
+after a single whiff of smoke, and of others in a state of bestial and
+habitual ebriety from its use.  Nor were his stories so purely gratuitous
+as many might at first imagine.  The only tobacco known, when known, in
+Southern Nedjed, is that of Oman, a very powerful species.  I was myself
+astonished, and almost ‘taken in,’ more than once, by its extraordinary
+narcotic effects, when I experienced them, in the coffee-houses of
+Bahreyn.”
+
+Palgrave furnishes a tolerably complete account of the provinces of
+Nedjed and the tribes which inhabit them.  His concluding statement,
+however, embodies all which will interest the reader.
+
+“To sum up, we may say that the Wahabee empire is a compact and
+well-organized government, where centralization is fully understood and
+effectually carried out, and whose main-springs and connecting links are
+force and fanaticism.  There exist no constitutional checks either on the
+king or on his subordinates, save what the necessity of circumstance
+imposes or the Koran prescribes.  Its atmosphere, to speak
+metaphorically, is sheer despotism—moral, intellectual, religious, and
+physical.  This empire is capable of frontier extension, and hence is
+dangerous to its neighbors, some of whom it is even now swallowing up,
+and will certainly swallow more if not otherwise prevented.  Incapable of
+true internal progress, hostile to commerce, unfavorable to arts and even
+to agriculture, and in the highest degree intolerant and aggressive, it
+can neither better itself nor benefit others; while the order and calm
+which it sometimes spreads over the lands of its conquest are described
+in the oft-cited _Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant_ of the Roman
+annalist.
+
+“In conclusion, I here subjoin a numerical list, taken partly from the
+government registers of Ri’ad, partly from local information, and
+containing the provinces, the number of the principal towns or villages,
+the population, and the military contingent, throughout the Wahabee
+empire.”
+
+
+
+              Provinces       Towns or     Population     Military
+                              Villages                     muster
+        I.  ’Aared                    15       110,000         6,000
+       II.  Yemamah                   32       140,000         4,500
+      III.  Hareek                    16        45,000         3,000
+       IV.  Aflaj                     12        14,000         1,200
+        V.  Wady Dowasir              50       100,000         4,000
+       VI.  Seley’yel                 14        30,000         1,400
+      VII.  Woshem                    20        80,000         4,000
+     VIII.  Sedeyr                    25       140,000         5,200
+       IX.  Kaseem                    60       300,000        11,000
+        X.  Hasa                      50       160,000         7,000
+       XI.  Kateef                    22       100,000             —
+                                     316     1,219,000        47,300
+
+After a time, Palgrave was sent for by Abdallah, the eldest son of King
+Feysul, who pretended that he wished to learn something of the medical
+art.  This led to a regular intercourse, which at least enabled the
+traveller to learn many things concerning the Wahabee government.
+Another important result was an opportunity of visiting the royal
+stables, where the finest specimens of the famous Nedjed breed of horses
+are kept.  Of these he gives the following interesting description:
+
+“The stables are situated some way out of the town, to the northeast, a
+little to the left of the road which we had followed at our first
+arrival, and not far from the gardens of ’Abd-er-Rahman the Wahabee.
+They cover a large square space, about 150 yards each way, and are open
+in the centre, with a long shed running round the inner walls; under this
+covering the horses, about three hundred in number when I saw them, are
+picketed during the night; in the daytime they may stretch their legs at
+pleasure within the central court-yard.  The greater number were
+accordingly loose; a few, however, were tied up at their stalls; some,
+but not many, had horse-cloths over them.  The heavy dews which fall in
+Wady Haneefah do not permit their remaining with impunity in the open
+night air; I was told also that a northerly wind will occasionally injure
+the animals here, no less than the land wind does now and then their
+brethren in India.  About half the royal stud was present before me, the
+rest were out at grass; Feysul’s entire muster is reckoned at six
+hundred, or rather more.
+
+“No Arab dreams of tying up a horse by the neck; a tether replaces the
+halter, and one of the animal’s hind legs is encircled about the pastern
+by a light iron ring, furnished with a padlock, and connected with an
+iron chain of two feet or thereabouts in length, ending in a rope, which
+is fastened to the ground at some distance by an iron peg; such is the
+customary method.  But should the animal be restless and troublesome, a
+foreleg is put under similar restraint.  It is well known that in Arabia
+horses are much less frequently vicious or refractory than in Europe, and
+this is the reason why geldings are here so rare, though not unknown.  No
+particular prejudice, that I could discover, exists against the operation
+itself; only it is seldom performed, because not otherwise necessary, and
+tending, of course, to diminish the value of the animal.
+
+“But to return to the horses now before us; never had I seen or imagined
+so lovely a collection.  Their stature was indeed somewhat low; I do not
+think that any came fully up to fifteen hands; fourteen appeared to me
+about their average, but they were so exquisitely well shaped that want
+of greater size seemed hardly, if at all, a defect.  Remarkably full in
+the haunches, with a shoulder of a slope so elegant as to make one, in
+the words of an Arab poet, ‘go raving mad about it;’ a little, a very
+little, saddle-backed, just the curve which indicates springiness without
+any weakness; a head broad above, and tapering down to a nose fine enough
+to verify the phrase of ‘drinking from a pint pot,’ did pint pots exist
+in Nedjed; a most intelligent and yet a singularly gentle look, full eye,
+sharp thorn-like little ear, legs fore and hind that seemed as if made of
+hammered iron, so clean and yet so well twisted with sinew; a neat, round
+hoof, just the requisite for hard ground; the tail set on, or rather
+thrown out at a perfect arch; coats smooth, shining, and light, the mane
+long, but not overgrown nor heavy, and an air and step that seemed to
+say, ‘Look at me, am I not pretty?’ their appearance justified all
+reputation, all value, all poetry.  The prevailing color was chestnut or
+gray; a light bay, an iron color, white or black, were less common; full
+bay, flea-bitten or piebald, none.  But if asked what are, after all, the
+specially distinctive points of the Nedjee horse, I should reply, the
+slope of the shoulder, the extreme cleanness of the shank, and the full,
+rounded haunch, though every other part, too, has a perfection and a
+harmony unwitnessed (at least by my eyes) anywhere else.
+
+“Nedjee horses are especially esteemed for great speed and endurance of
+fatigue; indeed, in this latter quality, none come up to them.  To pass
+twenty-four hours on the road without drink and without flagging is
+certainly something; but to keep up the same abstinence and labor
+conjoined under the burning Arabian sky for forty-eight hours at a
+stretch, is, I believe, peculiar to the animals of the breed.  Besides,
+they have a delicacy, I cannot say of mouth, for it is common to ride
+them without bit or bridle, but of feeling and obedience to the knee and
+thigh, to the slightest check of the halter and the voice of the rider,
+far surpassing whatever the most elaborate manége gives a European horse,
+though furnished with snaffle, curb, and all.  I often mounted them at
+the invitation of their owners, and without saddle, rein, or stirrup, set
+them off at full gallop, wheeled them round, brought them up in mid
+career at a dead halt, and that without the least difficulty or the
+smallest want of correspondence between the horse’s movements and my own
+will; the rider on their back really feels himself the man-half of a
+centaur, not a distinct being.”
+
+During the last week in November the Persian Na’ib, who had been little
+edified by his experiences in Nedjed, set off for Bagdad.  In the
+meantime, Feysul had made great preparations toward collecting an army
+for the reduction of the city of ’Oneyzah (near Bereydah), which still
+held out gallantly.  Troops were summoned from the eastern coast and the
+adjoining provinces, and Sa’ood, the second son of Feysul, was ordered to
+bring them together at the capital, when the command was to be given to
+Abdallah, the eldest son.  Palgrave had then his only opportunity of
+seeing the old King of the Wahabees.
+
+“Sa’ood speedily arrived, and with him about two hundred horsemen; the
+rest of his men, more than two thousand, were mounted on camels.  When
+they entered Ri’ad, Feysul, for the first and last time during our stay,
+gave a public audience at the palace gate.  It was a scene for a painter.
+There sat the blind old tyrant, corpulent, decrepit, yet imposing, with
+his large, broad forehead, white beard, and thoughtful air, clad in all
+the simplicity of a Wahabee; the gold-hafted sword at his side his only
+ornament or distinction.  Beside him the ministers, the officers of his
+court, and a crowd of the nobler and wealthier citizens.  Abdallah, the
+heir to the throne, was alone absent.  Up came Sa’ood with the bearing of
+a hussar officer, richly clad in cashmere shawls and a gold-wrought
+mantle, while man by man followed his red-dressed cavaliers, their spears
+over their shoulders, and their swords hanging down; a musket, too, was
+slung behind the saddle of each warrior; and the sharp dagger of Hareek
+glittered in every girdle.  Next came the common soldiers on camels or
+dromedaries, some with spears only, some with spears and guns, till the
+wide square was filled with armed men and gazing spectators, as the whole
+troop drew up before the great autocrat, and Sa’ood alighted to bend and
+kiss his father’s hand.  ‘God save Feysul!  God give the victory to the
+armies of the Muslims!’ was shouted out on every side, and all faces
+kindled into the fierce smile of concentrated enthusiasm and conscious
+strength.  Feysul arose from his seat and placed his son at his side;
+another moment, and they entered the castle together.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—HIS ESCAPE TO THE EASTERN COAST.
+
+“FOR a foreigner to enter Ri’ad is not always easy, but to get away from
+it is harder still; Reynard himself would have been justly shy of
+venturing on this royal cave.  There exists in the capital of Nedjed two
+approved means of barring the exit against those on whom mistrust may
+have fallen.  The first and readiest is that of which it has been
+emphatically said, _Stone-dead hath no fellow_.  But should circumstances
+render the bonds of death inexpedient, the bonds of Hymen and a Ri’ad
+establishment may and occasionally do supply their office.  By this
+latter proceeding, the more amiable of the two, Abdallah resolved to
+enchain us.
+
+“Accordingly, one morning arrived at our dwelling an attendant of the
+palace, with a smiling face, presage of some good in reserve, and many
+fair speeches.  After inquiries about our health, comfort, well-being,
+etc., he added that Abdallah thought we might be desirous of purchasing
+this or that, and begged us to accept of a small present.  It was a fair
+sum of money, just twice so much as the ordinary token of good-will,
+namely, four rials in place of two.  After which the messenger took his
+leave.  Aboo-’Eysa had been present at the interview: ‘Be on the
+look-out,’ said he, ‘there is something wrong.’
+
+“That very afternoon Abdallah sent for me, and with abundance of
+encomiums and of promises, declared that he could not think of letting
+Ri’ad lose so valuable a physician, that I must accordingly take up a
+permanent abode in the capital, where I might rely on his patronage, and
+on all good things; that he had already resolved on giving me a house and
+a garden, specifying them, with a suitable household, and a fair face to
+keep me company; he concluded by inviting me to go without delay and see
+whether the new abode fitted me, and take possession.
+
+“Much and long did I fight off; talked about a winter visit to the coast,
+and coming back in the spring; tried first one pretext and then another;
+but none would avail, and Abdallah continued to insist.  To quiet him, I
+consented to go and see the house.  For the intended Calypso, I had ready
+an argument derived from Mahometan law, which put her out of the
+question, but its explanation would require more space than these pages
+can afford.
+
+“The winter season was now setting in; it was the third week in November;
+and a thunder-storm, the first we had witnessed in Central Arabia,
+ushered in a marked change for cold in the temperature of Wady Haneefah.
+Rain fell abundantly, and sent torrents down the dry watercourses of the
+valley, changing its large hollows into temporary tanks.  None of the
+streams showed, however, any disposition to reach the sea, nor indeed
+could they, for this part of Nedjed is entirely hemmed in to the east by
+the Toweyk range.  The inhabitants welcomed the copious showers, pledges
+of fertility for the coming year, while at ’Oneyzah the same rains
+produced at least one excellent effect, but which I may well defy my
+readers to guess.  The hostile armies, commanded by Zamil and
+Mohammed-ebn-Sa’ood, were drawn up in face of each other, and on the
+point of fierce conflict, when the storm burst on them, and by putting
+out the lighted matchlocks of either party, prevented the discharge of
+bullets and the effusion of blood.”
+
+Abdallah, who hated his second brother, Sa’ood, and had many other fierce
+enmities in the capital, then accidentally learned that Palgrave had
+employed a deadly poison (strychnine) in making a remarkable cure.
+Thenceforth all his powers of persuasion were employed in endeavoring to
+procure some of the drug; but Palgrave, suspecting his real design,
+positively refused to let him have any.  His rage was suddenly and
+strongly expressed on his countenance, foreboding no good to the
+traveller, who took the first opportunity of returning to his house.
+
+“There Aboo-’Eysa, Barakat, and myself,” he says, “immediately held
+council to consider what was now to be done.  That an outbreak must
+shortly take place seemed certain; to await it was dangerous, yet we
+could not safely leave the town in an over-precipitate manner, nor
+without some kind of permission.  We resolved together to go on in quiet
+and caution a few days more, to sound the court, make our adieus at
+Feysul’s palace, get a good word from Mahboob (no difficult matter), and
+then slip off without attracting too much notice.  But our destiny was
+not to run so smoothly.”
+
+Late in the evening of November 21st, Palgrave was summoned to Abdallah’s
+palace.  The messenger refused to allow Barakat or Aboo-’Eysa to
+accompany him.  The occasion seemed portentous, but disobedience was out
+of the question.  Palgrave followed the messenger.  On entering the
+reception-room, he found Abdallah, Abd-el-Lateef, the successor of the
+Wahabee, Mahboob, and a few others.  All were silent, and none returned
+his first salutation.  “I saluted Abdallah,” says Palgrave, “who replied
+in an undertone, and gave me a signal to sit down at a little distance
+from him, but on the same side of the divan.  My readers may suppose that
+I was not at the moment ambitious of too intimate a vicinity.
+
+“After an interval of silence, Abdallah turned half round toward me, and
+with his blackest look and a deep voice said, ‘I now know perfectly well
+what you are; you are no doctors, you are Christians, spies, and
+revolutionists, come hither to ruin our religion and state in behalf of
+those who sent you.  The penalty for such as you is death, that you know,
+and I am determined to inflict it without delay.’
+
+“‘Threatened folks live long,’ thought I, and had no difficulty in
+showing the calm which I really felt.  So looking him coolly in the face,
+I replied, ‘_Istagh-fir Allah_,’ literally, ‘Ask pardon of God.’  This is
+the phrase commonly addressed to one who has said something extremely out
+of place.
+
+“The answer was unexpected: he started, and said, ‘Why so?’
+
+“‘Because,’ I rejoined, ‘you have just now uttered a sheer absurdity.
+“Christians,” be it so; but “spies,” “revolutionists”—as if we were not
+known by everybody in your town for quiet doctors, neither more nor less!
+And then to talk about putting me to death!  You cannot, and you dare
+not.’
+
+“‘But I can and dare,’ answered Abdallah, ‘and who shall prevent me?  You
+shall soon learn that to your cost.’
+
+“‘Neither can nor dare,’ repeated I.  ‘We are here your father’s guests,
+and yours for a month and more, known as such, received as such.  What
+have we done to justify a breach of the laws of hospitality in Nedjed?
+It is impossible for you to do what you say,’ continued I, thinking the
+while that it was a great deal too possible, after all; ‘the obloquy of
+the deed would be too much for you.’
+
+“He remained a moment thoughtful, then said, ‘As if anyone need know who
+did it.  I have the means, and can dispose of you without talk or rumor.
+Those who are at my bidding can take a suitable time and place for that,
+without my name being ever mentioned in the affair.’
+
+“The advantage was now evidently on my side; I followed it up, and said
+with a quiet laugh, ‘Neither is that within your power.  Am I not known
+to your father, to all in his palace? to your own brother Sa’ood among
+the rest?  Is not the fact of this my actual visit to you known without
+your gates?  Or is there no one here?’ added I, with a glance at Mahboob,
+‘who can report elsewhere what you have just now said?  Better for you to
+leave off this nonsense; do you take me for a child of four days old?’
+
+“He muttered a repetition of his threat.  ‘Bear witness, all here
+present,’ said I, raising my voice so as to be heard from one end of the
+room to the other, ‘that if any mishap befalls my companion or myself
+from Ri’ad to the shores of the Persian Gulf, it is all Abdallah’s doing.
+And the consequences shall be on his head, worse consequences than he
+expects or dreams.’
+
+“The prince made no reply.  All were silent; Mahboob kept his eyes
+steadily fixed on the fireplace; ’Abd-el-Lateef looked much and said
+nothing.
+
+“‘Bring coffee,’ called out Abdallah to the servants.  Before a minute
+had elapsed, a black slave approached with one, and only one, coffee-cup
+in his hand.  At a second sign from his master he came before me and
+presented it.
+
+“Of course the worst might be conjectured of so unusual and solitary a
+draught.  But I thought it highly improbable that matters should have
+been so accurately prepared; besides, his main cause of anger was
+precisely the refusal of poisons, a fact which implied that he had none
+by him ready for use.  So I said ‘_Bismillah_,’ took the cup, looked very
+hard at Abdallah, drank it off, and then said to the slave, ‘Pour me out
+a second.’  This he did; I swallowed it, and said, ‘Now you may take the
+cup away.’
+
+“The desired effect was fully attained.  Abdallah’s face announced
+defeat, while the rest of the assembly whispered together.  The prince
+turned to ’Abd-el-Lateef and began talking about the dangers to which the
+land was exposed from spies, and the wicked designs of infidels for
+ruining the kingdom of the Muslims.  The Kadee and his companions chimed
+in, and the story of a pseudo-Darweesh traveller killed at Derey’eeyah,
+and of another (but who he was I cannot fancy; perhaps a Persian, who
+had, said Abdallah, been also recognized for an intriguer, but had
+escaped to Muscat, and thus baffled the penalty due to his crimes), were
+now brought forward and commented on.  Mahboob now at last spoke, but it
+was to ridicule such apprehensions.  ‘The thing is in itself unlikely,’
+said he, ‘and were it so, what harm could they do?’ alluding to my
+companion and myself.
+
+“On this I took up the word, and a general conversation ensued, in which
+I did my best to explode the idea of spies and spymanship, appealed to
+our own quiet and inoffensive conduct, got into a virtuous indignation
+against such a requital of evil for good after all the services which we
+had rendered court and town, and quoted verses of the Koran regarding the
+wickedness of ungrounded suspicion, and the obligation of not judging ill
+without clear evidence.  Abdallah made no direct answer, and the others,
+whatever they may have thought, could not support a charge abandoned by
+their master.
+
+“What amused me not a little was that the Wahabee prince had after all
+very nearly hit the right nail on the head, and that I was snubbing him
+only for having guessed too well.  But there was no help for it, and I
+had the pleasure of seeing that, though at heart unchanged in his opinion
+about us, he was yet sufficiently cowed to render a respite certain, and
+our escape thereby practicable.
+
+“This kind of talk continued a while, and I purposely kept my seat, to
+show the unconcern of innocence, till Mahboob made me a sign that I might
+safely retire.  On this I took leave of Abdallah and quitted the palace
+unaccompanied.  It was now near midnight, not a light to be seen in the
+houses, not a sound to be heard in the streets; the sky too was dark and
+overcast, till, for the first time, a feeling of lonely dread came over
+me, and I confess that more than once I turned my head to look and see if
+no one was following with ‘evil,’ as Arabs say, in his hand.  But there
+was none, and I reached the quiet alley and low door where a gleam
+through the chinks announced the anxious watch of my companions, who now
+opened the entrance, overjoyed at seeing me back sound and safe from so
+critical a parley.
+
+“Our plan for the future was soon formed.  A day or two we were yet to
+remain in Ri’ad, lest haste should seem to imply fear, and thereby
+encourage pursuit.  But during that period we would avoid the palace,
+out-walks in gardens or after nightfall, and keep at home as much as
+possible.  Meanwhile Aboo-’Eysa was to get his dromedaries ready, and put
+them in a courtyard immediately adjoining the house, to be laden at a
+moment’s notice.
+
+“A band of travellers was to leave Ri’ad for Hasa a few days later.
+Aboo-’Eysa gave out publicly that he would accompany them to Hofhoof,
+while we were supposed to intend following the northern or Sedeyr track,
+by which the Na’ib, after many reciprocal farewells and assurances of
+lasting friendship, should we ever meet again, had lately departed.
+Mobeyreek, a black servant in Aboo-’Eysa’s pay, occupied himself
+diligently in feeding up the camels for their long march with clover and
+vetches, both abundant here; and we continued our medical avocations, but
+quietly, and without much leaving the house.
+
+“During the afternoon of the 24th we brought three of Aboo-’Eysa’s camels
+into our courtyard, shut the outer door, packed, and laded.  We then
+awaited the moment of evening prayer; it came, and the voice of the
+Mu’eddineen summoned all good Wahabees, the men of the town-guard not
+excepted, to the different mosques.  When about ten minutes had gone by,
+and all might be supposed at their prayers, we opened our door.
+Mobeyreek gave a glance up and down the street to ascertain that no one
+was in sight, and we led out the camels.  Aboo-’Eysa accompanied us.
+Avoiding the larger thoroughfares, we took our way by by-lanes and
+side-passages toward a small town-gate, the nearest to our house, and
+opening on the north.  A late comer fell in with us on his way to the
+Mesjid, and as he passed summoned us also to the public service.  But
+Aboo-’Eysa unhesitatingly replied, ‘We have this moment come from
+prayers,’ and our interlocutor, fearing to be himself too late and thus
+to fall under reprehension and punishment, rushed off to the nearest
+oratory, leaving the road clear.  Nobody was in watch at the gate.  We
+crossed its threshold, turned southeast, and under the rapid twilight
+reached a range of small hillocks, behind which we sheltered ourselves
+till the stars came out, and the ‘wing of night,’ to quote Arab poets,
+spread black over town and country.
+
+“So far so good.  But further difficulties remained before us.  It was
+now more than ever absolutely essential to get clear of Nedjed
+unobserved, to put the desert between us and the Wahabee court and
+capital; and no less necessary was it that Aboo-’Eysa, so closely
+connected as he was with Ri’ad and its government, should seem nohow
+implicated in our unceremonious departure, nor any way concerned with our
+onward movements.  In a word, an apparent separation of paths between him
+and us was necessary before we could again come together and complete the
+remainder of our explorations.
+
+“In order to manage this, and while ensuring our own safety to throw a
+little dust in Wahabee eyes, it was agreed that before next morning’s
+sunrise Aboo-’Eysa should return to the town, and to his dwelling, as
+though nothing had occurred, and should there await the departure of the
+great merchant caravan, mentioned previously, and composed mainly of men
+from Hasa and Kateef, now bound for Hofhoof.  This assemblage was
+expected to start within three days at latest.  Meanwhile our friend
+should take care to show himself openly in the palaces of Feysul and
+Abdallah, and if asked about us should answer vaguely, with the off-hand
+air of one who had no further care regarding us.  We ourselves should in
+the interim make the best of our way, with Mobeyreek for guide, to Wady
+Soley’, and there remain concealed in a given spot, till Aboo-’Eysa
+should come and pick us up.
+
+“All this was arranged; at break of dawn, Aboo-’Eysa took his leave, and
+Barakat, Mobeyreek, and myself were once more high-perched on our
+dromedaries, their heads turned to the southeast, keeping the hillock
+range between us and Ri’ad, which we saw no more.  Our path led us over
+low undulating ground, a continuation of Wady Haneefah, till after about
+four hours’ march we were before the gates of Manfoohah, a considerable
+town, surrounded by gardens nothing inferior in extent and fertility to
+those of Ri’ad; but its fortifications, once strong, have long since been
+dismantled and broken down by the jealousy of the neighboring capital.
+
+“After winding here and there, we reached the spot assigned by Aboo-’Eysa
+for our hiding-place.  It was a small sandy depth, lying some way off the
+beaten track, amid hillocks and brushwood, and without water; of this
+latter article we had taken enough in the goat-skins to last us for three
+days.  Here we halted, and made up our minds to patience and expectation.
+
+“Two days passed drearily enough.  We could not but long for our guide’s
+arrival, nor be wholly without fear on more than one score.  Once or
+twice a stray peasant stumbled on us, and was much surprised at our
+encampment in so droughty a locality.  So the hours went by, till the
+third day brought closer expectation and anxiety, still increasing while
+the sun declined, and at last went down; yet nobody appeared.  But just
+as darkness closed in, and we were sitting in a dispirited group beside
+our little fire, for the night air blew chill, Aboo-’Eysa came suddenly
+up, and all was changed for question and answer, for cheerfulness and
+laughter.
+
+“Early on November 28th we resumed our march through a light valley-mist,
+and soon fell in with our companions of the road.
+
+“Next morning the whole country, hill and dale, trees and bushes, was
+wrapped in a thick blanket of mist, fitter for Surrey than for Arabia.
+So dense was the milky fog, that we fairly lost our way, and went on at
+random, shouting and hallooing, driving our beasts now here, now there,
+over broken ground and amid tangling shrubs, till the sun gained strength
+and the vapor cleared off, showing us the path at some distance on our
+right.  Before we had followed it far, we saw a black mass advancing from
+the east to meet us.  It was the first division of the Hasa troops on
+their way to Ri’ad; they were not less than four or five hundred in
+number.  Like true Arabs, they marched with a noble contempt of order and
+discipline—walking, galloping, ambling, singing, shouting, alone or in
+bands, as fancy led.  We interchanged a few words of greeting with these
+brisk boys, who avowed, without hesitation or shame, that they should
+much have preferred to stay at home, and that enforced necessity, not any
+military or religious ardor, was taking them to the field.  We laughed,
+and wished them Zamil’s head, or him theirs, whereon they laughed also,
+shouted, and passed on.
+
+“On we went, but through a country of much more varied scenery than what
+we had traversed the day before, enjoying the ‘pleasure situate in hill
+and dale,’ till we arrived at the foot of a high white cliff, almost like
+that of Dover; but these crags, instead of having the sea at their foot,
+overlooked a wide valley full of trees, and bearing traces of many
+violent winter torrents from east to west; none were now flowing.  Here
+we halted, and passed an indifferent night, much annoyed by ‘chill
+November’s surly blast,’ hardly less ungenial here than on the banks of
+Ayr, though sweeping over a latitude of 25°, not 56°.
+
+“Before the starlight had faded from the cold morning sky, we were up and
+in movement, for a long march was before us.  At sunrise we stood on the
+last, and here the highest, ledge of Toweyk, that long chalky wall which
+bounds and backs up Nedjed on the east; beyond is the desert, and then
+the coast.
+
+“After about three hours of level route we began to descend, not rapidly,
+but by degrees, and at noon we reached a singular depression, a huge
+natural basin, hollowed out in the limestone rock, with tracks resembling
+deep trenches leading to it from every side.  At the bottom of this
+crater-like valley were a dozen or more wells, so abundant in their
+supply that they not unfrequently overflow the whole space, and form a
+small lake; the water is clear and good, but no other is to be met with
+on the entire line hence to Hasa.
+
+“For the rest of the day we continued steadily to descend the broad even
+slope, whose extreme barrenness and inanimate monotony reminded me of the
+pebbly uplands near Ma’an on the opposite side of the peninsula,
+traversed by us exactly seven months before.  The sun set, night came on,
+and many of the travellers would gladly have halted, but Aboo-’Eysa
+insisted on continuing the march.  We were now many hundred feet lower
+than the crest behind us, and the air felt warm and heavy, when we
+noticed that the ground, hitherto hard beneath our feet, was changing
+step by step into a light sand, that seemed to encroach on the rocky
+soil.  It was at first a shallow ripple, then deepened, and before long
+presented the well-known ridges and undulations characteristic of the
+land ocean when several fathoms in depth.  Our beasts ploughed
+laboriously on through the yielding surface; the night was dark, but
+starry, and we could just discern amid the shade a white glimmer of
+spectral sand-hills, rising around us on every side, but no track or
+indication of a route.
+
+“It was the great Dahna, or ‘Red Desert,’ the bugbear of even the
+wandering Bedouin, and never traversed by ordinary wayfarers without an
+apprehension which has too often been justified by fatal incidents.  So
+light are the sands, so capricious the breezes that shape and reshape
+them daily into unstable hills and valleys, that no traces of preceding
+travellers remain to those who follow; while intense heat and glaring
+light reflected on all sides combine with drought and weariness to
+confuse and bewilder the adventurer, till he loses his compass and
+wanders up and down at random amid a waste solitude which soon becomes
+his grave.  Many have thus perished; even whole caravans have been known
+to disappear in the Dahna without a vestige, till the wild Arab tales of
+demons carrying off wanderers, or ghouls devouring them, obtain a half
+credit among many accustomed elsewhere to laugh at such fictions.
+
+“For, after about three hours of night travelling, or rather wading,
+among the sand-waves, till men and beasts alike were ready to sink for
+weariness, a sharp altercation arose between Aboo-’Eysa and El-Ghannam,
+each proposing a different direction of march.  We all halted a moment,
+and raised our eyes, heavy with drowsiness and fatigue, as if to see
+which of the contending parties was in the right.  It will be long before
+I forget the impression of that moment.  Above us was the deep black sky,
+spangled with huge stars of a brilliancy denied to all but an Arab gaze,
+while what is elsewhere a ray of the third magnitude becomes here of the
+first amid the pure vacuum of a mistless, vaporless air; around us loomed
+high ridges, shutting us in before and behind with their white,
+ghost-like outlines; below our feet the lifeless sand, and everywhere a
+silence that seemed to belong to some strange and dreamy world where man
+might not venture.
+
+“When not far from the midmost of the Dahna, we fell in with a few
+Bedouins, belonging to the Aal-Morrah clan, sole tenants of this desert.
+They were leading their goats to little spots of scattered herbage and
+shrubs which here and there fix a precarious existence in the hollows of
+the sands.
+
+“Theirs is the great desert from Nedjed to Hadramaut.  Not that they
+actually cover this immense space, a good fourth of the peninsula, but
+that they have the free and undisputed range of the oases which it
+occasionally offers, where herbs, shrubs, and dwarf-palms cluster round
+some well of scant and briny water.  These oases are sufficiently
+numerous to preserve a stray Bedouin or two from perishing, though not
+enough so to become landmarks for any regular route across the central
+Dahna, from the main body of which runs out the long and broad arm which
+we were now traversing.
+
+“Another night’s bivouac, and then again over the white down-sloping
+plain.
+
+“It was now three days and a half since our last supply of water, and
+Aboo-’Eysa was anxious to reach the journey’s end without delay.  As
+darkness closed around we reached the farthermost heights of the
+coast-range of Hasa.  Hence we overlooked the plains of Hasa, but could
+distinguish nothing through the deceptive rays of the rising moon; we
+seemed to gaze into a vast milky ocean.  After an hour’s halt for supper
+we wandered on, now up, now down, over pass and crag, till a long,
+corkscrew descent down the precipitous sea-side of the mountain, for a
+thousand feet or near it, placed us fairly upon the low level of Hasa,
+and within the warm, damp air of the sea-coast.
+
+“The ground glimmered white to the moon, and gave a firm footing to our
+dromedaries, who, by their renewed agility, seemed to partake in the joy
+of their riders, and to understand that rest was near.  We were, in fact,
+all so eager to find ourselves at home and homestead, that although the
+town of Hofhoof, our destined goal, was yet full fifteen miles to the
+northeast, we pressed on for the capital.  And there, in fact, we should
+have all arrived in a body before day-dawn, had not a singular occurrence
+retarded by far the greater number of our companions.
+
+“Soon after, the crags in our rear had shut out, perhaps for years,
+perhaps forever, the desert and Central Arabia from our view, while
+before and around us lay the indistinct undulations and uncertain breaks
+of the great Hasa plain, when on a sloping bank at a short distance in
+front we discerned certain large black patches, in strong contrast with
+the white glister of the soil around, and at the same time our attention
+was attracted by a strange whizzing like that of a flight of hornets,
+close along the ground, while our dromedaries capered and started as
+though struck with sudden insanity.  The cause of all this was a vast
+swarm of locusts, here alighted in their northerly wanderings from their
+birthplace in the Dahna; their camp extended far and wide, and we had
+already disturbed their outposts.  These insects are wont to settle on
+the ground after sunset, and there, half stupefied by the night chill, to
+await the morning rays, which warm them once more into life and movement.
+This time our dromedaries did the work of the sun, and it would be hard
+to say which of the two were the most frightened, they or the locusts.
+It was truly laughable to see so huge a beast lose his wits for fear at
+the flight of a harmless, stingless insect; of all timid creatures none
+equals the ‘ship of the desert’ for cowardice.
+
+“The swarm now before us was a thorough godsend for our Arabs, on no
+account to be neglected.  Thirst, weariness, all was forgotten, and down
+the riders leapt from their starting camels; this one spread out a cloak,
+that one a saddle-bag, a third his shirt, over the unlucky creatures
+destined for the morrow’s meal.  Some flew away whirring across our feet,
+others were caught and tied up in cloths and sacks.  Cornish wreckers at
+work about a shattered East Indiaman would be beaten by Ghannam and his
+companions with the locusts.  However, Barakat and myself felt no special
+interest in the chase, nor had we much desire to turn our dress and
+accoutrements into receptacles for living game.  Luckily Aboo-’Eysa still
+retained enough of his North Syrian education to be of our mind also.
+Accordingly we left our associates hard at work, turned our startled and
+still unruly dromedaries in the direction of Hofhoof, and set off full
+speed over the plain.
+
+“It was not till near morning that we saw before us in indistinct row the
+long black lines of the immense date-groves that surround Hofhoof.  Then,
+winding on amid rice-grounds and cornfields, we left on our right an
+isolated fort (to be described by daylight), passed some scattered
+villas, with their gardens, approached the ruined town walls, and entered
+the southern gate, now open and unguarded.  Farther on a few streets
+brought us before the door of Aboo-’Eysa’s house, our desired
+resting-place.
+
+“It was still night.  All was silent in the street and house, at the
+entrance of which we now stood; indeed, none but the master of a domicile
+could think of knocking at such an hour, nor was Aboo-’Eysa expected at
+that precise moment.  With much difficulty he contrived to awake the
+tenants; next the shrill voice of the lady was heard within in accents of
+joy and welcome; the door at last opened, and Aboo-’Eysa invited us into
+a dark passage, where a gas-light would have been a remarkable
+improvement, and by this ushered us into the k’hawah.  Here we lighted a
+fire, and after a hasty refreshment all lay down to sleep, nor awoke till
+the following forenoon.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—EASTERN ARABIA.
+
+“OUR stay at Hofhoof was very pleasant and interesting, not indeed
+through personal incidents and hair-breadth escapes—of which we had our
+fair portion at Ri’ad and elsewhere—but in the information here acquired,
+and in the novel character of everything around us, whether nature, art,
+or man.  Aboo-’Eysa was very anxious that we should see as much as
+possible of the country, and procured us all means requisite for so
+doing, while the shelter of his roof, and the precautions which he
+adopted or suggested, obviated whatever dangers and inconveniences we had
+experienced in former stages of the journey. Besides, the general
+disposition of the inhabitants of Hasa is very different from that met
+with in Nedjed, and even in Shomer or Djowf, and much better adapted to
+make a stranger feel himself at home.  A sea-coast people, looking mainly
+to foreign lands and the ocean for livelihood and commerce, accustomed to
+see among them not unfrequently men of dress, manners, and religion
+different from their own, many of them themselves travellers or voyagers
+to Basrah, Bagdad, Bahreyn, Oman, and some even farther, they are
+commonly free from that half-wondering, half-suspicious feeling which the
+sight of a stranger occasions in the isolated, desert-girded centre.  In
+short, experience, that best of masters, has gone far to unteach the
+lessons of ignorance, intolerance, and national aversion.
+
+“Hofhoof, whose ample circuit contained during the last generation about
+thirty thousand inhabitants, now dwindled to twenty-three or twenty-four
+thousand, is divided into three quarters or districts.  The general form
+of the town is that of a large oval.  The public square, an oblong space
+of about three hundred yards in length by a fourth of the same in width,
+occupies the meeting point of these quarters; the Kôt lies on its
+northeast, the Rifey’eeyah on the northwest and west, and the Na’athar on
+the east and south.  In this last quarter was our present home; moreover,
+it stood in the part farthest removed from the Kôt and its sinister
+influences, while it was also sufficiently distant from the overturbulent
+neighborhood of the Rifey’eeyah, the centre of anti-Wahabee movements,
+and the name of which alone excited distrust and uneasiness in Nedjean
+minds.
+
+“The Kôt itself is a vast citadel, surrounded by a deep trench, with
+walls and towers of unusual height and thickness, earth-built, with an
+occasional intermixture of stone, the work of the old Carmathian rulers;
+it is nearly square, being about one-third of a mile in length by
+one-quarter in breadth.
+
+“On the opposite side of the square, and consequently belonging to the
+Rifey’eeyah, is the vaulted market-place, or ‘Keysareeyah,’ a name by
+which constructions of this nature must henceforth be called up to Mascat
+itself, though how this Latinism found its way across the peninsula to
+lands which seem to have had so little commerce with the Roman or
+Byzantine empires, I cannot readily conjecture.  This Keysareeyah is in
+form a long barrel-vaulted arcade, with a portal at either end; the
+folding doors that should protect the entrances have here in Hofhoof been
+taken away, elsewhere they are always to be found.  The sides are
+composed of shops, set apart in general for wares of cost, or at least
+what is here esteemed costly; thus, weapons, cloth embroidery, gold and
+silver ornament, and analogous articles, are the ordinary stock-in-hand
+in the Keysareeyah.  Around it cluster several alleys, roofed with
+palm-leaves against the heat, and tolerably symmetrical; in the shops we
+may see the merchandise of Bahreyn, Oman, Persia, and India exposed for
+sale, mixed with the manufactured produce of the country; workshops,
+smithies, carpenters’ and shoemakers’ stalls, and the like, are here
+also.  In the open square itself stand countless booths for the sale of
+dates, vegetables, wood, salted locusts, and small ware of many kinds.
+
+“The Rifey’eeyah, or noble quarter, covers a considerable extent, and is
+chiefly composed of tolerable, in some places of even handsome,
+dwellings.  The comparative elegance of domestic architecture in Hofhoof
+is due to the use of the arch, which, after the long interval from Ma’an
+to Hasa, now at last reappears, and gives to the constructions of this
+province a lightness and a variety unknown in the monotonous and heavy
+piles of Nedjed and Shomer.  Another improvement is that the walls,
+whether of earth or stone, or of both mixed, as is often the case, are
+here very generally coated with fine white plaster, much resembling the
+‘chunam’ of Southern India; ornament, too, is aimed at about the doorways
+and the ogee-headed windows, and is sometimes attained.
+
+“The Na’athar is the largest quarter; it forms, indeed, a good half of
+the town, and completes its oval.  In it every description of dwelling is
+to be seen—for rich and poor, for high and low, palace or hovel.  Here,
+too, but near the Kôt, has the pious policy of Feysul constructed the
+great mosque.
+
+“But perhaps my reader, after accompanying me thus far, may feel thirsty,
+for the heat, even in December, is almost oppressive, and the sky
+cloudless as though it were June or July.  So let us turn aside into that
+grassy plantation, where half a dozen buffaloes are cooling their ugly
+hides in a pool, and drink a little from the source that supplies it.
+When behold! the water is warm, almost hot.  Do not be surprised; all the
+fountain sources and wells of Hasa are so, more or less; in some one can
+hardly bear to plunge one’s hand; others are less above the average
+temperature, while a decidedly sulphurous taste is now and then
+perceptible.  In fact, from the extreme north of this province down to
+its southern-most frontier, this same sign of subterranean fire is
+everywhere to be found.  The rocks, too, are here very frequently of tufa
+and basalt, another mark of igneous agency.
+
+“The products of Hasa are many and various; the monotony of Arab
+vegetation, its eternal palm and ithel, ithel and palm, are here varied
+by new foliage, and growths unknown to Nedjed and Shomer.  True, the
+date-palm still predominates, nay, here attains its greatest perfection.
+But the nabak, with its rounded leaves and little crab-apple fruit, a
+mere bush in Central Arabia, becomes in Hasa a stately tree; the papay,
+too, so well known in the more easterly peninsula, appears, though
+seldom, and stunted in growth, along with some other trees, common on the
+coast from Cutch to Bombay.  Indigo is here cultivated, though not
+sufficiently for the demands of commerce; cotton is much more widely
+grown than in Yemamah; rice fields abound, and the sugar-cane is often
+planted, though not, I believe, for the extraction of the sugar.  The
+peasants of Hasa sell the reed by retail bundles in the market-place, and
+the purchasers take it home to gnaw at leisure in their houses.  Corn,
+maize, millet, vetches of every kind, radishes, onions, garlic, beans, in
+short, almost all legumina and cerealia, barley excepted (at least I
+neither saw nor heard of any), cover the plain, and under a better
+administration might be multiplied tenfold.
+
+“The climate of Hasa, as I have already implied, is very different from
+that of the uplands, and not equally favorable to health and physical
+activity.  Hence, a doctor, like myself, if my readers will allow me the
+title, has here more work and better fees; this latter circumstance is
+also owing to the greater amount of ready money in circulation, and the
+higher value set on medical science by men whose intellects are much more
+cultivated than those of their Nedjean neighbors.  In appearance, the
+inhabitants of Hasa are generally good-sized and well-proportioned, but
+somewhat sallow in the face, and of a less muscular development than is
+usual inland; their features, though regular, are less marked than those
+of the Nedjeans, and do not exhibit the same half-Jewish type.  On the
+contrary, there is something in them that reminds a beholder of the
+Rajpoot or the Guzeratee.  They are passionately fond of literature and
+poetry.
+
+“I have already said that our great endeavor in Hasa was to observe
+unobserved, and thus to render our time as barren as might be in
+incidents and catastrophes.  Not that we went into the opposite extreme
+of leading an absolutely retired and therefore uneventful life.
+Aboo-’Eysa took care from the first to bring us into contact with the
+best and the most cultivated families of the town, nor had my medical
+profession anywhere a wider range for its exercise, or better success
+than in Hofhoof.  Friendly invitations, now to dinner, now to supper,
+were of daily occurrence; and we sat at tables where fish, no longer mere
+salted shrimps, announced our vicinity to the coast; vermicelli, too, and
+other kinds of pastry, denoted the influence of Persian art on the
+kitchen.  Smoking within doors was general; but the nargheelah often
+replaced, and that advantageously, the short Arab pipe; perfumes are no
+less here in use than in Nedjed.
+
+“We had passed about a week in the town when Aboo-’Eysa entered the side
+room where Barakat and I were enjoying a moment of quiet, and copying out
+‘Nabtee’ poetry, and shut the door behind him.  He then announced to us,
+with a face and tone of serious anxiety, that two of the principal
+Nedjean agents belonging to the Kôt had just come into the k’hawah, under
+pretext of medical consultation, but in reality, said he, to identify the
+strangers.  We put on our cloaks—a preliminary measure of decorum
+equivalent to face- and hand-washing in Europe—and presented ourselves
+before our inquisitors with an air of conscious innocence and scientific
+solemnity.  Conversation ensued, and we talked so learnedly about bilious
+and sanguine complexions, cephalic veins, and Indian drugs, with such
+apposite citations from the Koran, and such loyal phrases for Feysul,
+that Aboo-’Eysa was beside himself for joy; and the spies, after
+receiving some prescriptions of the bread-pill and aromatic-water
+formula, left the house no wiser than before.  Our friends, too, and they
+were now many, well guessing what we might really be, partly from our own
+appearance and partly from the known character of our host (according to
+old Homer’s true saying, _Heaven always leads like to like_), did each
+and all their best to throw sand into Wahabee eyes, and everything went
+on sociably and smoothly.  A blessing on the medical profession!  None
+other gives such excellent opportunities for securing everywhere
+confidence and friendship.
+
+“Before we leave Hasa I must add a few remarks to complete the sketch
+given of the province and of its inhabitants.  Want of a suitable
+opportunity for inserting them before has thrown them together at this
+point of my narrative.
+
+“My fair readers will be pleased to learn that the veil and other
+restraints inflicted on the gentle sex by Islamitic rigorism, not to say
+worse, are much less universal, and more easily dispensed with in Hasa;
+while in addition, the ladies of the land enjoy a remarkable share of
+those natural gifts which no institutions, and even no cosmetics, can
+confer; namely, beauty of face and elegance of form.  Might I venture on
+the delicate and somewhat invidious task of constructing a ‘beauty-scale’
+for Arabia, and for Arabia alone, the Bedouin women would, on this
+kalometer, be represented by zero, or at most 1°; a degree higher would
+represent the female sex of Nedjed; above them rank the women of Shomer,
+who are in their turn surmounted by those of Djowf.  The fifth or sixth
+degree symbolizes the fair ones of Hasa; the seventh those of Katar; and
+lastly, by a sudden rise of ten degrees at least, the seventeenth or
+eighteenth would denote the pre-eminent beauties of Oman.  Arab poets
+occasionally languish after the charmers of Hedjaz; I never saw anyone to
+charm me, but then I only skirted the province.  All bear witness to the
+absence of female loveliness in Yemen; and I should much doubt whether
+the mulatto races and dusky complexions of Hadramaut have much to vaunt
+of.  But in Hasa a decided improvement on this important point is
+agreeably evident to the traveller arriving from Nedjed, and he will be
+yet further delighted on finding his Calypsos much more conversible, and
+having much more, too, in their conversation than those he left behind
+him in Sedeyr and ’Aared.
+
+“During our stay at Hofhoof, Aboo-’Eysa left untried no arts of Arab
+rhetoric and persuasion to determine me to visit Oman, assuring me again
+and again that whatever we had yet seen, even in his favorite Hasa, was
+nothing compared to what remained to see in that more remote country.  My
+companion, tired of our long journey, and thinking the long distance
+already laid between him and his Syrian home quite sufficient in itself
+without further leagues tacked on to it, was very little disposed for a
+supplementary expedition.  Englishmen, on the contrary, are rovers by
+descent and habit; my own mind was now fully made up to visit Oman at all
+risks, whether Barakat came with me or not.  Meanwhile, we formed our
+plan for the next immediate stage of our route.  My companion and I were
+to quit Hofhoof together, leaving Aboo-’Eysa behind us for a week or two
+at Hasa, while we journeyed northward to Kateef, and thence took ship for
+the town of Menamah in Bahreyn.  In this latter place Aboo-’Eysa was to
+rejoin us.  Our main reason for thus separating our movements in time and
+in direction, was to avoid the too glaring appearance of acting in
+concert while yet in a land under Wahabee government and full of Wahabee
+spies and reporters, especially after the suspicions thrown on us at
+Ri’ad.  The Oman arrangements were to be deferred till we should all meet
+again.
+
+“Barakat and myself prepared for our departure; we purchased a few
+objects of local curiosity, got in our dues of medical attendance, paid
+and received the customary P. P. C. visits, and even tendered our
+respects to the negro governor Belal, where he sat at his palace door in
+the Kôt, holding a public audience, and looking much like any other
+well-dressed black.  No passport was required for setting out on the road
+to Kateef, which in the eyes of government forms only one and the same
+province with Hasa, though in many respects very different from it.  The
+road is perfectly secure; plundering Bedouins or highway robbers are here
+out of the question.  However, we stood in need of companions, not for
+escort, but as guides.  Aboo-’Eysa made inquiries in the town, and found
+three men who chanced to be just then setting out on their way for
+Kateef, who readily consented to join band with us for the road.  Our
+Abyssinian hostess supplied us with a whole sack of provisions, and our
+Hofhoof associates found us in camels.  Thus equipped and mounted, we
+took an almost touching leave of Aboo-’Eysa’s good-natured wife, kissed
+the baby, exchanged an _au revoir_ with its father, and set out on the
+afternoon of December 19th, leaving behind us many pleasant
+acquaintances, from some of whom I received messages and letters while at
+Bahreyn.  So far as inhabitants are concerned, to no town in Arabia
+should I return with equal confidence of finding a hearty greeting and a
+welcome reception, than to Hofhoof and its amiable and intelligent
+merchants.
+
+“We quitted the town by the northeastern gate of the Rifey-’eeyah, where
+the friends, who, according to Arab custom, had accompanied us thus far
+in a sort of procession, wished us a prosperous journey, took a last
+adieu, and returned home.  After some hours we bivouacked on a little
+hillock of clean sand, with the dark line of the Hofhoof woods on our
+left, while at some distance in front a copious fountain poured out its
+rushing waters with a noise distinctly audible in the stillness of the
+night, and irrigated a garden worthy of Damascus or Antioch.  The night
+air was temperate, neither cold like that of Nedjed, nor stifling like
+that of Southern India; the sky clear and starry.  From our commanding
+position on the hill I could distinguish Soheyl or Canopus, now setting;
+and following him, not far above the horizon, the three upper stars of
+the Southern Cross, an old Indian acquaintance; two months later in Oman
+I had the view of the entire constellation.
+
+“Next morning we traversed a large plain of light and sandy soil,
+intersected by occasional ridges of basalt and sandstone.
+
+“We journeyed on all day, meeting no Bedouins and few travellers.  At
+evening we encamped in a shallow valley, near a cluster of brimming
+wells, some sweet, some brackish, where the traces of half-obliterated
+watercourses and the vestiges of crumbling house-walls indicated the
+former existence of a village, now also deserted.  We passed a
+comfortable night under the shelter of palms and high brushwood, mixed
+with gigantic aloes and yuccas, and rose next morning early to our way.
+Our direction lay northeast.  In the afternoon we caught our first
+glimpse of Djebel Mushahhar, a pyramidical peak some seven hundred feet
+high and about ten miles south of Kateef.  But the sea, though I looked
+toward it and for it with an eagerness somewhat resembling that of the
+Ten Thousand on their approach to the Euxine, remained shut out from view
+by a further continuation of the heights.
+
+“Next day we rose at dawn, and crossed the hills of Kateef by a long
+winding path, till after some hours of labyrinthine track we came in
+sight of the dark plantation-line that girdles Kateef itself landward.
+The sea lies immediately beyond; this we knew, but we could not obtain a
+glimpse of its waters through the verdant curtain stretched between.
+
+“About midday we descended the last slope, a steep sandstone cliff, which
+looks as though it had been the sea-limit of a former period.  We now
+stood on the coast itself.  Its level is as nearly as possible that of
+the Gulf beyond; a few feet of a higher tide than usual would cover it up
+to the cliffs.  Hence it is a decidedly unhealthy land, though fertile
+and even populous; but the inhabitants are mostly weak in frame and
+sallow in complexion.  The atmosphere was thick and oppressive, the heat
+intense, and the vegetation hung rich and heavy around; my companions
+talked about suffocation, and I remembered once more the Indian coast.
+Another hour of afternoon march brought us to Kateef itself, at its
+western portal; a high stone arch of elegant form, and flanked by walls
+and towers, but all dismantled and ruinous.  Close by the two
+burial-grounds, one for the people of the land, the other for the Nedjean
+rulers and colony—divided even after death by mutual hatred and anathema.
+Folly, if you will, but folly not peculiar to the East.
+
+“The town itself is crowded, damp, and dirty, and has altogether a
+gloomy, what for want of a better epithet I would call a _mouldy_, look;
+much business was going on in the market and streets, but the ill-favored
+and very un-Arab look of the shopkeepers and workmen confirms what
+history tells of the Persian colonization of this city.  Indeed, the
+inhabitants of the entire district, but more especially of the capital,
+are a mongrel race, in which Persian blood predominates, mixed with that
+of Bassora, Bagdad, and the ’Irak.
+
+“We urged our starting dromedaries across the open square in front of the
+market-place, traversed the town in its width, which is scarce a quarter
+of its length (like other coast towns), till we emerged from the opposite
+gate, and then looked out with greedy eyes for the sea, now scarce ten
+minutes distant.  In vain as yet, so low lies the land, and so thick
+cluster the trees.  But after a turn or two we came alongside of the
+outer walls, belonging to the huge fortress of Karmoot, and immediately
+afterward the valley opening out showed us almost at our feet the dead
+shallow flats of the bay.  How different from the bright waters of the
+Mediterranean, all glitter and life, where we had bidden them farewell
+eight months before at Gaza!  Like a leaden sheet, half ooze, half sedge,
+the muddy sea lay in view, waveless, motionless; to our left the massive
+walls of the castle went down almost to the water’s edge, and then turned
+to leave a narrow esplanade between its circuit and the Gulf.  On this
+ledge were ranged a few rusty guns of large calibre, to show how the
+place was once guarded; and just in front of the main gate a crumbling
+outwork, which a single cannon-shot would level with the ground,
+displayed six pieces of honey-combed artillery, their mouths pointing
+seaward.  Long stone benches without invited us to leave our camels
+crouching on the esplanade, while we seated ourselves and rested a little
+before requesting the governor to grant us a day’s hospitality, and
+permission to embark for Bahreyn.
+
+“Barakat and I sat still to gaze, speculating on the difference between
+the two sides of Arabia.  But our companions, like true Arabs, thought it
+high time for ‘refreshment,’ and accordingly began their inquiries at the
+castle-gate where the governor might be, and whether he was to be spoken
+to.  When, behold! the majesty of Feysul’s vicegerent issuing in person
+from his palace to visit the new man-of-war.  My abolitionist friends
+will be gratified to learn that this exalted dignitary is, no less than
+he of Hofhoof, a negro, brought up from a curly-headed imp to a
+woolly-headed black in Feysul’s own palace, and now governor of the most
+important harbor owned by Nedjed on the Persian Gulf, and of the town
+once capital of that fierce dynasty which levelled the Kaabah with the
+dust, and filled Kateef with the plunder of Yemen and Syria.  Farhat, to
+give him his proper name, common among those of his complexion, was a
+fine tall negro of about fifty years old, good-natured, chatty,
+hospitable, and furnished with perhaps a trifle more than the average
+amount of negro intellect.
+
+“Aboo-’Eysa, who had friends and acquaintances everywhere, and whose
+kindly manner made him always a special favorite with negroes high or
+low, had furnished us with an introductory letter to Farhat, intended to
+make matters smooth for our future route.  But as matters went there was
+little need of caution.  The fortunate coincidence of a strong north
+wind, just then blowing down the Gulf, gave a satisfactory reason for not
+embarking on board of a Bassora cruiser, while it rendered a voyage to
+Bahreyn, our real object, equally specious and easy.  Besides, Farhat
+himself, who was a good, easy-going sort of man, had hardly opened
+Aboo-’Eysa’s note, than without more ado he bade us a hearty welcome,
+ordered our luggage to be brought within the castle precincts, and
+requested us to step in ourselves and take a cup of coffee, awaiting his
+return for further conversation after his daily visit of inspection to
+Feysul’s abridged fleet.
+
+“The next day passed, partly in Farhat’s k’hawah, partly in strolling
+about the castle, town, gardens, and beach, making, meanwhile, random
+inquiries after boats and boatmen.
+
+“It was noon when we fell in with a ship captain, ready to sail that very
+night, wind and tide permitting.  Farhat’s men had spoken with him, and
+he readily offered to take us on board.  We then paid a visit to the
+custom-house officer to settle the embarkation dues for men and goods.
+This foreman of the Ma’asher, whether in accordance with orders from
+Farhat, or of his own free will and inclination, I know not, proved
+wonderfully gracious, and declared that to take a farthing of duty from
+such useful servants of the public as doctors, would be ‘sheyn w’khata’,
+‘shame and sin.’  Alas, that European custom house officials should be
+far removed from such generous and patriotic sentiments!  Lastly, of his
+own accord he furnished us with men to carry our baggage through
+knee-deep water and thigh-deep mud to the little cutter, where she lay
+some fifty yards from shore.  Evening now came on, and Farhat sent for us
+to congratulate us, but with a polite regret on having found so speedy
+conveyance for our voyage.  Meanwhile he let us understand how he was
+himself invited for the evening to supper with a rich merchant of the
+town, and that we were expected to join the party; nor need that make us
+anxious about our passage, since our ship captain was also invited, nor
+could the vessel possibly sail before the full tide at midnight.
+
+“From our town supper we returned by torchlight to the castle; our
+baggage, no great burden, had been already taken down to the sea gate,
+where stood two of the captain’s men waiting for us.  In their company we
+descended to the beach, and then with garments tucked up to the waist
+waded to the vessel, not without difficulty, for the tide was rapidly
+coming in, and we had almost to swim for it.  At last we reached the ship
+and scrambled up her side; most heartily glad was I to find myself at sea
+once more on the other side of Arabia.”
+
+After a slow voyage of three days Palgrave reached Bahreyn, the
+headquarters of the pearl fisheries, and established himself in the
+little town of Moharrek, to wait for the arrival of Aboo-’Eysa before
+undertaking his projected exploration of Oman.  He and his companion
+enjoyed a grateful feeling of rest and security in this seaport among the
+sailors, to whom all varieties of foreigners were well known, and who,
+having no prejudices, felt no suspicion.
+
+On January 9, 1863, Aboo-’Eysa arrived, and after much earnest
+consultation the following plan was adopted: Aboo-’Eysa was to send
+twenty loads of the best Hasa dates, and a handsome mantle, as presents
+to the Sultan of Oman, with three additional mantles for the three chiefs
+whose territories intervened between Bahreyn and Muscat.  Palgrave was to
+accompany these gifts, under his character of a skilled physician in
+quest of certain rare and mysterious herbs of Oman.  Meanwhile,
+Aboo-’Eysa and Barakat would take passage for Aboo-Shahr (Busheer), in
+Persia, where the former would be employed for three months in making up
+his next caravan of Mecca pilgrims.  Here Palgrave was to rejoin them
+after his journey.
+
+In place of Barakat his companion was a curious individual named Yoosef,
+whom Aboo-’Eysa had rescued from misery and maintained in a decent
+condition.  He was a native of Hasa, half a jester and half a knave;
+witty, reckless, hare brained to the last degree, full of jocose or
+pathetic stories, of poetry, traditions, and fun of every description.
+When everything had been arranged the four parted company, Palgrave and
+his new companion sailing for the port of Bedaa’, on the Arabian coast,
+where resided the first of the three chiefs whose protection it was
+necessary to secure.  They reached there after a cruise of five or six
+days, finding the place very barren and desolate, with scarcely a tree or
+a garden; but, as the chief said to Palgrave, “We are all, from the
+highest to the lowest, the slaves of one master—Pearl.”  The bay contains
+the best pearl-fishery on the coast, and the town depends for its
+existence on the trade in these gems.
+
+The chief was intelligent and friendly, and appears to have interposed no
+obstacle to the proposed journey into the interior, but Palgrave decided
+to go on by sea to the town of Sharjah, on the northern side of the
+peninsula of Oman.  Embarking again on February 6th, the vessel was
+driven by violent winds across to the Persian shore, and ten days elapsed
+before it was possible to reach Sharjah.  Here, again, although their
+reception was hospitable, the travellers gave up their land journey and
+re-embarked in another vessel to pass around the peninsula, through the
+Straits of Ormuz, and land on the southern shore, in the territory of
+Muscat.
+
+In three days they reached the island of Ormuz, of which Palgrave says:
+“I was not at all sorry to have an opportunity of visiting an island once
+so renowned for its commerce, and of which its Portuguese occupants used
+to say, ‘that, were the world a golden ring Ormuz would be the diamond
+signet.’  The general appearance of Ormuz indicates an extinguished
+volcano, and such I believe it really is; the circumference consists of a
+wide oval wall, formed by steep crags, fire-worn and ragged; these
+enclose a central basin, where grow shrubs and grass; the basaltic slopes
+of the outer barrier run in many places clean down into the sea, amid
+splinter-like pinnacles and fantastic crags of many colors, like those
+which lava often assumes on cooling.  Between the west and north a long
+triangular promontory, low and level, advances to a considerable
+distance, and narrows into a neck of land, which is terminated by a few
+rocks and a strong fortress, the work of Portuguese builders, but worthy
+of taking rank among Roman ruins—so solid are the walls, so compact the
+masonry and well-selected brickwork, against which three long centuries
+of sea-storm have broken themselves in vain.  The greater part of the
+promontory itself is covered with ruins.  Here stood the once thriving
+town, now a confused extent of desolate heaps, amid which the vestiges of
+several fine dwellings, of baths, and of a large church may yet be
+clearly made out.  Close by the fort cluster a hundred or more wretched
+earth-hovels, the abode of fishermen or shepherds, whose flocks pasture
+within the crater; one single shed, where dried dates, raisins, and
+tobacco are exposed for sale, is all that now remains of the trade of
+Ormuz.”
+
+After being detained three days at Ormuz by a storm, the vessel passed
+through the Strait, skirted the southern coast of the peninsula, and
+reached the harbor of Sohar on March 3d.  Palgrave determined to set off
+with Yoosef the same evening on the land-journey of eight or nine days to
+Muscat; but he had already lost so much time by delays since leaving
+Bahreyn that he yielded to the persuasions of the captain of another
+vessel, who promised to take him to Muscat by sea in two days.  He sailed
+on the 6th, weighed down with a vague presentiment of coming evil, which
+was soon to be justified.  His wanderings in Arabia, and also in this
+world, very nearly came to an end.  The vessel slowly glided on for two
+days, and Muscat was almost in sight when a dead, ominous calm befell
+them near the Sowadah Islands—some low reefs of barren rocks, about three
+leagues from shore.  It proved to be a calm, ominous indeed for Palgrave,
+as well as for the captain of the vessel and all on board.  It was
+followed by a furious storm that ended in the wreck of the dhow, and the
+loss of several lives, together with the entire outfit of the expedition.
+Palgrave and the survivors of the crew and passengers, nine in number,
+barely escaped with their lives, and reached the shore utterly exhausted,
+with nothing but the shirts they wore.
+
+In sorry plight the traveller made his way along the coast to Muscat.  He
+was obliged to give up the idea of exploring the interior of Oman, partly
+on account of the loss of the stores but chiefly because his identity as
+a European had been disclosed; and so in this disastrous manner ended the
+most important and interesting journey that had yet been made by any
+traveller in Arabia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+LADY BLUNT’S PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD.
+
+IN 1878–79, sixteen years after Palgrave’s journey, Lady Anne Blunt, with
+her husband and several native servants, accomplished a journey, which,
+in many respects was more remarkable than the exploits of any of their
+predecessors.  Whereas Palgrave and others had travelled in disguise,
+believing it impossible to penetrate into the interior otherwise than as
+mussulmans, the Blunts made no pretences of the kind, but went as
+European travellers, desirous of seeing the country, and visiting its
+rulers.  They traversed the whole breadth of the peninsula, from Beyrout
+on the Mediterranean coast, to Bagdad on the Tigris, crossing the Great
+Nefood, or central desert, and visiting Hail, Jebel Shammer, and other
+places in Nejd. {279}
+
+On their return Lady Blunt published the remarkably interesting story of
+their adventures, under the title of “A Pilgrimage to Nejd,” a book which
+added greatly to our knowledge of the Arabian interior, and to which the
+compiler of this chapter is largely indebted.
+
+The travellers entered upon their adventurous undertaking with the
+advantage of experiences gained on a previous journey among the Arab
+tribes of the Euphrates Valley, and a knowledge of the Arab tongue.
+Their native servants, who had accompanied them on their previous
+expedition, eagerly joined their service for the new venture; camels,
+horses, and all necessary supplies for the journey were purchased at
+Damascus, and on December 12th, 1879, the start was made.
+
+Though unwilling to travel under false colors as to race or nationality,
+the English travellers found it convenient to adopt the Bedouin costume
+for the desert journey, to avoid attracting more notice than was
+necessary.  Their first objective point was Jôf, an important oasis in
+the desert, four hundred miles away.  Lady Blunt, describing the start
+from Damascus, says:
+
+“At first we skirted the city, passing the gate where St. Paul is said to
+have entered, and the place where he got over the wall, and then along
+the suburb of Maïdan, which is the quarter occupied by Bedouins when they
+come to town, and where we had found the Tudmuri and our camels.  Here we
+were to have met the Jerdeh, and we waited some time outside the Bawâbat
+Allah, or ‘Gates of God,’ while Mohammed went in to make inquiries and
+take leave of his Tudmuri friends.
+
+“It is in front of this gate that the pilgrims assemble on the day of
+their start for Mecca, and from it the Haj road leads away in a nearly
+straight line southward.  The Haj road is to be our route as far as
+Mezárib, and is a broad, well-worn track, though of course not a road at
+all according to English ideas.  It has, nevertheless, a sort of romantic
+interest, one cannot help feeling, going as it does so far and through
+such desolate lands, a track so many thousand travellers have followed
+never to return.  I suppose in its long history a grave may have been dug
+for every yard of its course from Damascus to Medina, for, especially on
+the return journey, there are constantly deaths among the pilgrims from
+weariness and insufficient food.”
+
+A leisurely journey of a week brought the party to Salkhad, a Druse
+community at the edge of the desert, where Huseyn, the Sheykh of the
+Druses provided them with guides to the Kâf oasis, a five days’ journey
+into the desert.  On the way to Kâf they passed areas of sand, white as
+snow, and encountered violent sand-storms, in one of which they lost a
+camel who seized his opportunity to escape back to Mezárib.  Beyond Kâf
+they met with rather a thrilling adventure, which is thus graphically
+described:
+
+“Friday, January 3d.—We have had an adventure at last, and rather a
+disagreeable one; a severe lesson as to the danger of encamping near
+wells.  We started early, but were delayed a whole hour at Jerawi taking
+water, and did not leave the wells till nearly eight o’clock.  Then we
+turned back nearly due east across the wady.  The soil of pure white sand
+was heavy going, and we went slowly, crossing low undulations without
+other landmark than the wells we had left behind us.  Here and there rose
+little mounds, tufted with ghada.  To one of these Wilfrid and I cantered
+on, leaving the camels behind us, and dismounting, tied our mares to the
+bushes, that we might enjoy a few minutes’ rest and eat our midday
+mouthful; the greyhounds meanwhile played about and chased each other in
+the sand.
+
+“We had finished, and were talking of I know not what, when the camels
+passed us.  They were hardly a couple of hundred yards in front, when
+suddenly we heard a thud, thud, thud, on the sand, a sound of galloping.
+Wilfrid jumped to his feet, looked round, and called out: ‘Get on your
+mare.  This is a ghazú!’
+
+“As I scrambled round the bush to my mare, I saw a troop of horsemen
+charging down at full gallop with their lances, not two hundred yards
+off.  Wilfrid was up as he spoke, and so should I have been but for my
+sprained knee and the deep sand, both of which gave way as I was rising.
+I fell back.  There was no time to think, and I had hardly struggled to
+my feet when the enemy was upon us, and I was knocked down by a spear.
+Then they all turned on Wilfrid, who had waited for me, some of them
+jumping down on foot to get hold of his mare’s halter.  He had my gun
+with him, which I had just before handed to him, but unloaded, his own
+gun and his sword being on his delúl (riding camel).  He fortunately had
+on very thick clothes, two abbas one over the other, and English clothes
+underneath, so the lances did him no harm.  At last his assailants
+managed to get his gun from him and broke it over his head, hitting him
+three times and smashing the stock.
+
+“Resistance seemed to me useless, and I shouted to the nearest horseman,
+‘_Ana dahílak_’ (I am under your protection), the usual form of
+surrender.  Wilfrid hearing this, and thinking he had had enough of this
+unequal contest, one against twelve, threw himself off his mare.  The
+_Khayal_ (horsemen) having seized both the mares, paused, and as soon as
+they had gathered breath, began to ask us who we were and where we came
+from.
+
+“‘English, and we have come from Damascus,’ we replied, ‘and our camels
+are close by.  Come with us and you shall hear about it.’
+
+“Our caravan, while all this had happened, and it only lasted about five
+minutes, had formed itself into a square, and the camels were kneeling
+down, as we could plainly see from where we were.  I hardly expected the
+horsemen to do as we asked, but the man who seemed to be their leader at
+once let us walk on (a process causing me acute pain), and followed with
+the others to the caravan.  We found Mohammed and the rest of our party
+entrenched behind the camels with their guns pointed, and as we
+approached, Mohammed stepped out and came forward.
+
+“‘Min entum?’ (Who are you?) was the first question.
+
+“‘Roala min Ibn Debaa.’  ‘Wallah?’ (Will you swear by God?)  ‘Wallah!’
+(We swear).
+
+“‘And you?’  ‘Mohammed ibn Arûk of Tudmur.’
+
+“‘Wallah?’  ‘Wallah!’  ‘And these are Franjis travelling with you?’
+‘Wallah!  Franjis, friends of Ibn Shaalan.’
+
+“It was all right; we had fallen into the hands of friends.  Ibn Shaalan,
+our host of last year, was bound to protect us, even so far away in the
+desert, and none of his people dared meddle with us, knowing this.
+Besides, Mohammed was a Tudmuri, and as such could not be molested by
+Roala, for Tudmur pays tribute to Ibn Shaalan, and the Tudmuris have a
+right to his protection.  So as soon as the circumstances were made clear
+orders were given by the chief of the party to his followers to bring
+back our mares, and the gun, and everything which had been dropped in the
+scuffle.  Even to Wilfrid’s tobacco-bag, all was restored.”
+
+The robbers and the travellers fraternized after the affair was over, and
+the former were very much ashamed of themselves for having used their
+spears against a woman.  Lady Blunt apologizes for them, however, as the
+Bedouin dress she wore for riding prevented them distinguishing her sex
+in the confusion of the sudden attack.
+
+Two days after the encounter in the desert the party arrived at Jôf,
+where they spent three days, and found the people very hospitable.  Their
+chief servant and camel-driver, Mohammed, was an Arab, who had distant
+connections in this part of Arabia; and as tribal kinship, no matter how
+remote, is regarded as a matter of great importance, this relationship
+was of material aid in securing them the good-will of the inhabitants.
+The Blunts were less favorably impressed with Jôf than was Palgrave, who,
+however, uses the term “Djowf” in a broader sense, as including a number
+of oases situated in “a large oval depression of sixty or seventy miles
+long by ten or twelve broad, lying between the northern desert that
+separates it from Syria and the Euphrates, and the southern Nefood, or
+sandy waste, and interposed between it and the nearest mountains of the
+Central Arabian plateau.”
+
+Lady Blunt writes of it: “Jôf is not at all what we expected.  We thought
+we should find it a large cultivated district, and it turns out to be
+merely a small town.  There is nothing at all outside the walls except a
+few square patches, half an acre or so each, green with young corn,” etc.
+
+How true is it that no two travellers see things with the same eyes.
+Doubtless both these distinguished travellers are reasonably correct in
+their descriptions, but summed up their impressions from opposite
+stand-points in a topographical sense; a common enough mistake in Asia,
+where the name of a place often indicates, equally accurately, a large
+scope of country and the central spot in it.  In Central Asia, for
+example, there is Merv, which is the name of a city, and also of the
+large fertile oasis in which it is situated; also Herat, meaning a broad
+area of oases, with a population of probably half a million people, in
+which the fortress-city Herat stands, no less than the city itself.
+
+Important political changes had taken place since Palgrave’s visit.  The
+rule of the Wahabees had been overthrown in Jôf, and the only
+representatives of staple authority found there were a Sheykh and six
+soldiers, who represented the authority of Mohammed ibn Rashid, Emir of
+Jebel Shammar, with his seat of government at Hail.
+
+From Jôf the travellers proceeded toward Hail, crossing the dreaded
+Nefood, of which they give a very interesting, and far less gloomy,
+account than did Palgrave.  They, however, crossed it in January, while
+Palgrave crossed it in midsummer; so that, in the case of the Nefood, as
+with Jôf, the apparently conflicting accounts are doubtless both fairly
+accurate, the one describing the desert in winter, the other in summer.
+On January 12th, the travellers found themselves on the edge of the
+desert.
+
+“At half-past three o’clock we saw a red streak on the horizon before us,
+which rose and gathered as we approached it, stretching out east and west
+in an unbroken line.  It might at first have been taken for an effect of
+mirage, but on coming nearer we found it broken into billows, and but for
+its red color not unlike a stormy sea seen from the shore, for it rose
+up, as the sea seems to rise, when the waves are high, above the level of
+the land.  Somebody called out ‘Nefûd,’ and though for a while we were
+incredulous, we were soon convinced.  What surprised us was its color,
+that of rhubarb and magnesia, nothing at all like what we had expected.
+Yet the Nefûd it was, the great red desert of Central Arabia.  In a few
+minutes we had cantered up to it, and our mares were standing with their
+feet in its first waves.
+
+“January 13th.—We have been all day in the Nefûd, which is interesting
+beyond our hopes, and charming into the bargain.”  After taking issue
+with Mr. Palgrave, who, Lady Blunt thinks, overlooked its brighter side,
+the narrator continues her own observations thus:
+
+“The thing that strikes one first about the Nefûd is its color.  It is
+not white like the sand dunes we passed yesterday, nor yellow as the sand
+is in parts of the Egyptian desert, but a really bright red, almost
+crimson in the morning, when it is wet with dew.  The sand is rather
+coarse, but absolutely pure, without admixture of any foreign substance,
+pebble, grit, or earth, and exactly the same in tint and texture
+everywhere.  It is, however, a great mistake to suppose it barren.  The
+Nefûd, on the contrary, is better wooded and richer in pasture than any
+part of the desert we have passed since leaving Damascus.  It is tufted
+all over with ghada bushes, and bushes of another kind called _yerta_,
+which at this time of the year, when there are no leaves, is exactly like
+a thickly matted vine.
+
+“There are, besides, several kinds of camel pasture, especially one new
+to us, called _adr_, on which they say sheep can feed for a month without
+wanting water, and more than one kind of grass.  Both camels and mares
+are therefore pleased with the place, and we are delighted with the
+abundance of firewood for our camps.  Wilfrid says that the Nefûd has
+solved for him at last the mystery of horse-breeding in Central Arabia.
+In the hard desert there is nothing a horse can eat, but here there is
+plenty.  The Nefûd accounts for everything.  Instead of being the
+terrible place it has been described by the few travellers who have seen
+it, it is in reality the home of the Bedouins during a great part of the
+year.  Its only want is water, for it contains but few wells; all along
+the edge it is thickly inhabited, and Radi tells us that in the spring,
+when the grass is green after rain, the Bedouins care nothing for water,
+as their camels are in milk, and they go for weeks without it, wandering
+far into the interior of the sand desert.”
+
+In the desert of sand the travellers found many curious hollows, which
+the native guide called fulj.  Some of these holes were a quarter of a
+mile in diameter, and as much as 230 feet deep.  They were chiefly of
+horse-hoof shape.  They took observations, and at one point on the desert
+found the elevation to be 3,300 feet above sea-level.  After seven days
+in the Nefûd, the last two of which tried the endurance of men and
+beasts, the party reached the oasis of Jobba, which is described as being
+one of the most curious, as also most beautiful, places in the world.
+
+“Its name Jobba, meaning a well, explains its position, for it lies in a
+hole or well in the Nefûd; not indeed in a fulj, for the basin of Jobba
+is quite on another scale, and has nothing in common with the horse-hoof
+depressions I have hitherto described.  It is, all the same, extremely
+singular, and quite as difficult to account for geologically as the
+fuljes.  It is a great bare space in the ocean of sand, from four to five
+hundred feet below its average level, and about three miles wide; a
+hollow, in fact, not unlike that of Jôf, but with the Nefûd round it
+instead of sandstone cliffs.  That it has once been a lake is pretty
+evident, for there are distinct water marks on the rocks, which crop up
+out of the bed just above the town; and, strange to say, there is a
+tradition still extant of there having been formerly water there.  The
+wonder is how this space is kept clear of sand.  What force is it that
+walls out the Nefûd and prevents encroachments?  As you look across the
+subbkha, or dry bed of the lake, the Nefûd seems like a wall of water
+which must overwhelm it; and yet no sand shifts down into the hollow, and
+its limits are accurately maintained.”
+
+At length the Nefûd was overcome and the travellers approached Hail, not
+without apprehensions as to the reception that might await them.  Their
+guide from Jôf enlightened them in regard to many changes that had
+occurred since Palgrave’s visit, changes that will be equally interesting
+to readers who have followed Palgrave’s narrative in preceding chapters.
+
+Telal, then despotic ruler at Hail (Ha’yel), had gone insane and
+committed suicide by stabbing himself with his own dagger four years
+after Palgrave’s visit.  He was succeeded by his brother Metaab, who,
+however, died suddenly after reigning three years; when a dispute arose
+between his brother Mohammed and Telal’s oldest son, Bender, about the
+succession.  Mohammed being away at the time, Bender, a youth of twenty,
+was proclaimed Emir.  Mohammed returned, and in a violent quarrel with
+his nephew drew his dagger and stabbed him to death.
+
+“Then Mohammed galloped back to the castle, and finding Hamûd (son of
+Obeyd, uncle of Telal) there, got his help and took possession of the
+palace.  He then seized the younger sons of Tellál (Palgrave’s Telal),
+Bender’s brothers, all but one child, Naïf, and Bedr, who was away from
+Hail, and had their heads cut off by his slaves in the court-yard of the
+castle.  They say, however, that Hamúd protested against this.  But
+Mohammed was reckless, or wished to strike terror, and not satisfied with
+what he had already done, went on destroying his relations.
+
+“He had some cousins, sons of Jabar, a younger brother of Abdallah and
+Obeyd; and these he sent for.  They came in some alarm to the castle,
+each with his slave.  They were all young men, beautiful to look at, and
+of the highest distinction; and their slaves had been brought up with
+them, as the custom is, more like brothers than servants.  They were
+shown into the kahwah of the castle, and received with great formality,
+Mohammed’s servants coming forward to invite them in.  It is the custom
+at Hail, whenever a person pays a visit, that before sitting down he
+should hang up his sword on one of the wooden pegs fixed into the wall,
+and this the sons of Jabar did, and their slaves likewise.  Then they sat
+down and waited and waited, but still no coffee was served to them.  At
+last Mohammed appeared, surrounded by his guard, but there was no ‘salaam
+aleykum,’ and instantly he gave orders that his cousins should be seized
+and bound.  They made a rush for their swords, but were intercepted by
+the slaves of the castle and made prisoners.  Mohammed then, with
+horrible barbarity, ordered their hands and their feet to be cut off, and
+the hands and feet of their slaves, and had them, still living, dragged
+out into the court-yard of the palace, where they lay till they died.
+
+“These ghastly crimes, more ghastly than ever in a country where wilful
+bloodshed is so unusual, seem to have struck terror far and wide, and no
+one has since dared to raise a hand against Mohammed.”
+
+The knowledge of these terrible doings naturally made the travellers feel
+that they were venturing into dangerous quarters as they rode up to the
+gates of Hail.  The Emir, whose title was Mohammed-ibn-Rashid (Mohammed,
+son of Rashid), however, received them kindly; and it was discovered
+that, apart from the bloody work of the succession, he had turned out to
+be not a bad ruler.  In any part of his dominions, it was understood that
+a person might travel unarmed, and with any amount of gold on him,
+without fear of molestation.  Moreover, he seemed to have been deeply
+stricken with remorse for his past misdeeds, lived in constant fear of
+assassination, and was endeavoring to make what amends he could by
+lavishing honors and kindness on the youth Naïf, the only one of his
+nephews he had spared—for Bedr, too, had been executed.
+
+It all reads much like a tale from the “Arabian Nights;” and that Arabia
+is still the land of romance and poetry is confirmed by a curious bit of
+news learned of Obeyd, about whom it will be remembered Mr. Palgrave had
+also a good deal to say.
+
+“He (Obeyd) lived to a great age, and died only nine years ago (_i.e._
+1869).  It is related of him that he left no property behind him, having
+given away everything during his lifetime—no property but his sword, his
+mare, and his young wife.  These he left to his nephew
+Mohammed-ibn-Rashid, the reigning Emir, with the request that his sword
+should remain undrawn, his mare unridden, and his wife unmarried forever
+after.”
+
+The travellers give an interesting account of the Emir’s horses, the most
+famous stud in Nejd.
+
+Though interested, they were, on the whole, disappointed with the horses
+of Nejd as compared with those of Northern Arabia.  “In comparing what we
+see here with what we saw last year in the north, the first thing that
+strikes us is that these are ponies, the others horses.  It is not so
+much the actual difference in height, though there must be quite three
+inches on an average, as the shape, which produces this impression.”
+
+The average height was found to be under fourteen hands; and though great
+care was taken to obtain and preserve pure strains of blood, in the
+matter of feeding and grooming, gross negligence seemed to be the rule,
+even in the royal stud.  The stables were mere open yards, in which the
+animals stood, each tethered to a manger.  No shelter was provided, but
+each horse was protected by a heavy rug.  They wore no headstalls, being
+fastened solely with ropes or chains about the fetlocks.  No regular
+exercise was given them, their food was almost exclusively dry barley,
+and their appearance generally was far different from what Europeans
+would naturally expect of the finest stable of horses in the “horse
+peninsula.”
+
+The travellers also enlighten us, on the subject of horses, in other
+directions.  Except in the north, horses were found to be exceedingly
+rare.  It is possible to travel vast distances without meeting a single
+horse, or even crossing a horse-track; on the whole journey across the
+Nefûd, and on to the Euphrates, they scarcely saw a horse, apart from the
+stables of the rich and great in the cities.  The horse is a luxury to be
+afforded only by people of wealth or position.  Journeys and raids and
+wars are all made on camels; the Sheykhs who have horses, when going to
+war save them to mount at the moment of actual engagement with the enemy.
+It was considered a great boast by a Nejd tribe of Bedouins that they
+could mount one hundred horsemen; while the Muteyr tribe, reputed to be
+the greatest breeders of thoroughbred stock in Central Arabia, would be
+expected to muster not more than four hundred mares.
+
+Mohammed-ibn-Rashid recruited his stables by compelling the Sheykhs of
+tributary tribes to sell him their best animals, an improvement on some
+of his predecessors, who kept their studs up to the proper mark becoming
+Arab royalty by making raids against the tribes for the purpose of
+bringing in celebrated mares, waiving the matter of payment.
+
+In the spring the horses of the Emir’s stables are distributed among the
+neighboring Bedouins to be pastured on the Nefûd, which at that period
+affords excellent grazing.  Had the visitors seen the herd after a month
+on the Nefûd, they would likely have carried away a much more favorable
+impression.  During the winter quartering the colts seemed to fare even
+worse than their dams and sires, from the following:
+
+“Besides the full-grown animals, Ibn Rashid’s yards contain thirty or
+forty foals and yearlings, beautiful little creatures, but terribly
+starved and miserable.  Foals bred in the desert are poor enough, but
+those in town have a positively sickly appearance.  Tied all day long by
+the foot, they seem to have quite lost heart, and show none of the
+playfulness of their age.  Their tameness, like that of the ‘fowl and the
+brute,’ is shocking to see.”
+
+The contrast between the actual treatment of these royal animals and the
+following Arab recipe for rearing a colt is sufficiently striking:
+
+“During the first month of his life let him be content with his mother’s
+milk; it will be sufficient for him.  Then, during five months, add to
+this natural supply goats’ milk, as much as he will drink.  For six
+months more give him the milk of camels, and besides a measure of wheat
+steeped in water for a quarter of an hour and served in a nose-bag.  At a
+year old the colt will have done with milk; he must be fed on wheat and
+grass, the wheat dry from a nose-bag, the grass green, if there is any.
+
+“At two years old he must work or he will be worthless.  Feed him now,
+like a full-grown horse, on barley; but in summer let him also have gruel
+daily at mid-day.  Make the gruel thus: Take a double-handful of flour
+and mix it in water well with your hands till the water seems like milk,
+then strain it, leaving the dregs of the flour, and give what is liquid
+to the colt to drink.
+
+“Be careful, from the hour he is born, to let him stand in the sun; shade
+hurts horses; but let him have water in plenty when the day is hot.  The
+colt must now be mounted and taken by his owner everywhere with him, so
+that he shall see everything and learn courage.  He must be kept
+constantly in exercise, and never remain long at his manger.  He should
+be taken on a journey, for the work will fortify his limbs.  At three
+years old he should be trained to gallop; then, if he be true blood, he
+will not be left behind.  Yalla!”
+
+Lady Blunt thinks this represents a traditional practice of rearing colts
+in Arabia since the days of the Prophet Mohammet.
+
+From Hail, the party joined the Haj, or caravan of Persian pilgrims,
+returning home from Mecca and Medina; and after eighty-four days’ travel
+from Damascus their Arabian journey came to an end at Bagdad.  Their
+route from Hail took them far north of Palgrave’s route, so that they did
+not visit Ri’ad, the headquarters, in Palgrave’s time, of the Wahabee
+ruler Feysul.  Lady Blunt, however, in an appendix to her narrative
+enlightens us in regard to the end of Feysul, and the continued decline
+of the Wahabee regime after the visit of Palgrave.
+
+Three years after Palgrave’s visit Feysul died, and the Wahabee state,
+which under him had regained much of its power and influence (which had
+been all but crushed by the Turks after the Crimean war) was again
+weakened by internal dissensions.  Feysul left two sons, Abdallah and
+Saoud, who quarrelled and put themselves at the head of their respective
+adherents.  Saoud proved himself the stronger party, and in 1871 Abdallah
+fled to Jebel Shammar and sought the aid of Midhat Pasha, Turkish
+governor at Bagdad.
+
+The result was that a Turkish expedition of 5,000 regular troops occupied
+the seaboard territory of Hasa, and took possession of Hofhoof (mentioned
+by Palgrave); whilst Abdallah and his adherents, and a third rival,
+Abdallah-ibn-Turki, attacked Saoud at Ri’ad.  Saoud was defeated, and
+Abdallah essayed to govern at Ri’ad; but in the following year he was
+again ejected by Saoud who reigned till 1874, when he died, not without
+suspicion of poison.
+
+Lady Blunt’s account of affairs at the Wahabee capital ends with the
+information that Abdallah and a half-brother, Abderrahman, were in joint
+and amicable control, Abdallah as Emir, the latter as his chief minister.
+Hasa and the seaboard was held by the Turks, whose policy was the
+stirring up of strife and feudal enmity among the Arabs, with a view to
+weakening the power and authority of the Emir at Ri’ad, and so making the
+country easy prey whenever opportunity arrives for its incorporation in
+the Ottoman dominions.  The power and fanaticism of the once powerful
+Wahabee Empire, has become but little more than a name and a remembrance
+among the Bedouin tribes, who once paid tribute to its Emirs; and
+whatever was national in thought and respectable in inspiration in
+Central Arabia seemed to be grouping itself around the new dynasty of the
+Emir of Jebel Shammar, Mohammed-ibn-Rashid of Hail.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 THE END.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+{59}  The inscription, which is copied in Lieutenant Wellsted’s work,
+appears to be in the Himyaritic character.  If any translation of it has
+ever been made, the compiler is unable to say where it can be found.
+
+{201}  “The Na’ib” was a Persian official, despatched by the Persian
+pilgrims to lay before Feysul, the ruler of Nedjed, a statement of the
+extortions to which they had been compelled to submit at Bereydah.  He
+was thus equally under Aboo-’Eysa’s charge, and his company was rather an
+advantage to Palgrave, since his mission was another cause of
+removing—or, at least, lessening—the prominence of the latter, after his
+arrival at Ri’ad.
+
+{279}  It is well to point out here that Palgrave and Lady Blunt spell
+the names of places quite differently, which makes it rather difficult at
+times to identify them as referring to places mutually visited.  Thus,
+Blunt’s “Hail” and Palgrave’s “Ha’yel” are one; as are also “Jôf” and
+“Djowf.”  Other differences are “Nejd,” “Nejed,” “Djebel Shomer,” “Jebel
+Shammer,” etc.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAVELS IN ARABIA***
+
+
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
+<title>Travels in Arabia, by Bayard Taylor</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Travels in Arabia, by Bayard Taylor, Edited
+by Thomas Stevens
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Travels in Arabia
+
+
+Author: Bayard Taylor
+
+Editor: Thomas Stevens
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2013  [eBook #41960]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAVELS IN ARABIA***
+</pre>
+<p>This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/fpb.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Night march on the Arabian Desert"
+title=
+"Night march on the Arabian Desert"
+src="images/fps.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY OF TRAVEL</p>
+<h1>TRAVELS IN ARABIA</h1>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">COMPILED AND
+ARRANGED BY</span><br />
+BAYARD TAYLOR</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">REVISED
+BY</span><br />
+THOMAS STEVENS</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center">NEW YORK<br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER&rsquo;S SONS<br />
+1898</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageii"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. ii</span><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>
+1881, 1892, <span class="smcap">by</span><br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER&rsquo;S SONS</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">TROW
+DIRECTORY</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">PRINTING AND
+BOOKBINDING COMPANY</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">NEW
+YORK</span></p>
+<h2><a name="pageiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+iii</span>REVISER&rsquo;S NOTE</h2>
+<p>The continuance of Bayard Taylor&rsquo;s Library of Travel in
+the popular favor is one of the accepted facts of the literary
+world.&nbsp; So much so, indeed, that a revision of his works on
+the part of another is to be permitted only on certain conditions
+of reserve, and by reason of events that have transpired since
+the death of the distinguished traveller.</p>
+<p>Travellers and authors die; but the tribes, nations, and races
+visited by them continue on, making war or peace, changing
+frontiers, setting up or pulling down dynasties.</p>
+<p>The whole political complexion of a country may be changed in
+a decade.&nbsp; Though the people of Arabia, the genuine
+Bedouins, are believed to have changed little or nothing in their
+mode of life since the days of the Shepherd Kings of
+Abraham&rsquo;s time, waves of political and religious agitation
+have occasionally rippled over one part or another of the ancient
+peninsula.&nbsp; Seemingly they make as little permanent
+impression on the undercurrent of Bedouin life, as do the waves
+of the sea on its immutable whole, so that the accounts of the
+earlier chroniclers of Arabian life and manners agree in a
+singular manner with the descriptions of contemporary
+visitors.&nbsp; For this reason, no less than for the respect and
+admiration <a name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+iv</span>entertained by the reviser for Mr. Taylor&rsquo;s
+conscientiousness and judgment as a traveller and compiler, and
+his literary excellence as an author, this volume remains,
+practically, as fully the work of its original editor as
+before.</p>
+<p>By way of bringing it up to date, however, Chapter XVII. has
+been added, and such slight revision of preceding chapters has
+been made as was found necessary, consistent with the scope and
+intention of the new edition.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Thomas
+Stevens</span>.</p>
+<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+v</span>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Sketch of Arabia; its Geographical
+Position and Ancient History</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page1">1</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Early Explorers of Arabia</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page8">8</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Niebuhr&rsquo;s Travels in
+Yemen</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page14">14</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Burckhardt&rsquo;s Journey to Mecca
+and Medina</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page29">29</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER V.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Wellsted&rsquo;s Explorations in
+Oman</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page40">40</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Wellsted&rsquo;s Discovery of an
+Ancient City in Hadramaut</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page55">55</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Burton&rsquo;s Pilgrimage</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page62">62</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><a
+name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vi</span>CHAPTER
+VIII.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s Travels in Central
+Arabia: from Palestine to the Djowf</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page83">83</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Residence in the Djowf</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page107">107</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER X.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Crossing the Nefood</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page127">127</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XI.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s Travels&mdash;Life in
+Ha&rsquo;yel</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page138">138</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XII.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s Travels&mdash;Journey
+to Bereydah</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page176">176</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XIII.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s Travels&mdash;Journey
+to Ri&rsquo;ad the Capital of Nedjed</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page201">201</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XIV.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Adventures in Ri&rsquo;ad</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page217">217</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XV.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s Travels&mdash;His
+Escape to the Eastern Coast</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page240">240</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XVI.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s Travels&mdash;Eastern
+Arabia</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page259">259</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XVII.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Lady Blunt&rsquo;s pilgrimage to
+Nejd</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page279">279</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vii</span>LIST
+OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Night March In The Desert</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
+class="smcap">Frontispiece</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="GutSmall">FACING
+PAGE</span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">The Coffee Hills of Yemen</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page19">19</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">View of El-Medina</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page39">39</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">A valley in Oman</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page51">51</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">The ruins of Nakab El-Hadjar, in
+Hadramaut</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page59">59</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">View of Medina from the
+West</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page69">69</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Camp at Mount Arafat</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page77">77</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Costume of Pilgrims to
+Mecca</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page81">81</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">William Gifford Palgrave</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page84">84</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">An Arab Chief</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page105">105</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Captain Burton as a Pilgrim</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page129">129</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">The village of
+El-Suwayrkiyah</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page184">184</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">An arab encampment</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page190">190</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p><span class="smcap">Death on the desert</span></p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
+href="#page208">208</a></span></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>CHAPTER
+I.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Sketch of Arabia: Its
+Geographical Position, and Ancient History</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Peninsula of Arabia, forming
+the extreme southwestern corner of Asia, is partly detached, both
+in a geographical and historical sense, from the remainder of the
+continent.&nbsp; Although parts of it are mentioned in the oldest
+historical records, and its shores were probably familiar to the
+earliest navigators, the greater portion of its territory has
+always remained almost inaccessible and unknown.</p>
+<p>The desert, lying between Syria and the Euphrates is sometimes
+included by geographers as belonging to Arabia, but a line drawn
+from the Dead Sea to the mouth of the Euphrates (almost
+coinciding with the parallel of 30&deg; N.) would more nearly
+represent the northern boundary of the peninsula.&nbsp; As the
+most southern point of the Arabian coast reaches the latitude of
+12&deg; 40&prime;, the greater part of the entire territory, of
+more than one million square miles, lies within the
+tropics.&nbsp; In shape it is an irregular rhomboid, the longest
+diameter, from Suez to the Cape <a name="page2"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 2</span>El-Had, in Oman, being 1,660, and from
+the Euphrates to the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, 1,400 miles.</p>
+<p>The entire coast region of Arabia, on the Red Sea, the Indian
+Ocean, and the Gulfs of Oman and Persia, is, for the most part, a
+belt of fertile country, inhabited by a settled, semi-civilized
+population.&nbsp; Back of this belt, which varies in width from a
+few miles to upwards of a hundred, commences a desert table-land,
+occasionally intersected by mountain chains, and containing, in
+the interior, many fertile valleys of considerable extent, which
+are inhabited.&nbsp; Very little has been known of this great
+interior region until the present century.</p>
+<p>The ancient geographers divided Arabia into three
+parts,&mdash;<i>Arabia Petr&aelig;a</i>, or the Rocky, comprising
+the northwestern portion, including the Sinaitic peninsula,
+between the Gulfs of Suez and Akaba; <i>Arabia Deserta</i>, the
+great central desert; and <i>Arabia Felix</i>, the Happy, by
+which they appear to have designated the southwestern part, now
+known as Yemen.&nbsp; The modern Arabic geography, which has been
+partly adopted on our maps, is based, to some extent, on the
+political divisions of the country.&nbsp; The coast region along
+the Red Sea, down to a point nearly half way between Djidda and
+the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and including the holy cities of
+Medina and Mecca, is called the Hedjaz.&nbsp; Yemen, the capital
+of which is Sana, and the chief sea-ports Mocha, Hodeida, and
+Loheia, embraces all the southwestern portion of the
+peninsula.&nbsp; The southern coast, although divided into
+various little chiefdoms, is known under the <a
+name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>general name of
+Hadramaut.&nbsp; The kingdom of Oman has extended itself along
+the eastern shore, nearly to the head of the Persian Gulf.&nbsp;
+The northern oases, the seat of the powerful sect of the
+Wahabees, are called Nedjed; and the unknown southern interior,
+which is believed to be almost wholly desert, inhabited only by a
+few wandering Bedouins, is known as the Dahna or Akhaf.</p>
+<p>Arabia has been inhabited by the same race since the earliest
+times, and has changed less, in the course of thousands of years,
+than any other country of the globe, not excepting China.&nbsp;
+According to Biblical genealogy, the natives are descended from
+Ham, through Cush; but the Bedouins have always claimed that they
+are the posterity of Ishmael.&nbsp; Some portions of the country,
+such as Edom, or Idum&aelig;a, Teman and Sheba, (the modern
+Yemen,) are mentioned in the Old Testament; but neither the
+Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, nor Egyptian monarchies succeeded
+in gaining possession of the peninsula.&nbsp; Alexander the Great
+made preparations for a journey of conquest, which was prevented
+by his death, and Trajan was the only Roman emperor who
+penetrated into the interior.</p>
+<p>The inhabitants were idolaters, whose religion had probably
+some resemblance to that of the Phoenicians.&nbsp; After the
+destruction of Jerusalem, both Jews and Christians found their
+way thither, and made proselytes.&nbsp; There were Jews in
+Medina, Mecca, and Yemen; and even the last Himyaritic king of
+the latter country became a convert to Mosaic faith.&nbsp; Thus
+the strength of the ancient religion was <a
+name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>already
+weakened when Mohammed was born (<span
+class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 570); and there are strong evidences
+for the conjecture that the demoralization of both Jews and
+Christians, resulting from their long enmity, was the chief cause
+which prevented Mohammed from adopting the belief of the
+latter.&nbsp; At the time of his birth, the civilization of the
+dominant Arab tribes was little inferior to that of Europe or the
+Eastern Empire.&nbsp; There was already an Arabic literature; and
+the arts and sciences of the ancient world had found their way
+even to the oases of Nedjed.</p>
+<p>The union of the best and strongest elements in the race,
+which followed the establishment of the new religion, gave to men
+of Arabian blood a part to play in the history of the
+world.&nbsp; For six hundred years after Mohammed&rsquo;s death
+Islam and Christendom were nearly equal powers, and it is
+difficult, even now, to decide which contributed the more to the
+arts from which modern civilization has sprung.&nbsp; Arabia
+flourished, as never before, under the Caliphs; yet it does not
+appear that the life of the inhabitants was materially changed,
+or that any growth, acquired during the new importance of the
+country, became permanent.&nbsp; Its commerce was restricted to
+the products of its narrow belt of fertile shore; an arid desert
+separated it from Bagdad and Syria; none of the lines of traffic
+between Europe and the East Indies traversed its territory, and
+thus it remained comparatively unknown to the Christian
+world.</p>
+<p>After the downfall of the Caliphate the tribes relapsed into
+their former condition of independent <a name="page5"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 5</span>chiefdoms, and the old hostilities,
+which had been partially suppressed for some centuries, again
+revived.&nbsp; In the sixteenth century the Turks obtained
+possession of Hedjaz and Yemen; the Portuguese held Muscat for a
+hundred and fifty years, and the Persians made some temporary
+conquests, but the vast interior region easily maintained its
+independence.&nbsp; The deserts, which everywhere intervene
+between its large and fertile valleys and the sea-coast, are the
+home of wandering Bedouin tribes, whose only occupation is
+plunder,&mdash;whose hand is against every man&rsquo;s, and every
+man&rsquo;s hand against them.&nbsp; Thus they serve as a
+body-guard even to their own enemies.</p>
+<p>The long repose and seclusion of Central Arabia was first
+broken during the present century.&nbsp; It may be well to state,
+very briefly, the circumstances which led to it, since they will
+explain the great difficulty and danger which all modern
+explorers must encounter.&nbsp; Early in the last century, an
+Arabian named Abd el-Wahab, scandalized at what he believed to be
+the corruption of the Moslem faith, began preaching a
+Reformation.&nbsp; He advocated the slaughter or forcible
+conversion of heretics, the most rigid forms of fasting and
+prayer, the disuse of tobacco, and various other changes in the
+Oriental habits of life.&nbsp; Having succeeded in converting the
+chief of Nedjed, Mohammed Ibu-Savod, he took up his residence in
+Derreyeh, the capital, which thenceforth became the rendezvous
+for all his followers, who were named <i>Wahabees</i>.&nbsp; They
+increased to such an extent that their authority became supreme
+<a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>throughout
+Central Arabia, and the successor of Ibu-Savod was able to call
+an army of 100,000 men into the field, and defy the Ottoman
+power.</p>
+<p>In the year 1803 the Wahabees took and plundered Mecca, and
+slew great numbers of the pilgrims who had gathered there.&nbsp;
+A second expedition against Medina failed, but the annual caravan
+of pilgrims was robbed and dispersed.&nbsp; Finally, in 1809, the
+Sultan transferred to Mohammed Ali, of Egypt, the duty of
+suppressing this menacing religious and political
+rebellion.&nbsp; The first campaign in Arabia was a failure; the
+second, under Ibrahim Pasha, was successful.&nbsp; He overcame
+the Wahabees in 1818, captured Derreyeh, and razed it to the
+ground.&nbsp; In 1828 they began a second war against Turkey, but
+were again defeated.&nbsp; Since then they have refrained from
+any further aggressive movement, but their hostility and bigotry
+are as active as ever.&nbsp; The Wahabee doctrine flatters the
+clannish and exclusive spirit of the race, and will probably
+prevent, for a long time, any easy communication between Arabia
+and the rest of the world.</p>
+<p>The greater part of our present knowledge of Arabia has been
+obtained since the opening of this century.&nbsp; The chief
+seaports and the route from Suez to Mt. Sinai were known during
+the Middle Ages, but all else was little better than a
+blank.&nbsp; Within the last fifty or sixty years the mountains
+of Edom have been explored, the rock-hewn city of Petra
+discovered, the holy cities of Medina and Mecca visited by
+intelligent Europeans; Yemen, Hadramaut, and Oman partly
+traversed; and, last of all, <a name="page7"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 7</span>we have a very clear and satisfactory
+account of Nedjed and the other central regions of Arabia, by the
+intrepid English traveller, Mr. Palgrave.</p>
+<p>Thus, only the southern interior of the peninsula remains to
+be visited.&nbsp; The name given to it by the Arabs, <i>Roba
+el-Khaly</i>, &ldquo;the abode of emptiness,&rdquo; no doubt
+describes its character.&nbsp; It is an immense, undulating,
+sandy waste, dotted with scarce and small oases, which give water
+and shelter to the Bedouins, but without any large tract of
+habitable land, and consequently without cities, or other than
+the rudest forms of political organization.</p>
+<h2><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>CHAPTER
+II.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Early Explorers of
+Arabia</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> the habit of travel began to
+revive in the Middle Ages, its character was either religious or
+commercial, either in the form of pilgrimages to Rome, Palestine,
+(whenever possible), and the shrines of popular saints, or of
+journeys to the Levant, Persia and the Indies, with the object of
+acquiring wealth by traffic, the profits of which increased in
+the same proportion as its hazards.&nbsp; From the time of
+Trajan&rsquo;s expedition to Arabia, (in <span
+class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 117) down to the sixteenth century,
+we have no report of the history or condition of the country
+except such as can be drawn from the earlier Jewish and Christian
+traditions and the later Mohammedan records.</p>
+<p>The first account of a visit to Arabia which appears to be
+worthy of credence, is that given by Ludovico Bartema, of
+Rome.&nbsp; After visiting Egypt, he joined the caravan of
+pilgrims at Damascus, in 1503, in the company of a Mameluke
+captain, himself disguised as a Mameluke renegade.&nbsp; After
+several attacks from the Bedouins of the desert, the caravan
+reached Medina, which he describes as containing three hundred
+houses.&nbsp; Bartema gives a very correct <a
+name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>description of
+the tomb of the Prophet, and scoffs at the then prevalent belief
+that the latter&rsquo;s coffin is suspended in the air, between
+four lodestones.</p>
+<p>He thus describes an adventure which befell his company the
+same evening after their visit to the mosque.&nbsp; &ldquo;At
+almost three of the night, ten or twelve of the elders of the
+sect of Mohammed entered into our caravan, which remained not
+past a stone&rsquo;s cast from the gate of the city.&nbsp; These
+ran hither and thither, crying like madmen with these words:
+&lsquo;Mohammed, the messenger and apostle of God, shall rise
+again!&nbsp; O Prophet, O God, Mohammed shall rise again!&nbsp;
+Have mercy on us, God!&rsquo;&nbsp; Our captain and we, all
+raised with this cry, took weapon with all expedition, suspecting
+that the Arabs were come to rob our caravan.&nbsp; We asked what
+was the cause of that exclamation, and what they cried?&nbsp; For
+they cried as do the Christians when suddenly any marvellous
+thing chanceth.&nbsp; The elders answered: &lsquo;Saw you not the
+lightning which shone out of the sepulchre of the Prophet
+Mohammed?&rsquo;&nbsp; Our captain answered that he saw nothing,
+and we also being demanded, answered in like manner.&nbsp; Then
+said one of the old men: &lsquo;Are you slaves?&rsquo;&nbsp; This
+to say bought men, meaning thereby, Mamelukes.&nbsp; Then said
+our captain: &lsquo;We are indeed Mamelukes.&rsquo;&nbsp; Then
+again the old man said: &lsquo;You, my lords, cannot see heavenly
+things, as being <i>neophiti</i>, that is, newly come to the
+faith, and not yet confirmed in our religion.&rsquo;&nbsp; It is
+therefore to be understood that none other shining came out of
+the sepulchre than a certain flame, which the priests caused to
+come out <a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+10</span>of the open place of the tower, whereby they would have
+deceived us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Leaving Medina, the caravan travelled for three days over a
+&ldquo;broad plain,&rdquo; all covered with white sand, in manner
+as small as flour.&nbsp; Then they passed a mountain, where they
+heard &ldquo;a certain horrible noise and cry,&rdquo; and after
+journeying for ten days longer, during which time they twice
+fought with &ldquo;fifty thousand Arabians,&rdquo; they reached
+Mecca, of which Bartema says: &ldquo;The city is very fair, and
+well inhabited, and containeth in round form six thousand houses
+as well builded as ours, and some that cost three or four
+thousand pieces of gold: it hath no walls.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Bartema describes the ceremonies performed by the pilgrims,
+with tolerable correctness.&nbsp; His fellowship with the
+Mamelukes seems to have been a complete protection up to the time
+when the caravan was ready to set out on its return to Damascus,
+and the members of the troop were ordered to accompany it, on
+pain of death.&nbsp; Then he managed to escape by persuading a
+Mohammedan that he understood the art of casting cannon, and
+wished to reach India, in order to assist the native monarchs in
+defending themselves against the Portuguese.&nbsp; Reaching Jedda
+in safety, Bartema sailed for Persia, visiting Yemen on the way;
+made his way to India, and after various adventures, returned to
+Europe by way of the Cape of Good Hope.</p>
+<p>The second European who made his way to the holy cities was
+Joseph Pitts, an Englishman, who was captured by an Algerine
+pirate, as a sailor-boy <a name="page11"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 11</span>of sixteen, and forced by his master
+to become a Mussulman.&nbsp; After some years, when he had
+acquired the Arabic and Turkish languages, he accompanied his
+master for a pilgrimage to Mecca, by way of Cairo, Suez and the
+Red Sea.&nbsp; Here he received his freedom; but continued with
+the pilgrims to Medina, and returned to Egypt by land, through
+Arabia Petr&aelig;a.&nbsp; After fifteen years of exile, he
+succeeded in escaping to Italy, and thence made his way back to
+England.</p>
+<p>Pitts gives a minute and generally correct account of the
+ceremonies at Mecca.&nbsp; He was not, of course, learned in
+Moslem theology, and his narrative, like that of all former
+visitors to Mecca, has been superseded by the more intelligent
+description of Burckhardt; yet it coincides with the latter in
+all essential particulars.&nbsp; His description of the city and
+surrounding scenery is worth quoting, from the quaint simplicity
+of its style.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;First, as to Mecca.&nbsp; It is a town situated in a
+barren place, (about one day&rsquo;s journey from the Red Sea),
+in a valley, or rather in the midst of many little hills.&nbsp;
+It is a place of no force, wanting both walls and gates.&nbsp;
+Its buildings are, as I said before, very ordinary, insomuch that
+it would be a place of no tolerable entertainment, were it not
+for the anniversary resort of so many thousand Hagges (Hadjis),
+or pilgrims, on whose coming the whole dependence of the town (in
+a manner) is; for many shops are scarcely open all the year
+besides.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The people here, I observed, are a poor sort of people,
+very thin, lean and swarthy.&nbsp; The town is <a
+name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>surrounded
+for several miles with many thousands of little hills, which are
+very near one to the other.&nbsp; I have been on the top of some
+of them near Mecca, where I could see some miles about, yet was
+not able to see the farthest of the hills.&nbsp; They are all
+stony-rock and blackish, and pretty near of a bigness, appearing
+at a distance like cocks of hay, but all pointing towards
+Mecca.&nbsp; Some of them are half a mile in circumference, but
+all near of one height.&nbsp; The people here have an odd and
+foolish sort of tradition concerning them, viz., That when
+Abraham went about building the Beat-Allah (Beit-Allah, or
+&lsquo;House of God&rsquo;), God by his wonderful providence did
+so order it, that every mountain in the world should contribute
+something to the building thereof; and accordingly every one did
+send its proportion, though there is a mountain near Algier which
+is called Corradog, <i>i.e.</i>, Black Mountain, and the reason
+of its blackness, they say, is because it did not send any part
+of itself towards building the temple at Mecca.&nbsp; Between
+these hills is good and plain travelling, though they stand one
+to another.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is upon the top of one of them a cave, which they
+term Hira, <i>i.e.</i>, Blessing, into which, they say, Mahomet
+did usually retire for his solitary devotions, meditations and
+fastings; and here they believe he had a great part of the
+Alcoran brought him by the angel Gabriel.&nbsp; I have been in
+this cave, and observed that it is not at all beautified, at
+which I admired.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About half a mile out of Mecca is a very steep hill,
+and there are stairs made to go to the top of it, <a
+name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>where is a
+cupola, under which is a cloven rock; into this, they say,
+Mahomet when very young, viz., about four years of age, was
+carried by the angel Gabriel, who opened his breast and took out
+his heart, from which he picked some black blood specks, which
+was his original corruption; then put it into its place again,
+and afterward closed up the part; and that during this operation
+Mahomet felt no pain.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The next account of the same pilgrimage is given by Giovanni
+Tinati, an Italian, who deserted from the French service on the
+coast of Dalmatia, and became an Albanian soldier.&nbsp; Making
+his way to Egypt, after various adventures, he became at last a
+corporal in Mohammed Ali&rsquo;s body-guard, and shared in
+several campaigns against the Wahabees.&nbsp; He did not,
+however, penetrate very far inland from the coast, and his visit
+to Mecca was the result of his desertion from the Egyptian army
+after a defeat.&nbsp; His narrative contains nothing which has
+not been more fully and satisfactorily stated by later
+travellers.</p>
+<p>By this time, however, the era of careful scientific
+exploration had already commenced, and the descriptions which
+have since then been furnished to us are positive contributions
+to our knowledge of Arabia.&nbsp; With the exception of the
+journey of Carsten Niebuhr, which embraces only the Sinaitic
+Peninsula and Yemen, the important explorations&mdash;all of
+which are equally difficult and daring&mdash;have been made since
+the commencement of this century.</p>
+<h2><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+14</span>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Niebuhr&rsquo;s Travels in
+Yemen</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1760 the Danish government
+decided to send an expedition to Arabia and India, for the
+purpose of geographical exploration.&nbsp; The command was given
+to Carsten Niebuhr, a native of Hanover, and a civil
+engineer.&nbsp; Four other gentlemen, an artist, a botanist, a
+physician, and an astronomer, were associated with him in the
+undertaking; yet, by a singular fatality, all died during the
+journey, and Niebuhr returned alone, after an absence of nearly
+seven years, to publish the first narrative of travel based on
+scientific observation.</p>
+<p>The party sailed from Copenhagen for Smyrna in January, 1761,
+visited Constantinople, and then proceeded to Egypt, where they
+remained nearly a year.&nbsp; After a journey to Sinai, they
+finally succeeded in engaging passage on board a vessel carrying
+pilgrims from Suez to Jedda, and sailed from the former port in
+October, 1762.&nbsp; They took the precaution of adopting the
+Oriental dress, and conformed, as far as possible, to the customs
+of the Mussulman passengers; thus the voyage, although very
+tedious and uncomfortable, was not accompanied with any other
+danger than that from the coral reefs along the Arabian
+shore.&nbsp; The vessel touched at Yambo, the <a
+name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>port of
+Medina, and finally reached Jedda, after a voyage of nineteen
+days.</p>
+<p>The travellers entered Jedda under strong apprehensions of
+ill-treatment from the inhabitants, but were favorably
+disappointed.&nbsp; The people, it seemed, were already
+accustomed to the sight of Christian merchants in their town, and
+took no particular notice of the strangers, who went freely to
+the coffee-houses and markets, and felt themselves safe so long
+as they did not attempt to pass through the gate leading to
+Mecca.&nbsp; The Turkish Pasha of the city received them kindly,
+and they were allowed to hire a house for their temporary
+residence.</p>
+<p>After waiting six weeks for the chance of a passage to Mocha,
+they learned that an Arabian vessel was about to sail for
+Hodeida, one of the ports of Yemen.&nbsp; The craft, when they
+visited it, proved to be more like a hogshead than a ship; it was
+only seven fathoms long, by three in breadth.&nbsp; It had no
+deck; its planks were extremely thin, and seemed to be only
+nailed together, but not pitched.&nbsp; The captain wore nothing
+but a linen cloth upon his loins, and his sailors, nine in
+number, were black slaves from Africa or Malabar.&nbsp;
+Nevertheless, they engaged passage, taking the entire vessel for
+themselves alone; but when they came to embark, it was filled
+with the merchandise of others.&nbsp; The voyage proved to be
+safe and pleasant, and in sixteen days they landed at Loheia, in
+Yemen.</p>
+<p>The governor of this place was a negro, who had formerly been
+a slave.&nbsp; He received the travellers with the greatest
+kindness, persuaded them to leave <a name="page16"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 16</span>the vessel, and gave them a
+residence, promising camels for the further journey by
+land.&nbsp; Although they were somewhat annoyed by the great
+curiosity of the inhabitants, their residence was so agreeable,
+and offered the naturalists so many facilities for making
+collections, that they remained nearly four months.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;We had one opportunity,&rdquo; says Niebuhr, &ldquo;of
+learning their ideas of the benefits to be derived from
+medicine.&nbsp; Mr. Cramer had given a scribe an emetic which
+operated with extreme violence.&nbsp; The Arabs, being struck at
+its wonderful effects, resolved all to take the same excellent
+remedy, and the reputation of our friend&rsquo;s skill thus
+became very high among them.&nbsp; The Emir of the port sent one
+day for him; and, as he did not go immediately, the Emir soon
+after sent a saddled horse to our gate.&nbsp; Mr. Cramer,
+supposing that this horse was intended to bear him to the Emir,
+was going to mount him, when he was told that this was the
+patient he was to cure.&nbsp; We luckily found another physician
+in our party; our Swedish servant had been with the hussars in
+his native country, and had acquired some knowledge of the
+diseases of horses.&nbsp; He offered to cure the Emir&rsquo;s
+horse, and succeeded.&nbsp; The cure rendered him famous, and he
+was afterward sent for to human patients.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Having satisfied themselves by this time that there was no
+danger in travelling in Yemen, they did not wait for the
+departure of any large caravan, but, on February 20, 1763, set
+out from Loheia, mounted on asses, and made their way across the
+<i>Tehama</i>, or low country, toward the large town of <a
+name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>Beit
+el-Fakih, which stands near the base of the coffee-bearing
+hills.&nbsp; They wore dresses somewhat similar to those of the
+natives, a long shirt, reaching nearly to the feet, a girdle, and
+a mantle over the shoulders.&nbsp; The country was barren, but
+there were many villages, and at intervals of every few miles
+they found coffee-houses, or, rather, huts, for the refreshment
+of travellers.&nbsp; After having suffered no further
+inconvenience than from the brackish water, which is drawn from
+wells more than a hundred feet deep, they reached Beit el-Fakih
+in five days.</p>
+<p>Here they were kindly received by one of the native merchants,
+who hired a stone house for them.&nbsp; The town is seated upon a
+well-cultivated plain; it is comparatively modern, but populous,
+and the travellers, now entirely accustomed to the Arabian mode
+of life, felt themselves safe.&nbsp; The Emir took no particular
+notice of them, a neglect with which they were fully satisfied,
+since it left them free to range the country in all
+directions.&nbsp; Niebuhr, therefore, determined to make the
+place the temporary headquarters of the expedition, and to give
+some time to excursions in that part of Yemen.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+hired an ass,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and its owner agreed to
+follow me as my servant on foot.&nbsp; A turban, a great coat
+wanting the sleeves, a shirt, linen drawers, and a pair of
+slippers, were all the dress that I wore.&nbsp; It being the
+fashion of the country to carry arms in travelling, I had a sabre
+and two pistols hung by my girdle.&nbsp; A piece of old carpet
+was my saddle, and served me likewise for a seat, a table, and
+various other purposes.&nbsp; To cover me at night, I had the
+linen cloak which the <a name="page18"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 18</span>Arabs wrap about their shoulders, to
+shelter them from the sun and rain.&nbsp; A bucket of water, an
+article of indispensable necessity to a traveller in these arid
+regions, hung by my saddle.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After a trip to the seaport of Hodeida, Niebuhr visited the
+old town of Zebid, built on the ruins of an older city, which is
+said to have once been the capital of all the low country.&nbsp;
+Zebid is situated in a large and fertile valley, traversed during
+the rainy season by a considerable stream, by which a large tract
+of country is irrigated.&nbsp; There are the remains of an
+aqueduct built by the Turks, but the modern town does not cover
+half the space of the ancient capital.&nbsp; Zebid, however, is
+still distinguished for its academy, in which the youth of all
+that part of Yemen study such sciences as are now cultivated by
+the Mussulmans.</p>
+<p>Niebuhr&rsquo;s next trip was to the plantations of the famous
+Mocha coffee, whither the other members of the party had already
+gone, during his visit to Zebid.&nbsp; After riding about twenty
+miles eastward from Beit el-Fakih, he reached the foot of the
+mountains.&nbsp; He thus describes the region: &ldquo;Neither
+asses nor mules can be used here.&nbsp; The hills are to be
+climbed by steep and narrow paths; yet, in comparison with the
+parched plains of the Tehama, the scenery seemed to me charming,
+as it was covered with gardens and plantations of
+coffee-trees.</p>
+<p><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+19</span>&ldquo;Up to this time I had seen only one small
+basaltic hill; but here whole mountains were composed chiefly of
+those columns.&nbsp; Such detached rocks formed grand objects in
+the landscape, especially where cascades of water were seen to
+rush from their summits.&nbsp; The cascades, in such instances,
+had the appearance of being supported by rows of artificial
+pillars.&nbsp; These basalts are of great utility to the
+inhabitants; the columns, which are easily separated, serve as
+steps where the ascent is most difficult, and as materials for
+walls to support the plantations of coffee-trees upon the steep
+declivities of the mountains.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p19b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Coffee hills of Yemen"
+title=
+"Coffee hills of Yemen"
+src="images/p19s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;The tree which affords the coffee is well known in
+Europe; so that I need not here describe it particularly.&nbsp;
+The coffee-trees were all in flower at Bulgosa, and exhaled an
+exquisitely agreeable perfume.&nbsp; They are planted upon
+terraces, in the form of an amphitheatre.&nbsp; Most of them are
+only watered by the rains that fall, but some, indeed, from large
+reservoirs upon the heights, in which spring-water is collected,
+in order to be sprinkled upon the terraces, where the trees grow
+so thick together that the rays of the sun can hardly enter among
+their branches.&nbsp; We were told that those trees, thus
+artificially watered, yielded ripe fruit twice in the year; but
+the fruit becomes not fully ripe the second time, and the coffee
+of this crop is always inferior to that of the first.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stones being more common in this part of the country
+than in the Tehama, the houses&mdash;as well of the villages as
+those which are scattered solitarily over the hills&mdash;are
+built of this material.&nbsp; Although not to be compared to the
+houses of Europe for commodiousness and elegance, yet they have a
+good appearance; especially such of them as stand upon the <a
+name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>heights, with
+amphitheatres of beautiful gardens and trees around them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Even at this village of Bulgosa we were greatly above
+the level of the plain from which we had ascended; yet we had
+scarcely climbed half the ascent to Kusma, where the Emir of this
+district dwells, upon the loftiest peak of the range of
+mountains.&nbsp; Enchanting landscapes there meet the eye on all
+sides.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We passed the night at Bulgosa.&nbsp; Several of the
+men of the village came to see us, and after they retired we had
+a visit from our hostess, with some young women accompanying her,
+who were all very desirous to see the Europeans.&nbsp; They
+seemed less shy than the women in the cities; their faces were
+unveiled, and they talked freely with us.&nbsp; As the air is
+fresher and cooler upon these hills, the women have a finer and
+fairer complexion than in the plain.&nbsp; Our artist drew a
+portrait of a young girl who was going to draw water, and was
+dressed in a shirt of linen, checkered blue and white.&nbsp; The
+top and middle of the shirt, as well as the lower part of the
+drawers, were embroidered with needlework of different
+colors.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Having met with no molestation so far, Niebuhr determined to
+make a longer excursion into the southern interior of Yemen,
+among the mountains, to the important towns of Udden and
+Taas.&nbsp; The preparations were easily made.&nbsp; The
+travellers hired asses, the owners accompanying them on foot as
+guides and servants.&nbsp; As a further disguise they assumed
+Arabic names, and their real character was so <a
+name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>well
+concealed that even the guides supposed them to be Oriental
+Christians&mdash;not Europeans.&nbsp; Entering the mountains by
+an unfrequented road, they found a barren region at first, but
+soon reached valleys where coffee was cultivated.&nbsp; The
+inhabitants, on account of the cooler nights, sleep in linen
+bags, which they draw over the head, and thus keep themselves
+warm by their own breathing.</p>
+<p>After reaching Udden, which Niebuhr found to be a town of only
+three hundred houses, the hill-country became more thickly
+settled.&nbsp; Beside the roads, which had formerly been paved
+with stones, there were frequent tanks of water for the use of
+travellers, and, in exposed places, houses for their shelter in
+case of storms.&nbsp; The next important place was Djobla, a
+place of some importance in the annals of Yemen, but with no
+antiquities, except some ruined mosques.&nbsp; A further march of
+two days brought the party to the fortified city of Taas, but
+they did not venture within its walls, not having applied to the
+Emir for permission.&nbsp; They returned to their quarters at
+Beit el-Fakih, by way of Haas, another large town at the base of
+the mountains, having made themselves acquainted with a large
+portion of the hill-country of Arabia Felix.</p>
+<p>The journey to Mocha lasted three days, over a hot, barren
+plain, with no inhabitants except in the wadys or valleys, which
+are well watered during the rainy season.&nbsp; Their arrival at
+Mocha was followed by a series of annoyances, first from the
+custom-house officials, and then from the Emir, who conceived a
+sudden prejudice against the travellers, <a
+name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>so that they
+were in danger of being driven out of the city.&nbsp; An English
+merchant, however, came to their assistance, a present of fifty
+ducats mollified the Emir, and at the end of a very disagreeable
+week they received permission to stay in the city.&nbsp; From
+heat and privation they had all become ill, and in a short time
+one of the party died.</p>
+<p>Niebuhr now requested permission to proceed to Sana, the
+capital of Yemen.&nbsp; This the Emir refused, until he could
+send word to the Im&acirc;m; but, after a delay of a month, he
+allowed the party to go as far as Taas, which they reached in
+four days, and where they were well received.&nbsp; The
+refreshing rains every evening purified the air, and all
+gradually recovered their health, except the botanist, who died
+before reaching Sana.</p>
+<p>Taas stands at the foot of the fertile mountain of Sabber,
+upon which, the Arabs say, grow all varieties of plants and trees
+to be found in the world.&nbsp; Nevertheless they did not allow
+the travellers to ascend or even approach it.&nbsp; The city is
+surrounded with a wall, between sixteen and thirty feet high, and
+flanked with towers.&nbsp; The patron saint of the place is a
+former king, Ismael Melek, who is buried in a mosque bearing his
+name.&nbsp; No person is allowed to visit the tomb since the
+occurrence of a miracle, which Niebuhr thus relates: &ldquo;Two
+beggars had asked charity of the Emir of Taas, but only one of
+them had tasted of his bounty.&nbsp; Upon this the other went to
+the tomb of Ismael Melek to implore his aid.&nbsp; The saint,
+who, when alive, had been very charitable, stretched his hand out
+of the tomb and <a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+23</span>gave the beggar a letter containing an order on the Emir
+to pay him a hundred crowns.&nbsp; Upon examining this order with
+the greatest care it was found that Ismael Melek had written it
+with his own hand and sealed it with his own seal.&nbsp; The
+governor could not refuse payment; but to avoid all subsequent
+trouble from such bills of exchange, he had a wall built,
+inclosing the tomb.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The Emir of Taas so changed in his behavior toward the
+travellers, after a few days, that he ordered them to return to
+Mocha.&nbsp; Finding all their arguments and protests in vain,
+they were about to comply, when a messenger arrived from Mocha,
+bringing the permission of the Im&acirc;m of Yemen for them to
+continue their journey to Sana.&nbsp; They set out on June 28th,
+and, after crossing the mountain ranges of Mharras and Samara, by
+well-paved and graded roads, reached, in a week, the town of
+Jerim, near the ruins of the ancient Himyaritic city of Taphar,
+which, however, they were unable to visit on account of the
+illness of Mr. Forskal, the botanist of the expedition.&nbsp;
+This gentleman died in a few days; and they were obliged to bury
+him by night, with the greatest precaution.</p>
+<p>From Jerim it is a day&rsquo;s journey to Damar, the capital
+of a province.&nbsp; The city, which is seated in the midst of a
+fertile plain, and is without walls, contains five thousand
+well-built houses.&nbsp; It has a famous university, which is
+usually attended by five hundred students.&nbsp; The travellers
+were here very much annoyed by the curiosity of the people, who
+threw stones at their windows in order to force them <a
+name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>to show
+themselves.&nbsp; There is a mine of native sulphur near the
+place, and a mountain where cornelians are found, which are
+highly esteemed throughout the East.</p>
+<p>Beyond Damar the country is hilly, but every village is
+surrounded with gardens, orchards, and vineyards, which are
+irrigated from large artificial reservoirs built at the foot of
+the hills.&nbsp; On reaching Sana the travellers were not allowed
+to enter the city, but conducted to an unfurnished house without
+the walls, where they were ordered to wait two days in entire
+seclusion, until they could be received by the Im&acirc;m.&nbsp;
+During this time they were not allowed to be visited by
+anyone.&nbsp; Niebuhr thus describes their interview, which took
+place on the third day:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The hall of audience was a spacious square chamber,
+having an arched roof.&nbsp; In the middle was a large basin,
+with some <i>jets d&rsquo;eau</i>, rising fourteen feet in
+height.&nbsp; Behind the basin, and near the throne, were two
+large benches, each a foot and a half high; upon the throne was a
+space covered with silken stuff, on which, as well as on both
+sides of it, lay large cushions.&nbsp; The Im&acirc;m sat between
+the cushions, with his legs crossed in the Eastern fashion; his
+gown was of a bright green color, and had large sleeves.&nbsp;
+Upon each side of his breast was a rich filleting of gold lace,
+and on his head he wore a great white turban.&nbsp; His sons sat
+on his right hand, and his brothers on the left.&nbsp; Opposite
+to them, on the highest of the two benches, sat the Vizier, and
+our place was on the lower bench.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We were first led up to the Im&acirc;m, and were <a
+name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>permitted to
+kiss both the back and the palm of his hand, as well as the hem
+of his robe.&nbsp; It is an extraordinary favor when the
+Mohammedan princes permit any person to kiss the palm of the
+hand.&nbsp; There was a solemn silence through the whole
+hall.&nbsp; As each of us touched the Im&acirc;m&rsquo;s hand a
+herald still proclaimed, &lsquo;God preserve the
+Im&acirc;m!&rsquo; and all who were present repeated these words
+after him.&nbsp; I was thinking at the time how I should pay my
+compliments in Arabic, and was not a little disturbed by this
+noisy ceremony.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We did not think it proper to mention the true reason
+of our expedition through Arabia; but told the Im&acirc;m that,
+wishing to travel by the shortest ways to the Danish colonies, in
+the East Indies, we had heard so much of the plenty and security
+which prevailed through his dominions, that we had resolved to
+see them with our own eyes, so that we might describe them to our
+countrymen.&nbsp; The Im&acirc;m told us we were welcome to his
+dominions, and might stay as long as we pleased.&nbsp; After our
+return home he sent to each of us a small purse containing
+ninety-nine <i>komassis</i>, two and thirty of which make a
+crown.&nbsp; This piece of civility might, perhaps, appear no
+compliment to a traveller&rsquo;s delicacy.&nbsp; But, when it is
+considered that a stranger, unacquainted with the value of the
+money of the country, obliged to pay every day for his
+provisions, is in danger of being imposed upon by the
+money-changers, this care of providing us with small money will
+appear to have been sufficiently obliging.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The city of Sana,&rdquo; says Niebuhr, &ldquo;is
+situated at <a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+26</span>the foot of Mount Nikkum, on which are still to be seen
+the ruins of a castle, which the Arabs suppose to have been built
+by Shem.&nbsp; Near this mountain stands the citadel; a rivulet
+rises upon the other side, and near it is the Bostan
+el-Metwokkel, a spacious garden, which was laid out by the
+Im&acirc;m of that name, and has been greatly embellished by the
+reigning Im&acirc;m.&nbsp; The walls of the city, which are built
+of bricks, exclude this garden, which is inclosed within a wall
+of its own.&nbsp; The city, properly so called, is not very
+extensive; one may walk around it in an hour.&nbsp; There are a
+number of mosques, some of which have been built by Turkish
+Pashas.&nbsp; In Sana are only twelve public baths, but many
+noble palaces, three of the most splendid of which have been
+built by the reigning Im&acirc;m.&nbsp; The materials of these
+palaces are burnt bricks, and sometimes even hewn stones; but the
+houses of the common people are of bricks which have been dried
+in the sun.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The suburb of Bir el-Arsab is nearly adjoining the city
+on the east side.&nbsp; The houses of this village are scattered
+through the gardens, along the banks of a small river.&nbsp;
+Fruits are very plenteous; there are more than twenty kinds of
+grapes, which, as they do not all ripen at the same time,
+continue to afford a delicious refreshment for several
+months.&nbsp; The Arabs likewise preserve grapes by hanging them
+up in their cellars, and eat them almost through the whole
+year.&nbsp; Two leagues northward from Sana is a plain named
+Rodda, which is overspread with gardens and watered by a number
+of rivulets.&nbsp; This place bears a great resemblance to the
+neighborhood of Damascus.&nbsp; But <a name="page27"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 27</span>Sana, which some ancient authors
+compare to Damascus, stands on a rising ground, with nothing like
+florid vegetation about it.&nbsp; After long rains, indeed, a
+small rivulet runs through the city; but all the ground is dry
+through the rest of the year.&nbsp; However, by aqueducts from
+Mount Nikkum the town and castle of Sana are, at all times,
+supplied with abundance of excellent fresh water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After a stay of a week the travellers obtained an audience of
+leave, fearing that a longer delay might subject them to
+suspicions and embarrassments.&nbsp; Two days afterward the
+Im&acirc;m sent each of them a complete suit of clothes, with a
+letter to the Emir of Mocha, ordering him to pay them two hundred
+crowns as a farewell present.&nbsp; He also furnished them with
+camels for the journey.&nbsp; Instead of returning by the same
+road they determined to descend from the hill-country to their
+old headquarters at Beit el-Fakih, and thence cross the lowland
+to Mocha.</p>
+<p>For two days they travelled over high, rocky mountains, by the
+worst roads they found in Yemen.&nbsp; The country was poor and
+thinly inhabited, and the declivities only began to be clothed
+with trees and terraced into coffee plantations as they
+approached the plains.&nbsp; The poorer regions are not
+considered entirely safe by the Arabs, as the people frequently
+plunder defenceless travellers; but the party passed safely
+through this region, and reached Beit el-Fakih after a
+week&rsquo;s journey from Sana.</p>
+<p>Niebuhr and his companions reached Mocha early in August, and
+toward the end of that month sailed in an English vessel for
+Bombay, after a stay of ten <a name="page28"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 28</span>months in Yemen.&nbsp; The artist of
+the expedition and the Swedish servant died on the Indian Ocean,
+and the physician in India, a few months afterward, leaving
+Niebuhr the sole survivor of the six persons who left Copenhagen
+three years before.&nbsp; After having sent home the journals and
+collections of the expedition he continued his travels through
+the Persian Gulf, Bagdad, Armenia, and Asia Minor, finally
+reaching Denmark in 1767.&nbsp; The era of intelligent,
+scientific exploration, which is now rapidly opening all parts of
+the world to our knowledge, may be said to have been inaugurated
+by his travels.</p>
+<h2><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+29</span>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Burckhardt&rsquo;s Journey
+to Mecca and Medina</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Burckhardt</span>, to whom we are indebted
+for the first careful and complete description of the holy cities
+of Arabia, was a native of Lausanne, in Switzerland.&nbsp; After
+having been educated in Germany, he went to London with the
+intention of entering the English military service, but was
+persuaded by Sir Joseph Banks to apply to the African Association
+for an appointment to explore the Sahara, and the then unknown
+negro kingdoms of Central Africa.&nbsp; His offer was accepted,
+and after some preparation he went to Aleppo, in Syria, where he
+remained for a year or two, engaged in studying Arabic and
+familiarizing himself with Oriental habits of life.</p>
+<p>His first journeys in Syria and Palestine, which were only
+meant as preparations for the African exploration, led to the
+most important results.&nbsp; He was the first to visit the
+country of Hauran&mdash;the Bashan of Scripture&mdash;lying
+southeast of Damascus.&nbsp; After this he passed through Moab,
+east of the Dead Sea, and under the pretence of making a
+pilgrimage to the tomb of Aaron on Mount Hor, discovered the
+rock-hewn palaces and temples of Petra, which had been for many
+centuries lost to the world.</p>
+<p><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+30</span>Burckhardt reached Cairo in safety, and after vainly
+waiting some months for an opportunity of joining a caravan to
+Fezzan, determined to employ his time in making a visit to Upper
+Egypt and Nubia.&nbsp; Travelling alone, with a single guide, he
+succeeded in reaching the frontiers of Dongola, beyond which it
+was then impossible to proceed.&nbsp; He therefore returned to
+Assouan, and joined a small caravan, which crossed the Nubian
+Desert to Ethiopia, by very nearly the same route which Bruce had
+taken in returning from Abyssinia.&nbsp; He remained some time at
+Shendy, the capital of Ethiopia, and then, after a journey of
+three months across the country of Takka, which had never before
+been visited by a European, reached the port of Suakin, on the
+Red Sea.&nbsp; Here he embarked for Jedda, in Arabia, where he
+arrived in July, 1814.</p>
+<p>By this time his Moslem character had been so completely
+acquired that he felt himself free from suspicion.&nbsp;
+Accordingly he decided to remain and take part in the pilgrimage
+to Mecca and Medina, which was to take place that year, in
+November.&nbsp; His funds, however, were nearly exhausted, and
+the Jedda merchants refused to honor an old letter of credit upon
+Cairo, which he still carried with him.&nbsp; In this emergency
+he wrote to the Armenian physician of Mohammed Ali, who was at
+that time with the Pasha at the city of Tayf (or Tayef), about
+seventy miles southeast of Mecca.&nbsp; Mohammed Ali happening to
+hear of this application, immediately sent a messenger with two
+dromedaries, to summon Burckhardt to visit him.&nbsp; It seems
+most probable <a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+31</span>that the Pasha suspected the traveller of being an
+English spy, and wished to examine him personally.&nbsp; The
+guide had orders to conduct the latter to Tayf by a circuitous
+route, instead of by the direct road through Mecca.</p>
+<p>Burckhardt set out without the least hesitation, taking care
+to exhibit no suspicion of the Pasha&rsquo;s object, and no
+desire to see the holy city.&nbsp; But the guide himself proposed
+that they should pass through Mecca in order to save travel; the
+journey was hurried, however, and only a rapid observation was
+possible.&nbsp; Pushing eastward, they reached, on the third
+night, the Mountain of Kora, which divides the territory of Mecca
+from that of Tayf.&nbsp; Burckhardt was astonished at the change
+in the scenery, produced by the greater elevation of the interior
+of Arabia above the sea.&nbsp; His description is a striking
+contrast to that of the scenery about Mecca.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;is the most beautiful spot
+in the Hedjaz, and more picturesque and delightful than anything
+I had seen since my departure from Lebanon, in Syria.&nbsp; The
+top of Djebel Kora is flat, but large masses of granite lie
+scattered over it, the surface of which, like that of the granite
+rocks near the second cataract of the Nile, is blackened by the
+sun.&nbsp; Several small rivulets descend from this peak and
+irrigate the plain, which is covered with verdant fields and
+large shady trees beside the granite rocks.&nbsp; To those who
+have only known the dreary and scorching sands of the lower
+country of the Hedjaz, this scene is as surprising as the keen
+air which blows here is refreshing.&nbsp; Many of the fruit-trees
+of Europe are <a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+32</span>found here: figs, apricots, peaches, apples, the
+Egyptian sycamore, almonds, pomegranates; but particularly vines,
+the produce of which is of the best quality.&nbsp; After having
+passed through this delightful district for about half an hour,
+just as the sun was rising, when every leaf and blade of grass
+was covered with a balmy dew, and every tree and shrub diffused a
+fragrance as delicious to the smell as was the landscape to the
+eye, I halted near the largest of the rivulets, which, although
+not more than two paces across, nourishes upon its banks a green
+alpine turf, such as the mighty Nile, with all its luxuriance,
+can never produce in Egypt.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Burckhardt had an interview with Mohammed Ali on the evening
+of his arrival in Tayf.&nbsp; His suspicions were confirmed: the
+Kadi (Judge) of Mecca and two well-informed teachers of the
+Moslem faith were present, and although the Pasha professed to
+accept Burckhard&rsquo;s protestations of his Moslem character,
+it was very evident to the latter that he was cunningly tested by
+the teachers.&nbsp; Nevertheless, when the interview was over,
+they pronounced him to be not only a genuine Moslem, but one of
+unusual learning and piety.&nbsp; The Pasha was forced to submit
+to this decision, but he was evidently not entirely convinced,
+for he gave orders that Burckhardt should be the guest of his
+physician, in order that his speech and actions might be more
+closely observed.&nbsp; Burckhardt took a thoroughly Oriental way
+to release himself from this surveillance.&nbsp; He gave the
+physician so much trouble that the latter was very glad, at the
+end of ten days, to procure from the Pasha permission for <a
+name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>him to return
+to Mecca, in order to get rid of him.&nbsp; Burckhardt thereupon
+travelled to the holy city in company with the Kadi himself.</p>
+<p>At the valley of Mohram, nearly a day&rsquo;s journey from
+Mecca, Burckhardt changed his garb for the <i>ihram</i>, or
+costume worn by the pilgrims during their devotional
+services.&nbsp; It consists of two pieces of either linen,
+cotton, or woollen cloth; one is wrapped around the loins, while
+the other is thrown over the shoulder in such a manner as to
+leave the right arm entirely bare.&nbsp; On reaching Mecca he
+obeyed the Moslem injunction of first visiting the great mosque
+and performing all the requisite ceremonies before transacting
+any worldly business.&nbsp; When this had been accomplished he
+made a trip to Jedda for the purpose of procuring supplies, which
+were necessary for the later pilgrimage to Medina, and then
+established himself comfortably in an unfrequented part of Mecca,
+to await the arrival of the caravan of pilgrims from
+Damascus.</p>
+<p>Burckhardt describes the great mosque of Mecca, which is
+called the <i>Beit Allah</i>, or &ldquo;House of God,&rdquo; as
+&ldquo;a large quadrangular building, in the centre of which
+stands the Kaaba, an oblong, massive structure eighteen paces in
+length, fourteen in breadth, and from thirty-five to forty feet
+in height.&nbsp; It is constructed of gray Mecca stone, in large
+blocks of different sizes, joined together in a very rough
+manner, and with bad cement.&nbsp; At the northeast corner of the
+Kaaba, near the door, is the famous Black Stone, which forms part
+of the sharp angle of the building at four or five feet above the
+ground.&nbsp; It is an <a name="page34"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 34</span>irregular oval of about seven inches
+in diameter, with an undulating surface, composed of about a
+dozen smaller stones of different sizes and shapes, well joined
+together with a small quantity of cement, and perfectly
+smoothed.&nbsp; It is very difficult to determine accurately the
+quality of this stone, which has been worn to its present surface
+by the millions of touches and kisses it has received.&nbsp; It
+appears to me like a lava, containing several small extraneous
+particles.&nbsp; Its color is now a deep reddish brown,
+approaching to black.&nbsp; It is surrounded on all sides by a
+border, composed of a substance which I took to be a close cement
+of pitch and gravel; this border serves to support its detached
+pieces.&nbsp; Both the border and the stone itself are encircled
+by a silver band.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Toward the end of November the caravans from Syria and Egypt
+arrived, and at the same time Mohammed Ali, so that the
+<i>hadj</i>, or pilgrimage, assumed a character of unusual pomp
+and parade.&nbsp; The Pasha&rsquo;s <i>ihram</i> consisted of two
+of the finest Cashmere shawls; the horses and camels belonging to
+himself and his large retinue, with those of the Pasha of
+Damascus and other Moslem princes, were decorated with the most
+brilliant trappings.&nbsp; On arriving, the pilgrims did not halt
+in Mecca, but continued their march to the Sacred Mountain of
+Arafat, to the eastward of the city.&nbsp; A camp, several miles
+in extent, was formed upon the plain, at the foot of the
+mountain, and here Burckhardt joined the immense crowd, in order
+to take his share in the ceremonies of the following day.</p>
+<p>In the morning he climbed to the top of Arafat, <a
+name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>which is an
+irregular, isolated mass of granite, rising only about two
+hundred feet above the plain.&nbsp; Overlooking thus the entire
+camp, he counted more than three thousand tents, and estimated
+that at least twenty-five thousand camels and seventy thousand
+human beings were there collected together.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
+scene,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;was one of the most extraordinary
+which the earth affords.&nbsp; Every pilgrim issued from his tent
+to walk over the plain and take a view of the busy crowds
+assembled there.&nbsp; Long streets of tents, fitted up as
+bazaars, furnished them with all kinds of provisions.&nbsp; The
+Syrian and Egyptian cavalry were exercised by their chiefs early
+in the morning, while thousands of camels were seen feeding upon
+the dry shrubs of the plain all around the camp.&nbsp; The Syrian
+pilgrims were encamped upon the south and southwest sides of the
+mountain; the Egyptians upon the southeast.&nbsp; Mohammed Ali,
+and Soleyman, Pasha of Damascus, as well as several of their
+followers, had very handsome tents; but the most magnificent of
+all was that of the wife of Mohammed Ali, the mother of Toossoon
+Pasha and Ibrahim Pasha, who had lately arrived from Cairo with a
+truly royal equipage, five hundred camels being necessary to
+transport her baggage from Jedda to Mecca.&nbsp; Her tent was in
+fact an encampment, consisting of a dozen tents of different
+sizes, inhabited by her women; the whole enclosed by a wall of
+linen cloth, eight hundred paces in circuit, the single entrance
+to which was guarded by eunuchs in splendid dresses.&nbsp; The
+beautiful embroidery on the exterior of this linen palace, with
+the various colors displayed in every part of it, <a
+name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>constituted
+an object which reminded me of some descriptions in the Arabian
+tales of the Thousand and One Nights.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Burckhardt also gives an interesting description of the sermon
+preached on Mount Arafat, the hearing of which is an
+indispensable part of the pilgrimage: unless a person is at least
+present during its delivery, he is not entitled to the name of
+<i>hadji</i>, or pilgrim.&nbsp; The great encampment broke up at
+three o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon, and Mount Arafat was soon
+covered from top to bottom.&nbsp; &ldquo;The two Pashas, with
+their whole cavalry drawn up in two squadrons behind them, took
+their posts in the rear of the deep line of camels of the
+pilgrims, to which those of the people of Hedjaz were also
+joined; and here they waited in solemn and respectful silence the
+conclusion of the sermon.&nbsp; Farther removed from the preacher
+was the Scherif of Mecca, with his small body of soldiers,
+distinguished by several green standards carried before
+him.&nbsp; The two <i>mahmals</i>, or holy camels, which carry on
+their backs the high structure which serves as the banner of
+their respective caravans, made way with difficulty through the
+ranks of camels that encircled the southern and eastern sides of
+the hill, opposite to the preacher, and took their station,
+surrounded by their guards, directly under the platform in front
+of him.&nbsp; The preacher, who is usually the Kadi of Mecca, was
+mounted upon a finely caparisoned camel, which had been led up
+the steps: it was traditionally said that Mohammed was always
+seated when he addressed his followers, a practice in which he
+was imitated by all the Caliphs who came to the <a
+name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>pilgrimage,
+and who from this place addressed their subjects in person.&nbsp;
+The Turkish gentleman of Constantinople, however, unused to
+camel-riding, could not keep his seat so well as the hardy
+Bedouin prophet, and the camel becoming unruly, he was soon
+obliged to alight from it.&nbsp; He read his sermon from a book
+in Arabic, which he held in his hands.&nbsp; At intervals of
+every four or five minutes he paused and stretched forth his arms
+to implore blessings from above, while the assembled multitudes
+around and before him waved the skirts of their <i>ihrams</i>
+over their heads and rent the air with shouts of <i>Lebeyk</i>,
+<i>Allah</i>, <i>huma lebeyk</i>!&mdash;&lsquo;Here we are at Thy
+bidding, oh God!&rsquo;&nbsp; During the waving of the
+<i>ihrams</i> the sides of the mountain, thickly crowded as it
+was by the people in their white garments, had the appearance of
+a cataract of water; while the green umbrellas, with which
+several thousand pilgrims sitting on their camels below were
+provided, bore some resemblance to a verdant plain.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Burckhardt performed all the remaining ceremonies required of
+a pilgrim; but these have been more recently described and with
+greater minuteness by Captain Burton.&nbsp; He remained in Mecca
+for another month, unsuspected and unmolested, and completed his
+observations of a place which the Arabs believed they had safely
+sealed against all Christian travellers.</p>
+<p>Leaving Mecca with a small caravan of pilgrims, on January 15,
+1815, he reached Medina after a journey of thirteen days, during
+which he narrowly escaped being slain by the Bedouins.</p>
+<p><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+38</span>Burckhardt was attacked with fever soon after his
+arrival at Medina, and remained there three months.&nbsp; The
+ceremonies prescribed for the pilgrims who visit the city are
+brief and unimportant; but the description of the tomb of
+Mohammed is of sufficient interest to quote.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
+mausoleum,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;stands at the southeastern
+corner of the principal mosque, and is protected from the too
+near approach of visitors by an iron railing, painted green,
+about two-thirds the height of the pillars of the colonnade which
+runs around the interior of the mosque.&nbsp; The railing is of
+good workmanship, in imitation of filigree, and is interwoven
+with open-worked inscriptions of yellow bronze, supposed by the
+vulgar to be of gold, and of so close a texture that no view can
+be obtained of the interior except by several small windows,
+about six inches square, which are placed in the four sides of
+the railing, about five feet above the ground.&nbsp; On the south
+side, where are the two principal windows, before which the
+devout stand when praying, the railing is plated with silver, and
+the common inscription&mdash;&lsquo;There is no god but God, the
+Evident Truth!&rsquo;&mdash;is wrought in silver letters around
+the windows.&nbsp; The tomb itself, as well as those of Abu Bekr
+and Omar, which stand close to it, is concealed from the public
+gaze by a curtain of rich silk brocade of various colors,
+interwoven with silver flowers and arabesques, with inscriptions
+in characters of gold running across the midst of it, like that
+of the covering of the Kaaba.&nbsp; Behind this curtain, which,
+according to the historian of the city, was formerly changed
+every six years, and is now renewed by the Porte <a
+name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>whenever the
+old one is decayed, or when a new Sultan ascends the throne, none
+but the chief eunuchs, the attendants of the mosque, are
+permitted to enter.&nbsp; This holy sanctuary once served, as the
+temple of Delphi did among the Greeks, as the public treasury of
+the nation.&nbsp; Here the money, jewels, and other precious
+articles of the people of Hedjaz were kept in chests, or
+suspended on silken ropes.&nbsp; Among these was a copy of the
+Koran in Cufic characters; a brilliant star set in diamonds and
+pearls, which was suspended directly over the Prophet&rsquo;s
+tomb; with all sorts of vessels filled with jewels, earrings,
+bracelets, necklaces, and other ornaments sent as presents from
+all parts of the empire.&nbsp; Most of these articles were
+carried away by the Wahabees when they sacked and plundered the
+sacred cities.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p39b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"View of El-Medina"
+title=
+"View of El-Medina"
+src="images/p39s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Burckhardt reached Yambo (the port of Medina), at the end of
+April, and, after running great danger from the plague, succeeded
+in obtaining passage to the Peninsula of Sinai, whence he slowly
+made his way back to Cairo.&nbsp; Here he waited for two years,
+vainly hoping for the departure of a caravan for Central Africa,
+and meanwhile assisting Belzoni in his explorations at
+Thebes.&nbsp; In October, 1817, he died, and the people who knew
+him only as Shekh Abdallah, laid his body in the Moslem
+burying-ground, on the eastern side of Cairo.</p>
+<h2><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+40</span>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Wellsted&rsquo;s
+Explorations in Oman</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Perhaps</span> the most satisfactory
+account of the interior of Oman&mdash;the southeastern portion of
+Arabia&mdash;has been given by Lieutenant Wellsted.&nbsp; While
+in the Indian Navy he was employed for several years in surveying
+the southern and eastern coasts of Arabia.&nbsp; Having become
+somewhat familiar with the language and habits of the people, he
+conceived the idea of undertaking a journey to Derreyeh, in
+Nedjed, the capital of the Wahabees, which no traveller had then
+reached.&nbsp; The governor of Bombay gave him the necessary
+leave of absence, and he landed at Muscat in November, 1835.</p>
+<p>The Sultan, Sayid Saeed, received the young Englishman with
+great kindness, promised him all possible aid in his undertaking,
+and even arranged for him the route to be travelled.&nbsp; He was
+to sail first to the port of Sur, south of Muscat, thence
+penetrate to the country inhabited by the Beni-Abu-Ali tribe, and
+make his way northward to the Jebel Akhdar, or Green Mountains,
+which were described to him as lofty, fruitful, and
+populous.&nbsp; Having thus visited the most interesting portions
+of Oman, he was then to be at liberty, if the way was open, to
+take the northern route through the Desert toward Nedjed.&nbsp;
+<a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>The Sultan
+presented him with a horse and sword, together with letters to
+the governors of the districts through which he should pass.</p>
+<p>At Sur, which is a small, insignificant village, with a good
+harbor, the mountains of the interior approach the sea, but they
+are here divided by a valley which furnishes easy access to the
+country beyond them.&nbsp; After a journey of four days Wellsted
+reached the tents of the tribe of Beni-Abu-Ali, at a point to
+which the English troops had penetrated in 1821, to punish the
+tribe for acts of piracy.&nbsp; Although no Englishman had
+visited them since that time, they received him with every
+demonstration of friendship.&nbsp; Sheep were killed, a feast
+prepared, a guard of honor stationed around the tent, and, in the
+evening, all the men of the encampment, 250 in number, assembled
+for the purpose of exhibiting their war-dance.&nbsp; Wellsted
+thus describes the scene: &ldquo;They formed a circle within
+which five of their number entered.&nbsp; After walking leisurely
+around for some time, each challenged one of the spectators by
+striking him gently with the flat of his sword.&nbsp; His
+adversary immediately leaped forth and a feigned combat
+ensued.&nbsp; They have but two cuts, one directly downward, at
+the head, the other horizontal, across the legs.&nbsp; They parry
+neither with the sword nor shield, but avoid the blows by leaping
+or bounding backward.&nbsp; The blade of their sword is three
+feet in length, thin, double-edged, and as sharp as a
+razor.&nbsp; As they carry it upright before them, by a peculiar
+motion of the wrist they cause it to vibrate in a very remarkable
+manner, which has a <a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+42</span>singularly striking effect when they are assembled in
+any considerable number.&nbsp; It was part of the entertainment
+to fire off their matchlocks under the legs of some one of the
+spectators who appeared too intent on watching the game to
+observe their approach, and any signs of alarm which incautiously
+escaped the individual added greatly to their mirth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In the evening a party of the Geneba Bedouins came in from the
+desert, accompanied by one of their chiefs.&nbsp; The latter
+readily consented that Wellsted should accompany him on a short
+journey into his country, and they set out the following
+morning.&nbsp; It was December, and the morning air was cold and
+pure; the party swept rapidly across the broad, barren plains,
+the low hills, dotted with acacia trees, and the stony channels
+which carried the floods of the rainy season to the sea.&nbsp;
+After a day&rsquo;s journey of forty-four miles they encamped
+near some brackish wells.&nbsp; &ldquo;You wished,&rdquo; said
+the chief to Wellsted, &ldquo;to see the country of the Bedouins;
+<i>this</i>,&rdquo; he continued, striking his spear into the
+firm sand, &ldquo;<i>this</i> is the country of the
+Bedouins.&rdquo;&nbsp; Neither he nor his companions wore any
+clothing except a single cloth around the loins.&nbsp; Their
+hair, which is permitted to grow until it reaches the waist, and
+is usually well plastered with grease, is the only covering which
+protects their heads from the sun.</p>
+<p>The second day&rsquo;s journey brought Wellsted to a small
+encampment, where the chief&rsquo;s wives were abiding.&nbsp;
+They conversed with him, unveiled, gave him coffee, milk, and
+dates, and treated him with all the hospitality which their
+scanty means allowed.&nbsp; <a name="page43"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 43</span>The Beni Geneba tribe numbers about
+three thousand five hundred fighting men; they are spread over a
+large extent of Southern Arabia, and are divided into two
+distinct classes&mdash;those who live by fishing, and those who
+follow pastoral pursuits.&nbsp; A race of fishermen, however, is
+found on all parts of the Arabian coast.&nbsp; In some districts
+they are considered a separate and degraded people, with whom the
+genuine Bedouins will neither eat, associate, nor intermarry; but
+among the Beni Geneba this distinction does not exist.</p>
+<p>Wellsted might have penetrated much farther to the westward
+under the protection of this tribe, and was tempted to do so; but
+it seemed more important to move northward, and get upon some one
+of the caravan tracks leading into Central Arabia.&nbsp; He
+therefore returned to the camp of the Beni-Abu-Ali, where the
+friendly people would hardly suffer him to depart, promising to
+build a house for him if he would remain a month with them.&nbsp;
+For two days he travelled northward, over an undulating region of
+sand, sometimes dotted with stunted acacias, and reached a
+district called Bediah, consisting of seven villages, each seated
+in its little oasis of date palms.&nbsp; One striking feature of
+these towns is their low situation.&nbsp; They are erected in
+artificial hollows, which have been excavated to the depth of six
+or eight feet.&nbsp; Water is then conveyed to them in
+subterranean channels from wells in the neighboring hills, and
+the soil is so fertile that irrigation suffices to produce the
+richest harvest of fruit and vegetables.&nbsp; A single step
+carries the traveller from the glare and sand of <a
+name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>the desert
+into a spot teeming with the most luxuriant vegetation, and
+embowered by lofty trees, whose foliage keeps out the sun.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Some idea,&rdquo; says Wellsted, &ldquo;may be formed of
+the density of this shade by the effect it produces in lessening
+the terrestrial radiation.&nbsp; A Fahrenheit thermometer which
+within the house stood at 55&deg;, six inches from the ground
+fell to 45&deg;.&nbsp; From this cause and the abundance of water
+they are always saturated with damp, and even in the heat of the
+day possess a clammy coldness.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>On approaching Ibrah, the next large town to the north, the
+country became hilly, and the valleys between the abrupt
+limestone ranges increased in fertility.&nbsp; Wellsted thus
+describes the place: &ldquo;There are some handsome houses in
+Ibrah; but the style of building is quite peculiar to this part
+of Arabia.&nbsp; To avoid the damp and catch an occasional beam
+of the sun above the trees, they are usually very lofty.&nbsp; A
+parapet surrounding the upper part is turreted, and on some of
+the largest houses guns are mounted.&nbsp; The windows and doors
+have the Saracenic arch, and every part of the building is
+profusely decorated with ornaments of stucco in bas-relief, some
+in very good taste.&nbsp; The doors are also cased with brass,
+and have rings and other massive ornaments of the same metal.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ibrah is justly renowned for the beauty and fairness of
+its females.&nbsp; Those we met on the streets evinced but little
+shyness, and on my return to the tent I found it filled with
+them.&nbsp; They were in high glee at all they saw; every box I
+had was turned over for their inspection, and whenever I
+attempted to remonstrate against their proceedings they stopped
+<a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>my mouth
+with their hands.&nbsp; With such damsels there was nothing left
+but to laugh and look on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Travelling two days farther in the northward, Wellsted reached
+the town of Semmed, where he found a fine stream of running
+water.&nbsp; The Shekh&rsquo;s house was a large fort, the rooms
+of which were spacious and lofty, but destitute of
+furniture.&nbsp; Suspended on pegs protruding from the walls were
+the saddles, cloths, and harness of the horses and camels.&nbsp;
+The ceilings were painted in various devices, but the floors were
+of mud, and only partially covered with mats.&nbsp; Lamps formed
+of shells, a species of murex, were suspended by lines from the
+ceiling.&nbsp; On returning to the tent, after this visit, the
+traveller found, as usual, a great crowd collected there, but
+kept in order by a boy about twelve years of age.&nbsp; He had
+taken possession of the tent, as its guardian, and allowed none
+to enter without his permission.&nbsp; He carried a sword longer
+than himself, and also a stick, with which he occasionally laid
+about him.&nbsp; It is a part of the Arab system of education to
+cease treating boys as children at a very early age, and they
+acquire, therefore, the gravity and demeanor of men.</p>
+<p>Beyond this place Wellsted was accompanied by a guard of
+seventy armed men, for the country was considered insecure.&nbsp;
+For two days and a half he passed many small villages, separated
+by desert tracts, and then reached the town of Minn&agrave;, near
+the foot of the Green Mountains.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Minn&agrave;,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;differs from the
+other towns in having its cultivation in the open fields.&nbsp;
+As we crossed these, with <a name="page46"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 46</span>lofty almond, citron, and orange
+trees yielding a delicious fragrance on either hand, exclamations
+of astonishment and admiration burst from us.&nbsp; &lsquo;Is
+this Arabia?&rsquo; we said; &lsquo;this the country we have
+looked on heretofore as a desert?&rsquo;&nbsp; Verdant fields of
+grain and sugar-cane stretching along for miles are before us;
+streams of water, flowing in all directions, intersect our path;
+and the happy and contented appearance of the peasants agreeably
+helps to fill up the smiling picture.&nbsp; The atmosphere was
+delightfully clear and pure; and, as we trotted joyously along,
+giving or returning the salutations of peace or welcome, I could
+almost fancy that we had at last reached that &lsquo;Araby the
+Blessed&rsquo; which I had been accustomed to regard as existing
+only in the fictions of our poets.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Minn&agrave; is an old town, said to have been erected
+at the period of Narhirvan&rsquo;s invasion; but it bears, in
+common with the other towns, no indications of antiquity; its
+houses are lofty, but do not differ from those of Ibrah or
+Semmed.&nbsp; There are two square towers, about one hundred and
+seventy feet in height, nearly in the centre of the town; at
+their bases the breadth of the wall is not more than two feet,
+and neither side exceeds in length eight yards.&nbsp; It is
+therefore astonishing, considering the rudeness of the materials
+(they have nothing but unhewn stones and a coarse but apparently
+strong cement), that, with proportions so meagre, they should
+have been able to carry them to their present elevation.&nbsp;
+The guards, who are constantly on the lookout, ascend by means of
+a rude ladder, formed by placing bars of wood <a
+name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>in a diagonal
+direction in one of the side angles within the interior of the
+building.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The important town of Neswah, at the western base of the Jebel
+Akdar, or Green Mountains, is a short day&rsquo;s journey from
+Minn&agrave;.&nbsp; On arriving there Wellsted was received in a
+friendly manner by the governor, and lodged, for the first time
+since leaving Muscat, in a substantial house.&nbsp; He was
+allowed to visit the fortress, which, in that region, is
+considered impregnable.&nbsp; He was admitted by an iron door of
+great strength, and, ascending through a vaulted passage, passed
+through six others equally massive before reaching the
+summit.&nbsp; The form of the fort is circular, its diameter
+being nearly one hundred yards, and to the height of ninety feet
+it has been filled up by a solid mass of earth and stones.&nbsp;
+Seven or eight wells have been bored through this, from several
+of which they obtain a plentiful supply of water, while those
+which are dry serve as magazines for their shot and
+ammunition.&nbsp; A wall forty feet high surrounds the summit,
+making the whole height of the fortress one hundred and fifty
+feet.&nbsp; It is a work of extraordinary labor, and from its
+appearance probably of considerable antiquity; but no certain
+intelligence could be obtained on this point.</p>
+<p>On Christmas-day Wellsted left Neswah on an excursion to the
+celebrated Green Mountains.&nbsp; The Shekh of Tanuf, the first
+village where he encamped, endeavored in every possible way to
+dissuade him from undertaking the journey; but his resolute
+manner and a few gifts overcame the difficulty.&nbsp; Mounted on
+strong asses, the party commenced ascending a <a
+name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>precipitous
+ridge by a track so narrow that they seemed at times to be
+suspended over precipices of unknown depth.&nbsp; On the second
+day they reached the village of Seyk.&nbsp; &ldquo;By means of
+steps,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;we descended the steep side of a
+narrow glen, about four hundred feet in depth, passing in our
+progress several houses perched on crags or other acclivities,
+their walls built up in some places so as to appear but a
+continuation of the precipice.&nbsp; These small, snug,
+compact-looking dwellings have been erected by the natives one
+above the other, so that their appearance from the bottom of the
+glen, hanging as it were in mid-air, affords to the spectator a
+most novel and interesting picture.&nbsp; Here we found, amid a
+great variety of fruits and trees, pomegranates, citrons,
+almonds, nutmegs, and walnuts, with coffee-bushes and
+vines.&nbsp; In the summer, these together must yield a delicious
+fragrance; but it was now winter, and they were leafless.&nbsp;
+Water flows in many places from the upper part of the hills, and
+is received at the lower in small reservoirs, whence it is
+distributed all over the face of the country.&nbsp; From the
+narrowness of this glen, and the steepness of its sides, only the
+lower part of it receives the warmth of the sun&rsquo;s rays for
+a short period of the day; and even at the time of our arrival we
+found it so chilly, that, after a short halt, we were very happy
+to continue our journey.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They halted for the night at a village called Shirazi, in the
+heart of the mountains, the highest peaks of which here reach a
+height of 6,000 feet above the sea.&nbsp; The inhabitants belong
+to a tribe called the Beni Ryam, who are considered infidels by
+the people of <a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+49</span>Neswah because they cultivate the grape for the purpose
+of making wine.&nbsp; The next day the Arabs who formed
+Wellsted&rsquo;s escort left him, and he had considerable
+difficulty in returning to Neswah by another road.&nbsp; From
+this point he had intended starting for Central Arabia, but the
+funds which he expected did not arrive from Muscat, the British
+agent there having refused to make the necessary advances.&nbsp;
+Wellsted thereupon applied directly to the Sultan, Sayd Saeed,
+for a loan, and while waiting an answer, made an excursion into
+the desert, fifty miles to the westward of Neswah.&nbsp; With a
+view to familiarize himself with the manners and domestic life of
+the Bedouins, he mixed with them during this trip, living and
+sleeping in their huts and tents.&nbsp; On all occasions he was
+treated with kindness, and often with a degree of hospitality
+above rather than below the means of those who gave it.</p>
+<p>Although the Sultan of Muscat was willing to furnish the
+necessary supplies, and arrangements had been made which Wellsted
+felt sure would have enabled him to penetrate into the interior,
+he was prevented from going forward by a violent fever, from the
+effects of which he remained insensible for five days.&nbsp;
+Recovering sufficiently to travel, his only course was to return
+at once to the sea-coast, and on January 22, 1836, he left Neswah
+for the little port of Sib, where he arrived after a slow journey
+of eight days.&nbsp; He relates the following incident, which
+occurred at Semayel, the half-way station: &ldquo;Weary and faint
+from the fatigue of the day&rsquo;s journey, in order to enjoy
+the freshness of the evening breeze I had <a
+name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>my carpet
+spread beneath a tree.&nbsp; An Arab passing by paused to gaze
+upon me, and, touched by my condition and the melancholy which
+was depicted on my countenance, he proffered the salutation of
+peace, pointed to the crystal stream which sparkled at my feet,
+and said: &lsquo;Look, friend, for running water maketh the heart
+glad!&rsquo;&nbsp; With his hands folded over his breast, that
+mute but most graceful of Eastern salutations, he bowed and
+passed on.&nbsp; I was in a situation to estimate sympathy; and
+so much of that feeling was exhibited in the manner of this son
+of the desert, that I have never since recurred to the incident,
+trifling as it is, without emotion.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A rest of four weeks at Sib recruited the traveller&rsquo;s
+strength, and he determined to make another effort to reach
+Central Arabia.&nbsp; He therefore applied to the Sultan for an
+escort to Bireimah, the first town of the Wahabees, beyond the
+northern frontier of Oman.&nbsp; The Sultan sent a guide, but
+objected to the undertaking, as word had just arrived that the
+Wahabees were preparing to invade his territory.&nbsp; Wellsted,
+however, was not willing to give up his design without at least
+making the attempt.&nbsp; He followed the coast, north of Muscat,
+as far as the port of Suweik, where he was most hospitably
+received by the wife of the governor, Seyd Hilal, who was
+absent.&nbsp; &ldquo;A huge meal, consisting of a great variety
+of dishes, sufficient for thirty or forty people, was prepared in
+his kitchen, and brought to us, on large copper dishes, twice a
+day during the time we remained.&nbsp; On these occasions there
+was a great profusion of blue and gilt chinaware, cut glass
+dishes, and decanters containing sherbet instead of
+wine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+51</span>&ldquo;The Shekh,&rdquo; Wellsted continues,
+&ldquo;after his return, usually spent the evening with us.&nbsp;
+On one occasion he was accompanied by a professional storyteller,
+who appeared to be a great favorite with him.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Whenever I feel melancholy or out of order,&rsquo; said
+he, &lsquo;I send for this man, who very soon restores me to my
+wonted spirits.&rsquo;&nbsp; From the falsetto tone in which the
+story was chanted, I could not follow the thread of the tale,
+and, upon my mentioning this to him, the Shekh very kindly sent
+me the manuscript, of which the reciter had availed
+himself.&nbsp; With little variation I found it to be the
+identical Sindbad the Sailor, so familiar to the readers of the
+Arabian Nights.&nbsp; I little thought, when first I perused
+these fascinating tales in my own language, that it would ever be
+my lot to listen to the original in a spot so congenial and so
+remote.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p51b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"A valley in Oman"
+title=
+"A valley in Oman"
+src="images/p51s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Leaving Suweik on March 4th, Wellsted was deserted by his
+camel-men at the end of the first day&rsquo;s march, but
+succeeded in engaging others at a neighboring village.&nbsp; The
+road, which at first led between low hills, now entered a deep
+mountain-gorge, inclosed by abrupt mountains of rock several
+thousand feet in height.</p>
+<p>For two days the party followed this winding defile, where the
+precipices frequently towered from three to four thousand feet
+over their heads.&nbsp; Then, having passed the main chain, the
+country became more open, and they reached the village of Muskin,
+in the territory of the Beni Kalban Arabs.&nbsp; Their <a
+name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>progress
+beyond this point was slow and tedious, on account of the country
+being divided into separate districts, which are partly
+independent of each other.&nbsp; At the next town, Makiniyat, the
+Shekh urged them to go no farther, on account of the great risk,
+but finally consented to furnish an escort to Obri, the last town
+to the northward which acknowledges the sway of Muscat.&nbsp;
+This was distant two days&rsquo; journey&mdash;the first through
+a broad valley between pyramidal hills, the second over sandy
+plains, which indicated their approach to the Desert.</p>
+<p>Obri is one of the largest and most populous towns in
+Oman.&nbsp; The inhabitants devote themselves almost exclusively
+to agriculture, and export large quantities of indigo, sugar, and
+dates.&nbsp; On arriving Wellsted went immediately to the
+residence of the Shekh, whom he found to be a very different
+character from the officials whom he had hitherto
+encountered.&nbsp; &ldquo;Upon my producing the
+Im&acirc;m&rsquo;s letters,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;he read them,
+and took his leave without returning any answer.&nbsp; About an
+hour afterward he sent a verbal message to request that I should
+lose no time in quitting his town, as he begged to inform me,
+what he supposed I could not have been aware of, that it was then
+filled with nearly two thousand Wahabees.&nbsp; This was indeed
+news to us; it was somewhat earlier than we anticipated falling
+in with them, but we put a good face on the matter, and behaved
+as coolly as we could.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The next morning the Shekh returned, with a positive refusal
+to allow them to proceed farther.&nbsp; Wellsted demanded a
+written refusal, as evidence which <a name="page53"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 53</span>he could present to the Sultan, and
+this the Shekh at once promised to give.&nbsp; His object was
+evidently to force the traveller away from the place, and such
+was the threatening appearance of things that the latter had no
+wish to remain.&nbsp; The Wahabees crowded around the party in
+great numbers, and seemed only waiting for some pretext to
+commence an affray.&nbsp; &ldquo;When the Shekh came and
+presented me with the letter for the Sultan,&rdquo; says
+Wellsted, &ldquo;I knew it would be in vain to make any further
+effort to shake his resolution, and therefore did not attempt
+it.&nbsp; In the meantime news had spread far and wide that two
+Englishmen, with a box of &lsquo;dollars,&rsquo; but in reality
+containing only the few clothes that we carried with us, had
+halted in the town.&nbsp; The Wahabees and other tribes had met
+in deliberation, while the lower classes of the townsfolk were
+creating noise and confusion.&nbsp; The Shekh either had not the
+shadow of any influence, or was afraid to exercise it, and his
+followers evidently wished to share in the plunder.&nbsp; It was
+time to act.&nbsp; I called Ali on one side, told him to make
+neither noise nor confusion, but to collect the camels without
+delay.&nbsp; In the meantime we had packed up the tent, the crowd
+increasing every minute; the camels were ready, and we mounted on
+them.&nbsp; A leader, or some trifling incident, was now only
+wanting to furnish them with a pretext for an onset.&nbsp; They
+followed us with hisses and various other noises until we got
+sufficiently clear to push briskly forward; and, beyond a few
+stones being thrown, we reached the outskirts of the town without
+further molestation.&nbsp; I had often <a name="page54"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 54</span>before heard of the inhospitable
+character of the inhabitants of this place.&nbsp; The neighboring
+Arabs observe that to enter Obri a man must either go armed to
+the teeth, or as a beggar with a cloth, and that not of decent
+quality, around his waist.&nbsp; Thus, for a second time, ended
+my hopes of reaching Derreyeh from this quarter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Wellsted was forced to return to Suweik, narrowly escaping a
+Bedouin ambush on the way.&nbsp; As a last attempt he followed
+the coast as far as Schinas, near the mouth of the Straits of
+Ormuz, and thence despatched a messenger to the Wahabees at
+Birsimah.&nbsp; This plan also failed, and he then returned to
+India.&nbsp; He has given us, however, the only authentic account
+of the scenery and inhabitants of the interior of Oman, and his
+travels are thus an important contribution to our knowledge of
+Arabia.</p>
+<p>It is a sufficient commentary on the exclusive character of
+Interior Arabia, and the difficulties that bar the way there to
+free and thorough exploration, that, although Lieutenant
+Wellsted&rsquo;s journey was in 1835, we still (1892) have to
+turn to his very interesting narrative for almost all we know of
+the interior of Oman.</p>
+<h2><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+55</span>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Wellsted&rsquo;s Discovery
+of an Ancient City in Hadramaut</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">While</span> employed in the survey of the
+southern coast of Arabia in the spring of 1835, Lieutenant
+Wellsted was occupied for a time near the cape called Ras
+el-Ase&iuml;da, in Hadramaut, about one hundred miles east of
+Aden.&nbsp; On this cape there is a watch-tower, with the
+guardian of which, an officer named Hamed, he became acquainted;
+and on learning from the Bedouins of the neighborhood that
+extensive ruins, which they described as having been built by
+infidels, and of great antiquity, were to be found at some
+distance inland, he prevailed upon the officer to procure him
+camels and guides.</p>
+<p>One day, having landed with a midshipman in order to visit
+some inscriptions at a few hours&rsquo; distance, the Bedouins
+who brought the camels refused to go to the place, but expressed
+their willingness to convey the two Europeans to the ruined
+city.&nbsp; Hamed declined to accompany them, on the plea of
+sickness, and they were unsupplied with provisions or presents
+for the Shekhs of the villages on the way.&nbsp; Still the chance
+was too tempting to be lost.&nbsp; Wellsted decided to trust
+himself to the uncertain protection of the Bedouins, sent his
+boat to the <a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+56</span>surveying vessel with a message that it should meet him
+at a point farther to the westward at the end of three days, and
+set out for the ruins late in the afternoon.</p>
+<p>Leaving the sea-shore at sunset, they struck northward into
+the interior, and travelled until after midnight, passing several
+villages of the Diyabi Bedouins, a very fierce and powerful
+tribe, who are dreaded by all their neighbors.&nbsp; Scraping for
+themselves beds in the sand, the travellers slept until daybreak
+without being disturbed.&nbsp; The path soon after mounted a
+ledge about four hundred feet in height, from the summit of which
+they obtained an extensive but dreary view of the surrounding
+country.&nbsp; Their route lay along a broad valley, skirted on
+each side by a lofty range of mountains.&nbsp; By eight
+o&rsquo;clock the sun became so oppressive that the Bedouins
+halted under the shade of some stunted tamarisk trees.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Within these burning hollows,&rdquo; says Wellsted,
+&ldquo;the sun&rsquo;s rays are concentrated and thrown off as
+from a mirror; the herbs around were scorched to a cindery
+blackness; not a cloud obscured the firmament, and the breeze
+which moaned past us was of a glowing heat, like that escaping
+from the mouth of a furnace.&nbsp; Our guides dug hollows in the
+sand, and thrust their blistered feet within them.&nbsp; Although
+we were not long in availing ourselves of the practical lesson
+they had taught us, I began to be far from pleased with their
+churlish demeanor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>During the day they travelled over sandy and stony ridges, and
+late in the afternoon entered the Wady Meifah, where they found
+wells of good water <a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+57</span>and scanty vegetation.&nbsp; &ldquo;The country now
+began to assume a far different aspect.&nbsp; Numerous hamlets,
+interspersed amid extensive date groves, verdant fields of grain,
+and herds of sleek cattle, showed themselves in every direction,
+and we now fell in with parties of inhabitants for the first time
+since leaving the sea-shore.&nbsp; Astonishment was depicted on
+their countenances, but as we did not halt they had no
+opportunity of gratifying their curiosity by gazing at us for any
+length of time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>One of the Bedouins, however, in spite of Wellsted&rsquo;s
+remonstrances, told the people that the travellers were in search
+of buried treasure.&nbsp; When the latter attempted to encamp
+near a village, the inhabitants requested them to remove; the
+guides proved to be ignorant of the road in the night, and they
+would have been suffered to wander about without shelter but for
+the kindness of an old woman, who conducted them to her
+house.&nbsp; This proved to be a kind of khan for travellers, and
+was already so crowded that the travellers were obliged to sleep
+in an open courtyard.</p>
+<p>They were hardly prepared for the scene which daylight
+disclosed to them.&nbsp; &ldquo;The dark verdure of fields of
+millet, sorghum, tobacco, etc., extended as far as the eye could
+reach.&nbsp; Mingled with these we had the soft acacia and the
+stately but more sombre foliage of the date palm; while the
+creaking of numerous wheels with which the grounds were
+irrigated, and in the distance several rude ploughs drawn by
+oxen, the ruddy and lively appearance of the people, who now
+flocked toward us from all quarters, <a name="page58"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 58</span>and the delightful and refreshing
+coolness of the morning air, combined to form a scene which he
+who gazes on the barren aspect of the coast could never
+anticipate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After three hours&rsquo; travel through this bright and
+populous region, they came in sight of the ruins, which the
+inhabitants call <i>Nakab el-Hadjar</i> (meaning &ldquo;The
+Excavation from the Rock&rdquo;).&nbsp; According to
+Wellsted&rsquo;s estimate, they are about fifty miles from the
+coast.</p>
+<p>The following is Wellsted&rsquo;s description of the place:
+&ldquo;The hill upon which these ruins are situated stands out in
+the centre of the valley, and divides a stream which passes,
+during floods, on either side of it.&nbsp; It is nearly eight
+hundred yards in length, and about three hundred and fifty yards
+at its extreme breadth.&nbsp; About a third of the height from
+its base a massive wall, averaging from thirty to forty feet in
+height, is carried completely around the eminence, and flanked by
+square towers, erected at equal distances.&nbsp; There are but
+two entrances, north and south; a hollow, square tower, measuring
+fourteen feet, stands on both sides of these.&nbsp; Their bases
+extend to the plain below, and are carried out considerably
+beyond the rest of the building.&nbsp; Between the towers, at an
+elevation of twenty feet from the plain, there is an oblong
+platform which projects about eighteen feet without and within
+the walls.&nbsp; A flight of steps was apparently once attached
+to either extremity of the building.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Within the entrance, at an elevation of ten feet from
+the platform, we found inscriptions.&nbsp; They are <a
+name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>executed with
+extreme care, in two horizontal lines, on the smooth face of the
+stones, the letters being about eight inches long.&nbsp; Attempts
+have been made, though without success, to obliterate them.&nbsp;
+From the conspicuous situation which they occupy, there can be
+but little doubt but that, when deciphered, they will be found to
+contain the name of the founder of the building, as well as the
+date and purport of its erection. <a name="citation59"></a><a
+href="#footnote59" class="citation">[59]</a>&nbsp; The whole of
+the walls and towers, and some of the edifices within, are built
+of the same material&mdash;a compact grayish-colored marble, hewn
+to the required shape with the utmost nicety.&nbsp; The
+dimensions of the slabs at the base were from five to seven feet
+in length, two to three in height, and three to four in
+breadth.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p59b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Ruins of Nakab El-Hadjar in Hadramaut"
+title=
+"Ruins of Nakab El-Hadjar in Hadramaut"
+src="images/p59s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let us now visit the interior, where the most
+conspicuous object is an oblong square building, the walls of
+which face the cardinal points: its dimensions are twenty-seven
+by seventeen yards.&nbsp; The walls are fronted with a kind of
+freestone, each slab being cut of the same size, and the whole so
+beautifully put together that I endeavored in vain to insert the
+blade of a small penknife between them.&nbsp; The outer,
+unpolished surface is covered with small chisel-marks, which the
+Bedouins have mistaken for writing.&nbsp; From the extreme care
+displayed in the construction of this building, I have no doubt
+that it is a temple, and my disappointment at finding the <a
+name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>interior
+filled up with the ruins of the fallen roof was very great.&nbsp;
+Had it remained entire, we might have obtained some clew to guide
+us in our researches respecting the form of religion professed by
+the earlier Arabs.&nbsp; Above and beyond this building there are
+several other edifices, with nothing peculiar in their form or
+appearance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In no portion of the ruins did we succeed in tracing
+any remains of arches or columns, nor could we discover on their
+surface any of those fragments of pottery, colored glass, or
+metals, which are always found in old Egyptian towns, and which I
+also saw in those we discovered on the northwest coast of
+Arabia.&nbsp; Except the attempts to deface the inscriptions,
+there is no other appearance of the buildings having suffered
+from any ravages besides those of time; and owing to the dryness
+of the climate, as well as the hardness of the material, every
+stone, even to the marking of the chisel, remains as perfect as
+the day it was hewn.&nbsp; We were anxious to ascertain if the
+Arabs had preserved any tradition concerning the building, but
+they refer them, like other Arabs, to their pagan
+ancestors.&nbsp; &lsquo;Do you believe,&rsquo; said one of the
+Bedouins to me upon my telling him that his ancestors were then
+capable of greater works than themselves, &lsquo;that these
+stones were raised by the unassisted hands of the Kafirs?&nbsp;
+No! no!&nbsp; They had devils, legions of devils (God preserve us
+from them!), to aid them.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>On his return to the sea, which occupied a day and a half,
+Wellsted was kindly treated by the natives, and suffered only
+from the intense heat.&nbsp; The vessel <a
+name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>was
+fortunately waiting at the appointed place.&nbsp; Since the
+journey was made (in 1836) Baron von Wrede, a German traveller,
+has succeeded in exploring a portion of Hadramaut, penetrating as
+far as Wady Doan, a large and populous valley, more than a
+hundred miles from the coast.&nbsp; But a thorough exploration of
+both Yemen and Hadramaut is still wanting, and when made, it will
+undoubtedly result in many important discoveries.</p>
+<h2><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+62</span>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Burton&rsquo;s
+Pilgrimage</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Captain Richard F. Burton</span>, the
+discoverer of the great Lake Tanganyika, in Central Africa, first
+became known to the world by his daring and entirely successful
+visit to Medina and Mecca, in the year 1853, in the disguise of a
+Moslem pilgrim.&nbsp; Although his journey was that of
+Burckhardt, reversed, and he describes the same ceremonies, his
+account supplies many deficiencies in the narrative of his
+predecessor, and has the merit of a livelier and more graphic
+style.</p>
+<p>Burton&rsquo;s original design was to cross the Arabian
+Peninsula from west to east, as Palgrave has since done, and the
+Royal Geographical Society was disposed to accept his
+services.&nbsp; But he failed to obtain a sufficient leave of
+absence from the East India Company, which only granted him a
+furlough of one year&mdash;a period quite insufficient for the
+undertaking.&nbsp; He therefore determined to prove at least his
+fitness for the task, by making the pilgrimage to the holy
+cities.&nbsp; He was already familiar with the Arabic and Persian
+languages, and had the advantage of an Eastern cast of
+countenance.</p>
+<p>Like Burckhardt, he assumed an Oriental character at the
+start, and during the voyage from <a name="page63"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 63</span>Southampton to Alexandria was
+supposed to be a Persian prince.&nbsp; For two or three months he
+laboriously applied himself in Egypt to the necessary religious
+studies, joined a society of dervishes, under the name of Shekh
+Abdullah, kept the severe fast of Ramazan, and familiarized
+himself with all the orthodox forms of ablution, prayer, and
+prostration.&nbsp; He gave himself out to be an Afghan by birth,
+but long absent from his native country, a character which was
+well adapted to secure him against detection.&nbsp; During his
+stay in Cairo he made the acquaintance of a boy named Mohammed
+el-Basyuni, a native of Mecca, who became his companion for the
+journey, and who seems not to have suspected his real character
+until the pilgrimage was over.</p>
+<p>Having purchased a tent and laid in an ample supply of
+provisions, with about four hundred dollars in money, he went to
+Suez about July 1st, with the avowed purpose of proceeding to
+Mecca by way of Jedda, yet with the secret intention of visiting
+Medina on the way.&nbsp; Here he became acquainted with a company
+of pilgrims, whose good-will he secured by small loans of money,
+and joined them in taking passage in a large Arab boat bound for
+Yembo.&nbsp; The vessel was called the Golden Wire.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Immense was the confusion,&rdquo; says Burton, &ldquo;on
+the eventful day of our departure.&nbsp; Suppose us standing on
+the beach, on the morning of a fiery July day, carefully watching
+our hurriedly-packed goods and chattels, surrounded by a mob of
+idlers who are not too proud to pick up waifs and strays, while
+pilgrims rush about apparently mad, and friends <a
+name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>are weeping,
+acquaintances vociferating adieux, boatmen demanding fees,
+shopmen claiming debts, women shrieking and talking with
+inconceivable power, children crying&mdash;in short, for an hour
+or so we were in the thick of a human storm.&nbsp; To confound
+confusion, the boatmen have moored their skiff half a dozen yards
+away from the shore, lest the porters should be unable to make
+more than double their fare from the pilgrims.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They sailed on July 6th, and were five days in reaching the
+mouth of the Gulf of Akaba.&nbsp; While crossing to the Arabian
+shore, the pilgrims are accustomed to repeat the following
+prayer, which is a good example of Moslem invocation: &ldquo;O
+Allah, O Exalted, O Almighty, O All-pitiful, O All-powerful, thou
+art my God, and sufficeth to me the knowledge of it!&nbsp;
+Glorified be the Lord my Lord, and glorified be the faith my
+faith!&nbsp; Thou givest victory to whom thou pleaseth, and thou
+art the glorious, the merciful!&nbsp; We pray thee for safety in
+our goings-forth and in our standings-still, in our words and our
+designs, in our dangers of temptation and doubts, and the secret
+designs of our hearts.&nbsp; Subject unto us this sea, even as
+thou didst subject the deep to Moses, and as thou didst subject
+the fire to Abraham, and as thou didst subject the iron to David,
+and as thou didst subject the wind, and devils, and genii, and
+mankind to Solomon, and as thou didst subject the moon and
+El-Burak to Mohammed, upon whom be Allah&rsquo;s mercy and His
+blessing!&nbsp; And subject unto us all the seas in earth and
+heaven, in the visible and in thine invisible worlds, the sea of
+<a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>this life,
+and the sea of futurity.&nbsp; O thou who reignest over
+everything, and unto whom all things return, Khyar!
+Khyar!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A further voyage of another week, uncomfortable and devoid of
+incident, brought the vessel to Yembo.&nbsp; As the pilgrims were
+desirous of pushing on to Medina, camels were hired on the day of
+arrival, and, a week&rsquo;s provisions having been purchased,
+the little caravan started the next afternoon.&nbsp; Burton, by
+the advice of his companions, assumed the Arab dress, but
+travelled in a litter, both because of an injury to his foot, and
+because he could thus take notes on the way without being
+observed.&nbsp; On account of the heat the caravan travelled
+mostly by night; the country, thus dimly seen, was low and barren
+for the first two days, but on the third day they reached a
+wilder region, which Burton thus describes: &ldquo;We travelled
+through a country fantastic in its desolation&mdash;a mass of
+huge hills, barren plains, and desert vales.&nbsp; Even the
+sturdy acacias here failed, and in some places the camel grass
+could not find earth enough to take root in.&nbsp; The road wound
+among mountains, rocks, and hills of granite, over broken ground,
+flanked by huge blocks and bowlders, piled up as if man&rsquo;s
+art had aided nature to disfigure herself.&nbsp; Vast clefts
+seemed like scars on the hideous face of earth; here they widened
+into dark caves, there they were choked up with glistening drift
+sand.&nbsp; Not a bird or a beast was to be seen or heard; their
+presence would have argued the vicinity of water, and though my
+companions opined that Bedouins were lurking among the rocks, I
+decided that these <a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+66</span>Bedouins were the creatures of their fears.&nbsp; Above,
+a sky like polished blue steel, with a tremendous blaze of yellow
+light, glared upon us, without the thinnest veil of mist or
+cloud.&nbsp; The distant prospect, indeed, was more attractive
+than the near view, because it borrowed a bright azure tinge from
+the intervening atmosphere; but the jagged peaks and the
+perpendicular streaks of shadow down the flanks of the
+mountainous background showed that no change for the better was
+yet in store for us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At the little towns of El-Hamra and Bir Abbas the caravan
+rested a day, suffering much from the intense heat, and with
+continual quarrels between the pilgrims and the Arabs to whom the
+camels belonged.&nbsp; At the latter place they were threatened
+with a detention of several days, but the difficulty was settled,
+and they set out upon the most dangerous portion of the
+road.&nbsp; &ldquo;We travelled that night,&rdquo; says Burton
+&ldquo;up a dry river-course in an easterly direction, and at
+early dawn found ourselves in an ill-famed gorge, called <i>Shuab
+el-Hadj</i> (the &lsquo;Pilgrim&rsquo;s Pass&rsquo;).&nbsp; The
+loudest talkers became silent as we neared it, and their
+countenances showed apprehension written in legible
+characters.&nbsp; Presently, from the high, precipitous cliff on
+our left, thin blue curls of smoke&mdash;somehow or other they
+caught every eye&mdash;rose in the air, and instantly afterward
+rang the loud, sharp cracks of the hill-men&rsquo;s matchlocks,
+echoed by the rocks on the right.&nbsp; My shugduf had been
+broken by the camel&rsquo;s falling during the night, so I called
+out to Mansur that we had better splice the frame-work with a bit
+of rope; he looked up, saw me laughing, <a
+name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>and with an
+ejaculation of disgust disappeared.&nbsp; A number of Bedouins
+were to be seen swarming like hornets over the crests of the
+rocks, boys as well as men carrying huge weapons, and climbing
+with the agility of cats.&nbsp; They took up comfortable places
+in the cut-throat eminence, and began firing upon us with perfect
+convenience to themselves.&nbsp; The height of the hills and the
+glare of the rising sun prevented my seeing objects very
+distinctly, but my companions pointed out to me places where the
+rock had been scarped, and a kind of breastwork of rough
+stones&mdash;the Sangah of Afghanistan, piled up as a defence,
+and a rest for the long barrel of the matchlock.&nbsp; It was
+useless to challenge the Bedouins to come down and fight us upon
+the plain like men; and it was equally unprofitable for our
+escort to fire upon a foe ensconced behind stones.&nbsp; We had,
+therefore, nothing to do but to blaze away as much powder and to
+veil ourselves in as much smoke as possible; the result of the
+affair was that we lost twelve men, besides camels and other
+beasts of burden.&nbsp; Though the bandits showed no symptoms of
+bravery, and confined themselves to slaughtering the enemy from
+their hill-top, my companions seemed to consider this
+questionable affair a most gallant exploit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After two more days of severe travel, the pilgrims, at early
+dawn, came in sight of the holy city of Medina.&nbsp; Burton thus
+describes the approach, and the view from the western ridge:
+&ldquo;Half an hour after leaving the Wady el-Akik, or
+&lsquo;Blessed Valley,&rsquo; we came to a huge flight of steps,
+roughly cut in a long, broad line of black, scoriaceous
+basalt.&nbsp; This is <a name="page68"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 68</span>called the <i>Mudarraj</i>, or flight
+of steps over the western ridge of the so-called El-Harratain; it
+is holy ground, for the Prophet spoke well of it.&nbsp; Arrived
+at the top, we passed through a lane of black scoria, with deep
+banks on both sides, and, after a few minutes a full view of the
+city suddenly opened on us.&nbsp; We halted our beasts as if by
+word of command.&nbsp; All of us descended, in imitation of the
+pious of old, and sat down, jaded and hungry as we were, to feast
+our eyes with a view of the Holy City.&nbsp; The prayer was,
+&lsquo;O Allah! this is the <i>Haram</i> (sanctuary) of the
+Prophet; make it to us a protection from hell fire, and a refuge
+from eternal punishment!&nbsp; O, open the gates of thy mercy,
+and let us pass through them to the land of joy!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As we looked eastward, the sun arose out of the horizon
+of low hills, blurred and dotted with small tufted trees, which
+gained a giant stature from the morning mists, and the earth was
+stained with gold and purple.&nbsp; Before us lay a spacious
+plain, bounded in front by the undulating ground of Nedjed; on
+the left was a grim barrier of rocks, the celebrated Mount Ohod,
+with a clump of verdure and a white dome or two nestling at its
+base.&nbsp; Rightward, broad streaks of lilac-colored mists were
+thick with gathered dew, there pierced and thinned by the morning
+rays, stretched over the date-groves and the gardens of Kuba,
+which stood out in emerald green from the dull tawny surface of
+the plain.&nbsp; Below, at the distance of about two miles, lay
+El Medina; at first sight it appeared a large place, but a closer
+inspection proved the impression to be an erroneous
+one.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>On
+arriving at Medina, Burton became the guest of one of the company
+he had met at Suez, and during his stay of a month in the city
+performed all the religious ceremonies and visitations which are
+prescribed for the pilgrim.&nbsp; He gives the following
+description of the Prophet&rsquo;s mosque: &ldquo;Passing through
+muddy streets&mdash;they had been freshly watered before evening
+time&mdash;I came suddenly upon the mosque.&nbsp; Like that at
+Mecca, the approach is choked up by ignoble buildings, some
+actually touching the holy &lsquo;enceinte,&rsquo; others
+separated by a lane compared with which the road around St.
+Paul&rsquo;s is a Vatican square.&nbsp; There is no outer front,
+no general aspect of the Prophet&rsquo;s mosque; consequently, as
+a building it has neither beauty nor dignity.&nbsp; And entering
+the Bab el-Rahmah&mdash;the Gate of Pity&mdash;by a diminutive
+flight of steps, I was astonished at the mean and tawdry
+appearance of a place so universally venerated in the Moslem
+world.&nbsp; It is not like the Meccan mosque, grand and
+simple&mdash;the expression of a single sublime idea; the longer
+I looked at it the more it suggested the resemblance of a museum
+of second-rate art, a curiosity-shop, full of ornaments that are
+not accessories, and decorated with pauper splendor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p69b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"View of Medina from the West"
+title=
+"View of Medina from the West"
+src="images/p69s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>We must also quote the traveller&rsquo;s account of his manner
+of spending the day during his residence in Medina: &ldquo;At
+dawn we arose, washed, prayed, and broke our fast upon a crust of
+stale bread, before smoking a pipe, and drinking a cup of
+coffee.&nbsp; Then it was time to dress, to mount, and to visit
+the Haram in one of the holy places outside the city.&nbsp;
+Returning before the sun became intolerable, we sat <a
+name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>together, and
+with conversation, shishas and chibouques, coffee and cold water
+perfumed with mastich-smoke, we whiled away the time till our
+<i>ariston</i>, an early dinner which appeared at the primitive
+hour of 11 <span class="GutSmall">A.M.</span>&nbsp; The meal was
+served in the <i>majlis</i> on a large copper tray sent from the
+upper apartments.&nbsp; Ejaculating
+&lsquo;Bismillah&rsquo;&mdash;the Moslem grace&mdash;we all sat
+round it, and dipped equal hands in the dishes set before
+us.&nbsp; We had usually unleavened bread, different kinds of
+meat and vegetable stews, and at the end of the first course
+plain boiled rice, eaten with spoons; then came the fruits, fresh
+dates, grapes, and pomegranates.&nbsp; After dinner I used
+invariably to find some excuse&mdash;such as the habit of a
+&lsquo;Kayl&uacute;lah&rsquo; (midday siesta), or the being a
+&lsquo;Saudawi,&rsquo; or person of melancholy temperament, to
+have a rug spread in the dark passage, and there to lie reading,
+dozing, smoking, or writing, all through the worst part of the
+day, from noon to sunset.&nbsp; Then came the hour for receiving
+and paying visits.&nbsp; The evening prayers ensued, either at
+home or in the Haram, followed by our supper, another substantial
+meal like the dinner, but more plentiful, of bread, meat,
+vegetables, rice, and fruits.&nbsp; In the evening we sometimes
+dressed in common clothes and went to the caf&eacute;; sometimes
+on festive occasions we indulged in a late supper of sweetmeats,
+pomegranates, and dried fruits.&nbsp; Usually we sat upon
+mattresses spread upon the ground in the open air, at the
+Shekh&rsquo;s door, receiving evening visits, chatting, telling
+stories, and making merry, till each, as he felt the approach of
+the drowsy god, sank down into his proper place, and fell
+asleep.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>Burton
+was charmed with the garden and date-groves about Medina, and
+enjoyed the excursions, which were enjoined upon him as a
+pilgrim, to Jebel Ohod, the mosque of Kuba, and other places in
+the vicinity of the city.&nbsp; On August 28th the caravan of
+pilgrims from Damascus arrived, and, on account of danger from
+the Bedouins, decided to leave on the fourth day afterward,
+taking the Desert road to Mecca, the same travelled by the Caliph
+Haroun El-Raschid and his wife Zobeida, instead of the longer
+road nearer the coast, which Burckhardt had followed.&nbsp; When
+this plan was announced, Burton and his companions had but
+twenty-four hours to make the necessary preparations; but by hard
+work they were ready.&nbsp; Leaving Medina, they hastened onward
+to secure good places in the caravan, which was composed of about
+seven thousand pilgrims, and extended over many miles of the
+road.</p>
+<p>For the first four days they travelled southward over a wild,
+desolate country, almost destitute of water and vegetation.&nbsp;
+On account of heat, as well as for greater security, the journey
+was made chiefly by night, although the forced marches between
+the wells obliged them sometimes to endure the greatest heat of
+the day.&nbsp; Burton says: &ldquo;I can scarcely find words to
+express the weary horrors of a long night&rsquo;s march, during
+which the hapless traveller, fuming, if a European, with
+disappointment in his hopes of &lsquo;seeing the country,&rsquo;
+is compelled to sit upon the back of a creeping camel.&nbsp; The
+day sleep, too, is a kind of lethargy, and it is all but
+impossible to preserve an appetite during the hours of
+heat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>After
+making ninety-nine miles from Medina, they reached the village of
+El Suwayrkiyah, which is included within the Meccan
+territory.&nbsp; The town, consisting of about one hundred
+houses, is built at the base and on the sides of a basaltic mass
+which rises abruptly from the hard clayey plain.&nbsp; The summit
+is converted into a rude fortalice by a bulwark of uncut stone,
+piled up so as to make a parapet.&nbsp; The lower part of the
+town is protected by a mud wall, with the usual semicircular
+towers.&nbsp; Inside there is a bazaar, well supplied with meat
+(principally mutton) by the neighboring Bedouins, and wheat,
+barley, and dates are grown near the town.&nbsp; There is little
+to describe in the narrow streets and the mud houses, which are
+essentially Arab.&nbsp; The fields around are divided into little
+square plots by earthen ridges and stone walls; some of the palms
+are fine grown trees, and the wells appeared numerous.&nbsp; The
+water is near the surface and plentiful, but it has a brackish
+taste, highly disagreeable after a few days&rsquo; use, and the
+effects are the reverse of chalybeate.</p>
+<p>Seventeen miles beyond El Suwayrkiyah is the small village of
+Sufayuah, beyond which the country becomes again very wild and
+barren.&nbsp; Burton thus describes the scenery the day after
+leaving Sufayuah: &ldquo;This day&rsquo;s march was peculiarly
+Arabia.&nbsp; It was a desert peopled only with echoes&mdash;a
+place of death for what little there is to die in it&mdash;a
+wilderness where, to use my companion&rsquo;s phrase, there is
+nothing but He (Allah).&nbsp; Nature, scalped, flayed, discovered
+her anatomy to the gazer&rsquo;s eye.&nbsp; The horizon was a sea
+of mirage; gigantic <a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+73</span>sand-columns whirled over the plain; and on both sides
+of our road were huge piles of bare rock standing detached upon
+the surface of sand and clay.&nbsp; Here they appeared in oval
+lumps, heaped up with a semblance of symmetry; there a single
+bowlder stood, with its narrow foundation based upon a pedestal
+of low, dome-shaped rock.&nbsp; All are of a pink coarse-grained
+granite, which flakes off in large crusts under the influence of
+the atmosphere.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After four more long marches the caravan reached a station
+called El Zaribah, where the pilgrims halted a day to assume the
+<i>ihram</i>, or costume which they wear on approaching
+Mecca.&nbsp; They were now in the country of the Utaybah
+Bedouins, the most fierce and hostile of all the tribes on the
+road.&nbsp; Although only two marches, or fifty miles, from
+Mecca, the pilgrims were by no means safe, as the night after
+they left Zaribah testified.&nbsp; While threading a narrow pass
+between high rocks, in the twilight, there was a sudden discharge
+of musketry and some camels dropped dead.&nbsp; The Utaybah,
+hidden behind the rocks crowning the pass, poured down an
+irregular fire upon the pilgrims, who were panic-stricken and
+fell into great disorder.&nbsp; The Wahabees, however, commenced
+scaling the rocks, and very soon drove the robbers from their
+ambush.&nbsp; The caravan then hurried forward in great disorder,
+leaving the dead and severely wounded lying on the ground.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At the beginning of the skirmish,&rdquo; says Burton,
+&ldquo;I had primed my pistols, and sat with them ready for
+use.&nbsp; But soon seeing that there was nothing to be done,
+and, wishing to make an <a name="page74"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 74</span>impression&mdash;nowhere does Bobadil
+now &lsquo;go down&rsquo; but in the East&mdash;I called aloud
+for my supper.&nbsp; Shekh Nur, exanimate with fear, could not
+move.&nbsp; The boy Mohammed ejaculated only an &lsquo;Oh,
+sir!&rsquo; and the people around exclaimed in disgust, &lsquo;By
+Allah! he eats!&rsquo; Shekh Abdullah, the Meccan, being a man of
+spirit, was amused by the spectacle.&nbsp; &lsquo;Are these
+Afghan manners, Effendim?&rsquo; he inquired from the shugduf
+behind me.&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; I replied aloud, &lsquo;in my
+country we always dine before an attack of robbers, because that
+gentry is in the habit of sending men to bed
+supperless.&rsquo;&nbsp; The Shekh laughed aloud, but those
+around him looked offended.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The morning after this adventure the pilgrims reached the Wady
+Laymun, or Valley of Limes, a beautiful region of gardens and
+orchards, only twenty-four miles from Mecca.&nbsp; Here they
+halted four hours to rest and enjoy the fruits and fresh water;
+then the line of march was resumed toward the Holy City.&nbsp; In
+the afternoon the range of Jebel Kora, in the southeast, became
+visible, and as evening approached all eyes were strained, but in
+vain, for a sight of Mecca.&nbsp; Night came down, and the
+pilgrims moved slowly onward in the darkness.&nbsp; An hour after
+midnight Burton was roused by a general excitement in the
+caravan.&nbsp; &ldquo;Mecca!&nbsp; Mecca!&rdquo; cried some
+voices; &ldquo;The Sanctuary, O the Sanctuary!&rdquo; exclaimed
+others, and all burst into loud cries of
+&ldquo;<i>Labeyk</i>!&rdquo; not unfrequently broken by
+sobs.&nbsp; Looking out from his litter the traveller saw by the
+light of the southern stars the dim outlines of a large
+city.&nbsp; They were passing over the last rocky <a
+name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>ridge by an
+artificial cut.&nbsp; The winding path was flanked on both sides
+by high watch-towers; a short distance farther they entered the
+northern suburb.</p>
+<p>The Meccan boy Mohammed, who had been Burton&rsquo;s companion
+during the pilgrimage, conducted the latter to his mother&rsquo;s
+house, where he remained during his stay.&nbsp; A meal of
+vermicelli and sugar was prepared on their arrival in the night,
+and after an hour or two of sleep they rose at dawn, in order to
+perform the ceremonies of arrival.&nbsp; After having bathed,
+they walked in their pilgrim garb to the <i>Beit Allah</i>, or
+&ldquo;House of God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There,&rdquo; says Burton, &ldquo;there at last it lay,
+the bourne of my long and weary pilgrimage, realizing the plans
+and hopes of many and many a year.&nbsp; The mirage medium of
+fancy invested the huge catafalque and its gloomy pall with
+peculiar charms.&nbsp; There were no giant fragments of hoar
+antiquity as in Egypt, no remains of graceful and harmonious
+beauty as in Greece and Italy, no barbaric gorgeousness as in the
+buildings of India; yet the view was strange, unique, and how few
+have looked upon the celebrated shrine!&nbsp; I may truly say,
+that, of all the worshippers who clung weeping to the curtain, or
+who pressed their beating hearts to the stone, none felt for the
+moment a deeper emotion than did the Hadji from the far
+north.&nbsp; It was as if the poetical legends of the Arab spoke
+truth, and that the waving wings of angels, not the sweet breezes
+of morning, were agitating and swelling the black covering of the
+shrine.&nbsp; But, to confess humbling truth, theirs <a
+name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>was the high
+feeling of religious enthusiasm, mine was the ecstasy of
+gratified pride.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Burton&rsquo;s description of the Beit Allah and the Kaaba is
+more minute and careful than that of Burckhardt, but does not
+differ from it in any important particular.&nbsp; Neither is it
+necessary to quote his account of the ceremonies to be performed
+by each individual pilgrim, with all their mechanical
+prostrations and repetitions.&nbsp; His account of the visit to
+the famous Black Stone, however, is both curious and amusing:
+&ldquo;For a long time I stood looking in despair at the swarming
+crowd of Bedouin and other pilgrims that besieged it.&nbsp; But
+the boy Mohammed was equal to the occasion.&nbsp; During our
+circuit he had displayed a fiery zeal against heresy and schism
+by foully abusing every Persian in his path, and the inopportune
+introduction of hard words into his prayers made the latter a
+strange patchwork.&nbsp; He might, for instance, be repeating
+&lsquo;and I take refuge with thee from ignominy in this
+world,&rsquo; when, &lsquo;O thou rejected one, son of the
+rejected!&rsquo; would be the interpolation addressed to some
+long-bearded Khorassani, &lsquo;and in that to come&mdash;O hog
+and brother of a hoggess!&rsquo;&nbsp; And so he continued till I
+wondered that no one dared to turn and rend him.&nbsp; After
+vainly addressing the pilgrims, of whom nothing could be seen but
+a mosaic of occiputs and shoulder-blades, the boy Mohammed
+collected about half a dozen stalwart Meccans, with whose
+assistance, by sheer strength, we wedged our way into the thin
+and light-legged crowd.&nbsp; The Bedouins turned round upon us
+like wildcats, but they had no daggers.&nbsp; The <a
+name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>season being
+autumn, they had not swelled themselves with milk for six months;
+and they had become such living mummies that I could have managed
+single-handed half a dozen of them.&nbsp; After thus reaching the
+stone, despite popular indignation, testified by impatient
+shouts, we monopolized the use of it for at least ten
+minutes.&nbsp; Whilst kissing it and rubbing hands and forehead
+upon it I narrowly observed it, and came away persuaded that it
+is a big a&euml;rolite.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p77b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Camp at Mount Arafat"
+title=
+"Camp at Mount Arafat"
+src="images/p77s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>On September 12th the pilgrims set out for Mount Arafat.&nbsp;
+Three miles from Mecca there is a large village called Muna,
+noted for three standing miracles&mdash;the pebbles, there thrown
+at the Devil, return by angelic agency to whence they came;
+during the three days of drying meat rapacious birds and beasts
+cannot prey there, and flies do not settle upon the articles of
+food exposed in the bazaars.&nbsp; Beyond the place there is a
+mosque called El Khayf, where, according to some traditions, Adam
+is buried, his head being at one end of the long wall and his
+feet at the other, while the dome is built over his navel.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Arafat,&rdquo; says Burton, &ldquo;is about a six
+hours&rsquo; march, or twelve miles, on the Taif road, due east
+of Mecca.&nbsp; We arrived there in a shorter time, but our weary
+camels, during the last third of the way, frequently threw
+themselves upon the ground.&nbsp; Human beings suffered
+more.&nbsp; Between Muna and Arafat I saw no less than five men
+fall down and die upon the highway; exhausted and moribund, they
+had dragged themselves out to give up the ghost where it departs
+to <a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>instant
+beatitude.&nbsp; The spectacle showed how easy it is to die in
+these latitudes; each man suddenly staggered, fell as if shot,
+and, after a brief convulsion, lay still as marble.&nbsp; The
+corpses were carefully taken up, and carelessly buried that same
+evening, in a vacant space amongst the crowds encamped upon the
+Arafat plain.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing can be more picturesque than the view the
+mountain affords of the blue peaks behind, and the vast
+encampment scattered over the barren yellow plain below.&nbsp; On
+the north lay the regularly pitched camp of the guards that
+defend the unarmed pilgrims.&nbsp; To the eastward was the
+Scherif&rsquo;s encampment with the bright mahmals and the gilt
+knobs of the grander pavilions; whilst, on the southern and
+western sides, the tents of the vulgar crowded the ground,
+disposed in dowars, or circles, for penning cattle.&nbsp; After
+many calculations, I estimated the number to be not less than
+fifty thousand, of all ages and both sexes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After the sermon on Arafat, which Burton describes in the same
+manner as Burckhardt, the former gives an account of the
+subsequent ceremony of &ldquo;stoning the Great Devil&rdquo; near
+the village of Muna: &ldquo;&lsquo;The Shaytan el-Kabir&rsquo; is
+a dwarf buttress of rude masonry, about eight feet high by two
+and a half broad, placed against a rough wall of stones, at the
+Meccan entrance to Muna.&nbsp; As the ceremony of
+&lsquo;Ramy,&rsquo; or Lapidation, must be performed on the first
+day by all pilgrims between sunrise and sunset, and as the Fiend
+was malicious enough to appear in a rugged pass, the crowd makes
+the place dangerous.&nbsp; <a name="page79"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 79</span>On one side of the road, which is not
+forty feet broad, stood a row of shops belonging principally to
+barbers.&nbsp; On the other side is the rugged wall of the
+pillar, with a <i>chevaux de frise</i> of Bedouins and naked
+boys.&nbsp; The narrow space was crowded with pilgrims, all
+struggling like drowning men to approach as near as possible to
+the Devil; it would have been easy to run over the heads of the
+mass.&nbsp; Amongst them were horsemen with rearing
+chargers.&nbsp; Bedouins on wild camels, and grandees on mules
+and asses, with outrunners, were breaking a way by assault and
+battery.&nbsp; I had read Ali Bey&rsquo;s self-felicitations upon
+escaping this place with &lsquo;only two wounds in the left
+leg,&rsquo; and had duly provided myself with a hidden
+dagger.&nbsp; The precaution was not useless.&nbsp; Scarcely had
+my donkey entered the crowd than he was overthrown by a
+dromedary, and I found myself under the stamping and roaring
+beast&rsquo;s stomach.&nbsp; By a judicious use of the knife, I
+avoided being trampled upon, and lost no time in escaping from a
+place so ignobly dangerous.&nbsp; Finding an opening at last, we
+approached within about five cubits of the place, and holding
+each stone between the thumb and forefinger of the ring hand,
+cast it at the pillar, exclaiming: &lsquo;In the name of Allah,
+and Allah is Almighty, I do this in hatred of the Fiend and to
+his shame.&rsquo;&nbsp; The seven stones being duly thrown, we
+retired, and entering the barber&rsquo;s booth, took our places
+upon one of the earthen benches around it.&nbsp; This was the
+time to remove the <i>ihram</i> or pilgrim&rsquo;s garb, and to
+return to the normal state of El Islam.&nbsp; The barber shaved
+our heads, and, after trimming our beards <a
+name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>and cutting
+our nails, made us repeat these words: &lsquo;I purpose loosening
+my <i>ihram</i>, according to the practice of the Prophet, whom
+may Allah bless and preserve!&nbsp; O Allah, make unto me in
+every hair a light, a purity, and a generous reward!&nbsp; In the
+name of Allah, and Allah is Almighty!&rsquo;&nbsp; At the
+conclusion of his labor the barber politely addressed to us a
+&lsquo;Naiman&rsquo;&mdash;Pleasure to you!&nbsp; To which we as
+ceremoniously replied, &lsquo;Allah give thee
+pleasure!&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>We will conclude these quotations from Burton&rsquo;s
+narrative with his description of a sermon in the great mosque of
+Mecca.&nbsp; &ldquo;After returning to the city from the
+sacrifice of sheep in the valley of Muna, we bathed, and when
+noon drew nigh we repaired to the Haram for the purpose of
+hearing the sermon.&nbsp; Descending to the cloisters below the
+Bab el-Ziyadah, I stood wonderstruck by the scene before
+me.&nbsp; The vast quadrangle was crowded with worshippers
+sitting in long rows, and everywhere facing the central black
+tower; the showy colors of their dresses were not to be surpassed
+by a garden of the most brilliant flowers, and such diversity of
+detail would probably not be seen massed together in any other
+building upon earth.&nbsp; The women, a dull and sombre-looking
+group, sat apart in their peculiar place.&nbsp; The Pasha stood
+on the roof of Zem Zem, surrounded by guards in Nizam
+uniform.&nbsp; Where the principal ulema stationed themselves the
+crowd was thicker; and in the more auspicious spots naught was to
+be seen but a pavement of heads and shoulders.&nbsp; Nothing
+seemed to move but a few dervishes, who, censer in hand, sidled
+through the rows and received the unsolicited alms <a
+name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>of the
+faithful.&nbsp; Apparently in the midst, and raised above the
+crowd by the tall, pointed pulpit, whose gilt spire flamed in the
+sun, sat the preacher, an old man with snowy beard.&nbsp; The
+style of head-dress called &lsquo;<i>taylasan</i>&rsquo; covered
+his turban, which was white as his robes, and a short staff
+supported his left hand.&nbsp; Presently he arose, took the staff
+in his right hand, pronounced a few inaudible words, and sat down
+again on one of the lower steps, whilst a Muezzin, at the foot of
+the pulpit, recited the call to sermon.&nbsp; Then the old man
+stood up and began to preach.&nbsp; As the majestic figure began
+to exert itself there was a deep silence.&nbsp; Presently a
+general &lsquo;Amin&rsquo; was intoned by the crowd at the
+conclusion of some long sentence.&nbsp; And at last, toward the
+end of the sermon, every third or fourth word was followed by the
+simultaneous rise and fall of thousands of voices.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have seen the religious ceremonies of many lands, but
+never&mdash;nowhere&mdash;aught so solemn, so impressive as this
+spectacle.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p81b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Costume of Pilgrims to Mecca"
+title=
+"Costume of Pilgrims to Mecca"
+src="images/p81s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Finding that it was impossible for him to undertake the
+journey across Central Arabia, both for lack of time and the
+menacing attitude of the Desert tribes, Burton left Mecca for
+Jedda at the end of September.&nbsp; Starting in the afternoon,
+the chance caravan of returning pilgrims reached, about midnight,
+a mass of huts called El Hadda, which is the usual half-way
+halting-place.&nbsp; It is maintained solely for the purpose of
+supplying travellers with coffee and water.&nbsp; Here the
+country slopes gradually toward the sea, the hills recede, and
+every feature denotes departure <a name="page82"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 82</span>from the upland plateau of
+Mecca.&nbsp; After reaching here, and at some solitary
+coffee-houses farther on the way, the pilgrims reached Jedda
+safely at eight in the morning.</p>
+<p>From this place Burton took passage on a steamer for Suez, and
+returned to Cairo, but without the Meccan boy, Mohammed, who
+began to have a suspicion of his true character, after seeing him
+in company with some English officers, and who left him before
+embarking.</p>
+<h2><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+83</span>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s Travels
+in Central Arabia: From Palestine to the Djowf</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. William Gifford Palgrave</span>, son
+of Sir Francis Palgrave, the historian, performed, in
+1862&ndash;63, a journey in Arabia, which gives us the first
+clear and full account of the interior of the country, including
+the great Wahabee state of Nedjed, the early home of Arabian
+poetry and also of the famous Arabian breed of horses.&nbsp; Mr.
+Palgrave&rsquo;s qualifications for the undertaking were in some
+respects superior to those of either Burckhardt or Burton.&nbsp;
+To a high degree of general culture and a vigorous and
+picturesque style as a writer, he added a knowledge of the Arabic
+language and literature equal to that of any native scholar; he
+spoke the language as well as his mother tongue; his features
+were sufficiently Oriental to disarm suspicion, and years of
+residence in the East had rendered him entirely familiar with the
+habits of the people and even with all those minor forms of
+etiquette which are so rarely acquired by a stranger.&nbsp; His
+narrative, therefore, is as admirable and satisfactory in its
+character as the fields he traversed were new and
+fascinating.&nbsp; It throws, indeed, so much indirect light upon
+the experiences of all his predecessors, and is so <a
+name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>much richer
+in its illustrations of Arab life and character that no brief
+summary of its contents can do justice to its importance.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p84b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"William Gifford Palgrave"
+title=
+"William Gifford Palgrave"
+src="images/p84s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>Of the first stage of the journey, from Gaza on the
+Mediterranean to the little town of Ma&rsquo;an, which lies on
+the route of the caravans from Damascus to Mecca, a short
+distance to the northeast of Petra, and thus nearly on the
+boundary between the country of Moab and Edom, Palgrave gives us
+no account.&nbsp; Yet, in spite of the comparatively brief
+distance traversed, it must have been both laborious and
+dangerous.&nbsp; His narrative commences as follows, at the
+moment of his departure from Ma&rsquo;an:</p>
+<p><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+85</span>&ldquo;Once for all let us attempt to acquire a fairly
+correct and comprehensive knowledge of the Arabian
+Peninsula.&nbsp; With its coasts we are already in great measure
+acquainted; several of its maritime provinces have been, if not
+thoroughly, at least sufficiently, explored; Yemen and Hedjaz,
+Mecca and Medina, are no longer mysteries to us, nor are we
+wholly without information on the districts of Hadramaut and
+Oman.&nbsp; But of the interior of the vast region, of its plains
+and mountains, its tribes and cities, of its governments and
+institutions, of its inhabitants, their ways and customs, of
+their social condition, how far advanced in civilization or sunk
+in barbarism, what do we as yet really know, save from accounts
+necessarily wanting in fulness and precision?&nbsp; It is time to
+fill up this blank in the map of Asia, and this, at whatever
+risks, we will now endeavor; either the land before us shall be
+our tomb, or we will traverse it in its fullest breadth, and know
+what it contains from shore to shore.&nbsp; <i>Vestigia nulla
+retrorsum</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Such were my thoughts, and such, more or less, I should
+suppose, those of my companion, when we found ourselves at fall
+of night without the eastern gate of Ma&rsquo;an, while the
+Arabs, our guides and fellow-travellers, filled their water-skins
+from a gushing source hard by the town walls, and adjusted the
+saddles and the burdens of their camels, in preparation for the
+long journey that lay before us and them.&nbsp; It was the
+evening of June 16, 1862; the largest stars were already visible
+in the deep blue depths of a cloudless sky, while the crescent
+moon, high to the <a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+86</span>west, shone as she shines in those heavens, and promised
+us assistance for some hours of our night march.&nbsp; We were
+soon mounted on our meagre long-necked beasts, &lsquo;as
+if,&rsquo; according to the expression of an Arab poet, &lsquo;we
+and our men were at mast-heads,&rsquo; and now we set our faces
+to the east.&nbsp; Behind us lay, in a mass of dark outline, the
+walls and castle of Ma&rsquo;an, its houses and gardens, and
+farther back in the distance the high and barren range of the
+Sheraa&rsquo; Mountains, merging into the coast chain of
+Hejaz.&nbsp; Before and around us extended a wide and level
+plain, blackened over with countless pebbles of basalt and flint,
+except where the moonbeams gleamed white on little intervening
+patches of clear sand, or on yellowish streaks of withered grass,
+the scanty product of the winter rains, and dried now into
+hay.&nbsp; Over all a deep silence, which even our Arab
+companions seemed fearful of breaking; when they spoke it was in
+a half whisper and in a few words, while the noiseless tread of
+our camels sped stealthily but rapidly through the gloom without
+disturbing its stillness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some precaution was not indeed wholly out of place, for
+that stage of the journey on which we were now entering was
+anything but safe.&nbsp; We were bound for the Djowf, the nearest
+inhabited district of Central Arabia, its outlying station, in
+fact.&nbsp; Now the intervening tract offered for the most part
+the double danger of robbers and of thirst, of marauding bands
+and of the summer season.&nbsp; The distance itself to be
+traversed was near two hundred miles in a straight line, and
+unavoidable circumstances were likely to render it much
+longer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+87</span>Palgrave&rsquo;s companion was a native Syrian, named
+Barakat&mdash;a man on whom he could fully rely.&nbsp; Hardy,
+young, and enterprising, he belonged to a locality whose
+inhabitants are accustomed to danger.&nbsp; But the Bedouins who
+furnished the camels, and acted as guides, were of another
+class.&nbsp; They were three in number&mdash;Salim, their leader,
+a member of a powerful family of the Howeytat tribe, but outlawed
+for pillage and murder, and two men, Alee and Djordee, utter
+barbarians in appearance no less than in character.&nbsp; Even
+Salim advised the travellers to avoid all familiarities with the
+latter.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Myself and my companion,&rdquo; says Palgrave,
+&ldquo;were dressed like ordinary class travellers of inner
+Syria, an equipment in which we had already made our way from
+Gaza on the sea-coast to Ma&rsquo;an without much remark or
+unseasonable questioning from those whom we fell in with, while
+we traversed a country so often described already by Pococke,
+Laborde, and downward, under the name of Arabia Petra, that it
+would be superfluous for me to enter into any new account of it
+in the present work.&nbsp; Our dress, then, consisted partly of a
+long stout blouse of Egyptian hemp, under which, unlike our
+Bedouin fellow-travellers, we indulged in the luxury of the loose
+cotton drawers common in the East, while our colored
+head-kerchiefs, though simple enough, were girt by &rsquo;akkals
+or headbands of some pretension to elegance; the loose
+red-leather boots of the country completed our toilet.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But in the large travelling-sacks at our camels&rsquo;
+sides were contained suits of a more elegant <a
+name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>appearance,
+carefully concealed from Bedouin gaze, but destined for
+appearance when we should reach better inhabited and more
+civilized districts.&nbsp; This reserve toilet numbered articles
+like the following: colored overdresses, the Syrian combaz,
+handkerchiefs whose silk stripes relieved the plebeian cotton,
+and girdles of good material and tasteful coloring; such clothes
+being absolutely requisite to maintain our assumed
+character.&nbsp; Mine was that of a native travelling doctor, a
+quack if you will; and accordingly a tolerable dress was
+indispensable for the credit of my medical practice.&nbsp; My
+comrade, who in a general way passed for my brother-in-law,
+appeared sometimes as a retail merchant, such as not unfrequently
+visit these countries, and sometimes as pupil or associate in my
+assumed profession.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our pharmacopoeia consisted of a few but well selected
+and efficacious drugs, inclosed in small tight-fitting tin boxes,
+stowed away for the present in the ample recesses of our
+travelling bags; about fifty of these little cases contained the
+wherewithal to kill or cure half the sick men of Arabia.&nbsp;
+Medicines of a liquid form had been as much as possible omitted,
+not only from the difficulty of insuring them a safe transport
+amid so rough a mode of journeying, but also on account of the
+rapid evaporation unavoidable in this dry and burning
+climate.&nbsp; In fact two or three small bottles whose contents
+had seemed to me of absolute necessity, soon retained nothing
+save their labels to indicate what they had held, in spite of
+airtight stoppers and double coverings.&nbsp; I record this,
+because the hint may be useful to anyone who should <a
+name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>be inclined
+to embark in similar guise on the same adventures.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some other objects requisite in medical practice, two
+or three European books for my own private use, and kept
+carefully secret from Arab curiosity, with a couple of Esculapian
+treatises in good Arabic, intended for professional ostentation,
+completed this part of our fitting-out.&nbsp; But besides these,
+an ample provision of cloth handkerchiefs, glass necklaces,
+pipe-bowls, and the like, for sale in whatever localities might
+not offer sufficient facility for the healing art, filled up our
+saddle-bags wellnigh to bursting.&nbsp; Last, but not least, two
+large sacks of coffee, the sheet-anchor and main hope of our
+commerce, formed alone a sufficient load for a vigorous
+camel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The first days of travel were a monotony of heat and
+desolation.&nbsp; The deceptive lakes of the mirage covered the
+tawny plain, and every dark basaltic block, lying here and there
+at random, was magnified into a mountain in the heated
+atmosphere.&nbsp; &ldquo;Dreary land of death, in which even the
+face of an enemy were almost a relief amid such utter
+solitude.&nbsp; But for five whole days the little dried-up
+lizard of the plain that looks as if he had never a drop of
+moisture in his ugly body, and the jerboa, or field-rat of
+Arabia, were the only living creatures to console our view.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was a march during which we might have almost
+repented of our enterprise, had such a sentiment been any longer
+possible or availing.&nbsp; Day after day found us urging our
+camels to their utmost pace for fifteen or sixteen hours together
+out of the <a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+90</span>twenty-four, under a wellnigh vertical sun, which the
+Ethiopians of Herodotus might reasonably be excused for cursing,
+with nothing either in the landscape around or in the companions
+of our way to relieve for a moment the eye or the mind.&nbsp;
+Then an insufficient halt for rest or sleep, at most of two or
+three hours, soon interrupted by the oft-repeated admonition,
+&lsquo;if we linger here we all die of thirst,&rsquo; sounding in
+our ears; and then to remount our jaded beasts and push them on
+through the dark night, amid the constant probability of attack
+and plunder from roving marauders.&nbsp; For myself, I was, to
+mend matters, under the depressing influence of a tertian fever
+contracted at Ma&rsquo;an, and what between weariness and low
+spirits, began to imagine seriously that no waters remained
+before us except the waters of death for us and of oblivion for
+our friends.&nbsp; The days wore by like a delirious dream, till
+we were often almost unconscious of the ground we travelled over
+and the journey on which we were engaged.&nbsp; One only herb
+appeared at our feet to give some appearance of variety and life;
+it was the bitter and poisonous colocynth of the desert.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our order of road was this: Long before dawn we were on
+our way, and paced it till the sun, having attained about
+half-way between the horizon and the zenith, assigned the moment
+of alighting for our morning meal.&nbsp; This our Bedouins always
+took good care should be in some hollow or low ground, for
+concealment&rsquo;s sake; in every other respect we had ample
+liberty of choice, for one patch of black pebbles with a little
+sand and withered grass between <a name="page91"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 91</span>was just like another; shade or
+shelter, or anything like them, was wholly out of the question in
+such &lsquo;nakedness of the land.&rsquo;&nbsp; We then alighted,
+and my companion and myself would pile up the baggage into a sort
+of wall, to afford a half-screen from the scorching sun-rays, and
+here recline awhile.&nbsp; Next came the culinary preparations,
+in perfect accordance with our provisions, which were simple
+enough; namely, a bag of coarse flour mixed with salt and a few
+dried dates; there was no third item on the bill of fare.&nbsp;
+We now took a few handfuls of flour, and one of the Bedouins
+kneaded it with his unwashed hands or dirty bit of leather,
+pouring over it a little of the dingy water contained in the
+skins, and then patted out this exquisite paste into a large
+round cake, about an inch thick and five or six inches
+across.&nbsp; Meanwhile another had lighted a fire of dry grass,
+colocynth roots, and dried camels&rsquo; dung, till he had
+prepared a bed of glowing embers; among these the cake was now
+cast, and immediately covered up with hot ashes, and so left for
+a few minutes, then taken out, turned, and covered again, till at
+last, half-kneaded, half-raw, half-roasted, and burnt all round,
+it was taken out to be broken up between the hungry band, and
+eaten scalding hot, before it should cool into an indescribable
+leathery substance, capable of defying the keenest
+appetite.&nbsp; A draught of dingy water was its sole but
+suitable accompaniment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The meal ended, we had again without loss of time to
+resume our way from mirage to mirage, till &lsquo;slowly flaming
+over all, from heat to heat, the day <a name="page92"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 92</span>decreased,&rsquo; and about an hour
+before sunset we would stagger off our camels as best we might,
+to prepare an evening feast of precisely the same description as
+that of the forenoon, or more often, for fear lest the smoke of
+our fire should give notice to some distant rover, to content
+ourselves with dry dates, and half an hour&rsquo;s rest on the
+sand.&nbsp; At last our dates, like &AElig;sop&rsquo;s
+bread-sack, or that of Beyhas, his Arab prototype, came to an
+end; and then our supper was a soldier&rsquo;s one; what that is
+my military friends will know; but, grit and pebbles excepted,
+there was no bed in our case.&nbsp; After which, to remount, and
+travel on by moon or starlight, till a little before midnight we
+would lie down for just enough sleep to tantalize, not
+refresh.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was now the 22d of June, and the fifth day since our
+departure from the wells of Wokba.&nbsp; The water in the skins
+had little more to offer to our thirst than muddy dregs, and as
+yet no sign appeared of a fresh supply.&nbsp; At last about noon
+we drew near some hillocks of loose gravel and sandstone a little
+on our right; our Bedouins conversed together awhile, and then
+turned their course and ours in that direction.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hold
+fast on your camels, for they are going to be startled and jump
+about,&rsquo; said Salim to us.&nbsp; Why the camels should be
+startled I could not understand; when, on crossing the mounds
+just mentioned, we suddenly came on five or six black tents, of
+the very poorest description, pitched near some wells excavated
+in the gravelly hollow below.&nbsp; The reason of Salim&rsquo;s
+precautionary hint now became evident, for our silly beasts
+started <a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>at
+first sight of the tents, as though they had never seen the like
+before, and then scampered about, bounding friskily here and
+there, till what between their jolting (for a camel&rsquo;s run
+much resembles that of a cow) and our own laughing, we could
+hardly keep on their backs.&nbsp; However, thirst soon prevailed
+over timidity, and they left off their pranks to approach the
+well&rsquo;s edge and sniff at the water below.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The inhabitants of the tents showed the ordinary curiosity,
+but were not unfriendly, and the little caravan rested there for
+the remainder of the day.&nbsp; A further journey of two days
+over a region of sand-hills, with an occasional well, still
+intervened before they could reach Wady Sirhan&mdash;a long
+valley running directly to the populated region of the
+Djowf.&nbsp; While passing over this intermediate region an
+incident occurred which had wellnigh put a premature end to the
+travels and the travellers together.&nbsp; &ldquo;My readers, no
+less than myself,&rdquo; says Palgrave, &ldquo;must have heard or
+read many a story of the simoom, or deadly wind of the desert,
+but for me I had never yet met it in full force; and its modified
+form, or <i>shelook</i>, to use the Arab phrase, that is, the
+sirocco of the Syrian waste, though disagreeable enough, can
+hardly ever be termed dangerous.&nbsp; Hence I had been almost
+inclined to set down the tales told of the strange phenomena and
+fatal effects of this &lsquo;poisoned gale&rsquo; in the same
+category with the moving pillars of sand, recorded in many works
+of higher historical pretensions than
+&lsquo;Thalaba.&rsquo;&nbsp; At those perambulatory columns and
+sand-smothered caravans the <a name="page94"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 94</span>Bedouins, whenever I interrogated
+them on the subject, laughed outright, and declared that beyond
+an occasional dust-storm, similar to those which anyone who has
+passed a summer in Scinde can hardly fail to have experienced,
+nothing of the romantic kind just alluded to occurred in
+Arabia.&nbsp; But when questioned about the simoom, they always
+treated it as a much more serious matter, and such in real
+earnest we now found it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was about noon, the noon of a summer solstice in the
+unclouded Arabian sky over a scorched desert, when abrupt and
+burning gusts of wind began to blow by fits from the south, while
+the oppressiveness of the air increased every moment, till my
+companion and myself mutually asked each other what this could
+mean, and what was to be its result.&nbsp; We turned to inquire
+of Salim, but he had already wrapped up his face in his mantle,
+and bowed down and crouching on the neck of his camel, replied
+not a word.&nbsp; His comrades, the two Sherarat Bedouins, had
+adopted a similar position, and were equally silent.&nbsp; At
+last, after repeated interrogations, Salim, instead of replying
+directly to our questioning, pointed to a small black tent,
+providentially at no great distance in front, and said: Try to
+reach <i>that</i>; if we can get there we are saved.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+He added: &lsquo;Take care that your camels do not stop and lie
+down;&rsquo; and then, giving his own several vigorous blows,
+relapsed into muffled silence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We looked anxiously toward the tent; it was yet a
+hundred yards off, or more.&nbsp; Meanwhile the gusts grew hotter
+and more violent, and it was only by <a name="page95"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 95</span>repeated efforts that we could urge
+our beasts forward.&nbsp; The horizon rapidly darkened to a deep
+violet line, and seemed to draw in like a curtain on every side,
+while at the same time a stifling blast, as though from some
+enormous oven opening right on our path, blew steadily under the
+gloom; our camels, too, began, in spite of all we could do, to
+turn round and round and bend their knees, preparing to lie
+down.&nbsp; The simoom was fairly upon us.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course we had followed our Arabs&rsquo; example by
+muffling our faces, and now with blows and kicks we forced the
+staggering animals onward to the only asylum within reach.&nbsp;
+So dark was the atmosphere, and so burning the heat, that it
+seemed that hell had risen from the earth, or descended from
+above.&nbsp; But we were yet in time, and at the moment when the
+worst of the concentrated poison-blast was coming around, we were
+already prostrate, one and all, within the tent, with our heads
+well wrapped up, almost suffocated, indeed, but safe; while our
+camels lay without like dead, their long necks stretched out on
+the sand, awaiting the passing of the gale.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On our first arrival the tent contained a solitary
+Bedouin woman, whose husband was away with his camels in the Wady
+Sirhan.&nbsp; When she saw five handsome men like us rush thus
+suddenly into her dwelling without a word of leave or salutation,
+she very properly set up a scream to the tune of the four crown
+pleas&mdash;murder, arson, robbery, and I know not what
+else.&nbsp; Salim hastened to reassure her by calling out
+&lsquo;friends,&rsquo; and without more words threw himself flat
+on the ground.&nbsp; All followed his example in silence.</p>
+<p><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+96</span>&ldquo;We remained thus for about ten minutes, during
+which a still heat like that of red-hot iron slowly passing over
+us was alone to be felt.&nbsp; Then the tent walls began again to
+flap in the returning gusts, and announced that the worst of the
+simoom had gone by.&nbsp; We got up, half dead with exhaustion,
+and unmuffled our faces.&nbsp; My comrades appeared more like
+corpses than living men, and so, I suppose, did I.&nbsp; However,
+I could not forbear, in spite of warnings, to step out and look
+at the camels; they were still lying flat as though they had been
+shot.&nbsp; The air was yet darkish, but before long it
+brightened up to its usual dazzling clearness.&nbsp; During the
+whole time that the simoom lasted, the atmosphere was entirely
+free from sand or dust, so that I hardly know how to account for
+its singular obscurity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Late in the evening we continued our way, and next day
+early entered Wady Sirhan, where the character of our journey
+underwent a considerable modification; for the northerly Arabian
+desert, which we are now traversing, offers, in spite of all its
+dreariness, some spots of comparatively better cast, where water
+is less scanty and vegetation less niggard.&nbsp; These spots are
+the favorite resorts of Bedouins, and serve, too, to direct the
+ordinary routes of whatever travellers, trade-led or from other
+motives, may venture on this wilderness.&nbsp; These oases, if
+indeed they deserve the name, are formed by a slight depression
+in the surrounding desert surface, and take at times the form of
+a long valley, or of an oblong patch, where rock and pebble give
+place to a light soil more or less intermixed with sand, and
+concealing under <a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+97</span>its surface a tolerable supply of moisture at no great
+distance below ground.&nbsp; Here, in consequence, bushes and
+herbs spring up, and grass, if not green all the year round, is
+at least of somewhat longer duration than elsewhere; certain
+fruit-bearing plants, of a nature to suffice for meagre Bedouin
+existence, grow here spontaneously; in a word, man and beast find
+not exactly comfortable accommodation, but the absolutely needful
+supply.&nbsp; Such a spot is Wady Sirhan, literally, the
+&lsquo;Valley of the Wolf.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They entered Wady Sirhan on June 21st.&nbsp; &ldquo;Passing
+tent after tent, and leaving behind us many a tattered Bedouin
+and grazing camel, Salim at last indicated to us a group of
+habitations, two or three of which seemed of somewhat more ample
+dimensions than the rest, and informed us that our supper that
+night (for the afternoon was already on the decline) would be at
+the cost of these dwellings.&nbsp; &lsquo;Ajaweed,&rsquo;
+<i>i.e.</i>, &lsquo;generous fellow,&rsquo; he subjoined, to
+encourage us by the prospect of a handsome reception.&nbsp; Of
+course we could only defer to his better judgment, and in a few
+minutes were alongside of the black goats&rsquo; hair coverings
+where lodged our intended hosts.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The chief or chieflet, for such he was, came out, and
+interchanged a few words of masonic laconism with Salim.&nbsp;
+The latter then came up to us where we remained halted in
+expectation, led our camels to a little distance from the tents,
+made them kneel down, helped us to disburden them, and while we
+installed ourselves on a sandy slope opposite to the abodes of
+the tribe, recommended us to keep a sharp lookout after our
+baggage, since there might be <a name="page98"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 98</span>pickers and stealers among our hosts,
+for all &lsquo;Ajaweed&rsquo; as they were.&nbsp; Disagreeable
+news! for &lsquo;Ajaweed&rsquo; in an Arab mouth corresponds the
+nearest possible to our English &lsquo;gentlemen.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Now, if the gentlemen were thieves, what must the blackguards
+be?&nbsp; We put a good face on it, and then seated ourselves in
+dignified gravity on the sand awaiting the further results of our
+guide&rsquo;s negotiations.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For some time we remained undisturbed, though not
+unnoticed; a group of Arabs had collected round our companions at
+the tent door, and were engaged in getting from them all possible
+information, especially about us and our baggage, which last was
+an object of much curiosity, not to say cupidity.&nbsp; Next came
+our turn.&nbsp; The chief, his family (women excepted), his
+intimate followers, and some twenty others, young and old, boys
+and men, came up, and, after a brief salutation, Bedouinwise
+seated themselves in a semicircle before us.&nbsp; Every man held
+a short crooked stick for camel-driving in his hand, to
+gesticulate with when speaking, or to play with in the intervals
+of conversation, while the younger members of society, less
+prompt in discourse, politely employed their leisure in staring
+at us, or in picking up dried pellets of dirt from the sand and
+tossing them about.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;What are you? what is your business?&rsquo; so
+runs the ordinary and unprefaced opening of the discourse.&nbsp;
+To which we answer, &lsquo;Physicians from Damascus, and our
+business is whatsoever God may put in our way.&rsquo;&nbsp; The
+next question will be about the baggage; someone pokes it with a
+stick, to <a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+99</span>draw attention to it, and says, &lsquo;What is this?
+have you any little object to sell us?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We fight shy of selling; to open out our wares and
+chattels in full air, on the sand, and amid a crowd whose
+appearance and circumstances offer but a poor guarantee for the
+exact observance of the eighth commandment, would be hardly
+prudent or worth our while.&nbsp; After several fruitless trials
+they desist from their request.&nbsp; Another, who is troubled by
+some bodily infirmity, for which all the united faculties of
+London and Paris might prescribe in vain&mdash;a withered hand,
+for instance, or stone-blind of an eye&mdash;asks for medicine,
+which no sooner applied shall, in his expectation, suddenly
+restore him to perfect health and corporal integrity.&nbsp; But I
+had been already forewarned that to doctor a Bedouin, even under
+the most favorable circumstances, or a camel, is pretty much the
+same thing, and with about an equal chance of success or
+advantage.&nbsp; I politely decline.&nbsp; He insists; I turn him
+off with a joke.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;So you laugh at us, O you inhabitants of
+towns.&nbsp; We are Bedouins, we do not know your customs,&rsquo;
+replies he, in a whining tone; while the boys grin unconscionably
+at the discomfiture of their tribesman.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Ya woleyd,&rsquo; or young fellow (for so they
+style every human male from eight to eighty without distinction),
+&lsquo;will you not fill my pipe?&rsquo; says one, who has
+observed that mine was not idle, and who, though well provided
+with a good stock of dry tobacco tied up in a rag at his greasy
+waist-belt, thinks the moment a fair opportunity for a little
+begging, since neither medicine nor merchandise is to be had.</p>
+<p><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+100</span>&ldquo;But Salim, seated amid the circle, makes me a
+sign not to comply.&nbsp; Accordingly, I evade the demand.&nbsp;
+However, my petitioner goes on begging, and is imitated by two or
+three others, each of whom thrusts forward (a true Irish hint) a
+bit of marrowbone with a hole drilled in one side to act for a
+pipe, or a porous stone, not uncommon throughout the desert,
+clumsily fashioned into a smoking apparatus, a sort of primitive
+meerschaum.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As they grow rude, I pretend to become angry, thus to
+cut the matter short.&nbsp; &lsquo;We are your guests, O you
+Bedouins; are you not ashamed to beg of us?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Never mind, excuse us; those are ignorant fellows,
+ill-bred clowns,&rsquo; etc., interposes one close by the
+chief&rsquo;s side; and whose dress is in somewhat better
+condition than that of the other half and three-quarter naked
+individuals who complete the assembly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Will you not people the pipe for your little
+brother?&rsquo; subjoins the chief himself, producing an empty
+one with a modest air.&nbsp; Bedouin language, like that of most
+Orientals, abounds with not ungraceful imagery, and accordingly,
+&lsquo;people&rsquo; here means &lsquo;fill.&rsquo;&nbsp; Salim
+gives me a wink of compliance.&nbsp; I take out a handful of
+tobacco and put it on his long shirt-sleeve, which he knots over
+it, and looks uncommonly well pleased.&nbsp; At any rate they are
+easily satisfied, these Bedouins.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The night air in these wilds is life and health
+itself.&nbsp; We sleep soundly, unharassed by the anticipation of
+an early summons to march next morning, for both men and beasts
+have alike need of a full <a name="page101"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 101</span>day&rsquo;s repose.&nbsp; When the
+sun has risen we are invited to enter the chief&rsquo;s tent and
+to bring our baggage under its shelter.&nbsp; A main object of
+our entertainer, in proposing this move, is to try whether he
+cannot render our visit some way profitable to himself, by
+present or purchase.&nbsp; Whatever politeness he can muster is
+accordingly brought into play, and a large bowl of fresh
+camel&rsquo;s milk, an excellent beverage, now appears on the
+stage.&nbsp; I leave to chemical analysis to decide why this milk
+will not furnish butter, for such is the fact, and content myself
+with bearing witness to its very nutritious and agreeable
+qualities.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The day passes on.&nbsp; About noon our host naturally
+enough supposes us hungry, and accordingly a new dish is brought
+in: it looks much like a bowl full of coarse red paste, or bran
+mixed with ochre.&nbsp; This is samh, a main article of
+subsistence to the Bedouins of Northern Arabia.&nbsp; Throughout
+this part of the desert grows a small herbaceous and tufted
+plant, with juicy stalks and a little ovate yellow-tinted leaf;
+the flowers are of a brighter yellow, with many stamens and
+pistils.&nbsp; When the blossoms fall off there remains in place
+of each a four-leaved capsule about the size of an ordinary pea,
+and this, when ripe, opens to show a mass of minute reddish
+seeds, resembling grit in feel and appearance, but farinaceous in
+substance.&nbsp; The ripening season is in July, when old and
+young, men and women, all are out to collect the unsown and
+untoiled-for harvest.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On the 27th of the month we passed with some difficulty
+a series of abrupt sand-hills that close in <a
+name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>the direct
+course of Wady Sirhan.&nbsp; Here, for the first time, we saw the
+ghada, a shrub almost characteristic, from its very frequency, of
+the Arabian Peninsula, and often alluded to by its poets.&nbsp;
+It is of the genus <i>Euphorbia</i>, with a woody stem, often
+five or six feet in height, and innumerable round green twigs,
+very slender and flexible, forming a large feathery tuft, not
+ungraceful to the eye, while it affords some kind of shelter to
+the traveller and food to his camels.&nbsp; These last are
+passionately fond of ghada, and will continually turn right out
+of their way, in spite of blows and kicks, to crop a mouthful of
+it, and then swing back their long necks into the former
+direction, ready to repeat the same man&oelig;uvre at the next
+bush, as though they had never received a beating for their past
+voracity.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have, while in England, heard and read more than once
+of the &lsquo;docile camel.&rsquo;&nbsp; If &lsquo;docile&rsquo;
+means stupid, well and good; in such a case the camel is the very
+model of docility.&nbsp; But if the epithet is intended to
+designate an animal that takes an interest in its rider so far as
+a beast can, that in some way understands his intentions or
+shares them in a subordinate fashion, that obeys from a sort of
+submissive or half fellow-feeling with his master, like the horse
+and elephant, then I say that the camel is by no means docile,
+very much the contrary; he takes no heed of his rider, pays no
+attention whether he be on his back or not, walks straight on
+when once set a-going, merely because he is too stupid to turn
+aside; and then, should some tempting thorn or green branch
+allure him out of the path, continues to walk on in <a
+name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>this new
+direction simply because he is too dull to turn back into the
+right road.&nbsp; His only care is to cross as much pasture as he
+conveniently can while pacing mechanically onward; and for
+effecting this, his long, flexible neck sets him at great
+advantage, and a hard blow or a downright kick alone has any
+influence on him whether to direct or impel.&nbsp; He will never
+attempt to throw you off his back, such a trick being far beyond
+his limited comprehension; but if you fall off, he will never
+dream of stopping for you, and walks on just the same, grazing
+while he goes, without knowing or caring an atom what has become
+of you.&nbsp; If turned loose, it is a thousand to one that he
+will never find his way back to his accustomed home or pasture,
+and the first comer who picks him up will have no particular
+shyness to get over; Jack or Tom is all the same to him, and the
+loss of his old master, and of his own kith and kin, gives him no
+regret, and occasions no endeavor to find them again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>On coming in sight of the mountains of Djowf the travellers
+were obliged to halt for two days at an encampment of the
+Sherarat Arabs, because Salim could not enter the Djowf with them
+in person, on account of a murder which he had committed
+there.&nbsp; He was therefore obliged to procure them another
+guide capable of conducting them safely the remainder of the
+journey.&nbsp; After much search and discussion, Salim ended by
+finding a good-natured, but somewhat timid, individual, who
+undertook their guidance to the Djowf.</p>
+<p>Journeying one whole day and night over an open <a
+name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>plateau,
+where they saw a large troop of ostriches, they mounted again on
+the 30th, by the light of the morning star, anxious to enter the
+Djowf before the intense heat of noon should come on; &ldquo;but
+we had yet a long way to go, and our track followed endless
+windings among low hills and stony ledges, without any symptom of
+approach to cultivated regions.&nbsp; At last the slopes grew
+greener, and a small knot of houses, with traces of tillage close
+by, appeared.&nbsp; It was the little village of Djoon, the most
+westerly appendage of Djowf itself.&nbsp; I counted between
+twenty and thirty houses.&nbsp; We next entered a long and narrow
+pass, whose precipitous banks shut in the view on either
+side.&nbsp; Suddenly several horsemen appeared on the opposite
+cliff, and one of them, a handsome youth, with long, curling
+hair, well armed and well mounted (we shall make his more special
+acquaintance in the next chapter), called out to our guide to
+halt, and answer in his own behalf and ours.&nbsp; This Suleyman
+did, not without those marks of timidity in his voice and gesture
+which a Bedouin seldom fails to show on his approach to a town,
+for, when once in it, he is apt to sneak about much like a dog
+who has just received a beating for theft.&nbsp; On his answer,
+delivered in a most submissive tone, the horsemen held a brief
+consultation, and we then saw two of them turn their
+horses&rsquo; heads and gallop off in the direction of the Djowf,
+while our original interlocutor called out to Suleyman,
+&lsquo;All right, go on, and fear nothing,&rsquo; and then
+disappeared after the rest of the band behind the verge of the
+upland.</p>
+<p><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+105</span>&ldquo;We had yet to drag on for an hour of tedious
+march; my camel fairly broke down, and fell again and again; his
+bad example was followed by the coffee-laden beast; the heat was
+terrible in these gorges, and noon was approaching.&nbsp; At last
+we cleared the pass, but found the onward prospect still shut out
+by an intervening mass of rocks.&nbsp; The water in our skins was
+spent, and we had eaten nothing that morning.&nbsp; When shall we
+get in sight of the Djowf? or has it flown away from before
+us?&nbsp; While thus wearily laboring on our way we turned a huge
+pile of crags, and a new and beautiful scene burst upon our
+view.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p105b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"An Arab Chief"
+title=
+"An Arab Chief"
+src="images/p105s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;A broad, deep valley, descending ledge after ledge till
+its innermost depths are hidden from sight amid far-reaching
+shelves of reddish rock, below everywhere studded with tufts of
+palm-groves and clustering fruit-trees, in dark-green patches,
+down to the furthest end of its windings; a large brown mass of
+irregular masonry crowning a central hill; beyond, a tall and
+solitary tower overlooking the opposite bank of the hollow, and
+further down small round turrets and flat house-tops, half buried
+amid the garden foliage, the whole plunged in a perpendicular
+flood of light and heat; such was the first aspect of the Djowf
+as we now approached it from the west.&nbsp; It was a lovely
+scene, and seemed yet more so to our eyes, weary of the long
+desolation through which we had, with hardly an exception,
+journeyed day after day, since our last farewell glimpse of Gaza
+and Palestine, up to the first entrance on inhabited
+Arabia.&nbsp; &lsquo;Like the Paradise of eternity, none can
+enter it till after having previously passed over
+hell-bridge,&rsquo; says <a name="page106"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 106</span>an Arab poet, describing some
+similar locality in Algerian lands.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Reanimated by the view, we pushed on our jaded beasts,
+and were already descending the first craggy slope of the valley
+when two horsemen, well dressed and fully armed after the fashion
+of these parts, came up toward us from the town, and at once
+saluted us with a loud and hearty &lsquo;Marhaba,&rsquo; or
+&lsquo;welcome;&rsquo; and without further preface they added,
+&lsquo;Alight and eat,&rsquo; giving themselves the example of
+the former by descending briskly from their light-limbed horses
+and untying a large leather bag full of excellent dates and a
+water-skin filled from the running spring; then, spreading out
+these most opportune refreshments on the rock, and adding,
+&lsquo;we were sure that you must be hungry and thirsty, so we
+have come ready provided,&rsquo; they invited us once more to sit
+down and begin.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+107</span>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Residence in the Djowf</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> elder of the two cavaliers who
+welcomed the travellers proved to be Ghafil-el-Haboob, the chief
+of the most important family of the Djowf.&nbsp; Ghafil, and also
+his companion, Dafee, invited the travellers to be his guests,
+and the former, it afterward appeared, had intended that they
+should reside in his house, hoping to make some profit from the
+merchandise which they might have brought.&nbsp; They felt bound,
+at least, to accompany him to his house and partake of coffee,
+before going elsewhere.&nbsp; Palgrave thus describes the manner
+of their reception:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The k&rsquo;hawah was a large, oblong hall, about
+twenty feet in height, fifty in length, and sixteen, or
+thereabouts, in breadth; the walls were colored in a rudely
+decorative manner, with brown and white wash, and sunk here and
+there into small triangular recesses, destined to the reception
+of books&mdash;though of these Ghafil at least had no
+over-abundance&mdash;lamps, and other such like objects.&nbsp;
+The roof of timber, and flat; the floor was strewed with fine
+clean sand, and garnished all round alongside of the walls with
+long strips of carpet, upon which cushions, covered with faded
+silk, were disposed at suitable intervals.</p>
+<p><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+108</span>&ldquo;We enter.&nbsp; On passing the threshold it is
+proper to say, &lsquo;<i>Bismillah</i>,&rsquo; <i>i.e.</i>,
+&lsquo;in the name of God;&rsquo; not to do so would be looked on
+as a bad augury, alike for him who enters and for those
+within.&nbsp; The visitor next advances in silence, till, on
+coming about half-way across the room, he gives to all present,
+but looking specially at the master of the house, the customary
+&lsquo;<i>Es-salamu&rsquo;aleykum</i>,&rsquo; or &lsquo;Peace be
+with you,&rsquo; literally, &lsquo;on you.&rsquo;&nbsp; All this
+while everyone else in the room has kept his place, motionless,
+and without saying a word.&nbsp; But on receiving the salaam of
+etiquette, the master of the house rises, and if a strict
+Wahabee, or at any rate desirous of seeming such, replies with
+the full-length traditionary formula &lsquo;And with (or, on) you
+be peace, and the mercy of God, and his blessings.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+But should he happen to be of anti-Wahabee tendencies, the odds
+are that he will say &lsquo;Marhaba,&rsquo; or &lsquo;Ahlan
+w&rsquo;sahlan,&rsquo; <i>i.e.</i>, &lsquo;welcome,&rsquo; or
+&lsquo;worthy and pleasurable,&rsquo; or the like; for of such
+phrases there is an infinite but elegant variety.&nbsp; All
+present follow the example thus given by rising and
+saluting.&nbsp; The guest then goes up to the master of the
+house, who has also made a step or two forward, and places his
+open hand in the palm of his host&rsquo;s, but without grasping
+or shaking, which would hardly pass as decorous, and, at the same
+time each repeats once more his greeting, followed by the set
+phrases of polite inquiry, &lsquo;How are you?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;How goes the world with you?&rsquo; and so forth, all in a
+tone of great interest, and to be gone over three or four times,
+till one or other has the discretion to say &lsquo;El hamdu
+Pillah,&rsquo; &lsquo;Praise be to <a name="page109"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 109</span>God,&rsquo; or, in equivalent value,
+&lsquo;all right,&rsquo; and this is a signal for a seasonable
+diversion to the ceremonious interrogatory.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Meantime we have become engaged in active conversation
+with our host and his friends.&nbsp; But our Sherarat guide,
+Suleyman, like a true Bedouin, feels too awkward when among
+townsfolk to venture on the upper places, though repeatedly
+invited, and accordingly has squatted down on the sand near the
+entrance.&nbsp; Many of Ghafil&rsquo;s relations are present;
+their silver-decorated swords proclaim the importance of the
+family.&nbsp; Others, too, have come to receive us, for our
+arrival, announced beforehand by those we had met at the entrance
+pass, is a sort of event in the town; the dress of some betokens
+poverty, others are better clad, but all have a very polite and
+decorous manner.&nbsp; Many a question is asked about our native
+land and town, that is to say, Syria and Damascus, conformably to
+the disguise already adopted, and which it was highly important
+to keep well up; then follow inquiries regarding our journey, our
+business, what we have brought with us, about our medicines, our
+goods and wares, etc.&nbsp; From the very first it is easy for us
+to perceive that patients and purchasers are likely to
+abound.&nbsp; Very few travelling merchants, if any, visit the
+Djowf at this time of year, for one must be mad, or next door to
+it, to rush into the vast desert around during the heats of June
+and July; I for one have certainly no intention of doing it
+again.&nbsp; Hence we had small danger of competitors, and found
+the market almost at our absolute disposal.</p>
+<p><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+110</span>&ldquo;But before a quarter of an hour has passed, and
+while blacky is still roasting or pounding his coffee, a tall,
+thin lad, Ghafil&rsquo;s eldest son, appears, charged with a
+large circular dish, grass-platted like the rest, and throws it
+with a graceful jerk on the sandy floor close before us.&nbsp; He
+then produces a large wooden bowlful of dates, bearing in the
+midst of the heap a cupful of melted butter; all this he places
+on the circular mat, and says, &lsquo;Semmoo,&rsquo; literally,
+&lsquo;pronounce the Name,&rsquo; of God, understood; this means
+&lsquo;set to work at it.&rsquo;&nbsp; Hereon the master of the
+house quits his place by the fireside and seats himself on the
+sand opposite to us; we draw nearer to the dish, and four or five
+others, after some respectful coyness, join the circle.&nbsp;
+Everyone then picks out a date or two from the juicy,
+half-amalgamated mass, dips them into the butter, and thus goes
+on eating till he has had enough, when he rises and washes his
+hands.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will take the opportunity of leading my readers over
+the whole of the Djowf, as a general view will help better to
+understand what follows in the narrative, besides offering much
+that will be in part new, I should fancy, to the greater
+number.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This province is a sort of oasis, a large oval
+depression of sixty or seventy miles long, by ten or twelve
+broad, lying between the northern desert that separates it from
+Syria and the Euphrates, and the southern Nefood, or sandy waste,
+and interposed between it and the nearest mountains of the
+central Arabian plateau.&nbsp; However, from its comparative
+proximity to the latter, no less than from the <a
+name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>character
+of its climate and productions, it belongs hardly so much to
+Northern as to Central Arabia, of which it is a kind of porch or
+vestibule.&nbsp; If an equilateral triangle were to be drawn,
+having its base from Damascus to Bagdad, the vertex would find
+itself pretty exactly as the Djowf, which is thus at a nearly
+equal distance, southeast and southwest, from the two localities
+just mentioned, while the same cross-line, if continued, will
+give at about the same intervals of space in the opposite
+direction, Medina on the one hand, and Zulphah, the great
+commercial door of Eastern Nedjed, on the other.&nbsp; Djebel
+Shomer lies almost due south, and much nearer than any other of
+the places above specified.&nbsp; Partly to this central
+position, and partly to its own excavated form, the province owes
+its appropriate name of Djowf, or &lsquo;belly.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The principal, or rather the only, town of the
+district, all the rest being mere hamlets, bears the name of the
+entire region.&nbsp; It is composed of eight villages, once
+distinct, but which have in process of time coalesced into one,
+and exchanged their separate existence and name for that of Sook,
+or &lsquo;quarter,&rsquo; of the common borough.&nbsp; Of these
+Sooks, the principal is that belonging to the family Haboob, and
+in which we were now lodged.&nbsp; It includes the central castle
+already mentioned, and numbers about four hundred houses.&nbsp;
+The other quarters, some larger, others smaller, stretch up and
+down the valley, but are connected together by their extensive
+gardens.&nbsp; The entire length of the town thus formed, with
+the cultivation immediately annexed, is full four <a
+name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>miles, but
+the average breadth does not exceed half a mile, and sometimes
+falls short of it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The size of the domiciles varies with the condition of
+their occupants, and the poor are contented with narrow lodgings,
+though always separate; for I doubt if throughout the whole of
+Arabia two families, however needy, inhabit the same
+dwelling.&nbsp; Ghafil&rsquo;s abode, already described, may give
+a fair idea of the better kind; in such we have an outer court,
+for unlading camels and the like, an inner court, a large
+reception-room, and several other smaller apartments, to which
+entrance is given by a private door, and where the family itself
+is lodged.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But another and a very characteristic feature of
+domestic architecture is the frequent addition, throughout the
+Djowf, of a round tower, from thirty to forty feet in height and
+twelve or more in breadth, with a narrow entrance and loop-holes
+above.&nbsp; This construction is sometimes contiguous to the
+dwelling-place, and sometimes isolated in a neighboring garden
+belonging to the same master.&nbsp; These towers once answered
+exactly the same purposes as the &lsquo;torri,&rsquo; well known
+to travellers in many cities of Italy, at Bologna, Siena, Rome,
+and elsewhere, and denoted a somewhat analogous state of society
+to what formerly prevailed there.&nbsp; Hither, in time of the
+ever-recurring feuds between rival chiefs and factions, the
+leaders and their partisans used to retire for refuge and
+defence, and hence they would make their sallies to burn and
+destroy.&nbsp; These towers, like all the modern edifices of the
+Djowf, are of unbaked bricks; their great thickness and solidity
+of make, along <a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+113</span>with the extreme tenacity of the soil, joined to a very
+dry climate, renders the material a rival almost of stone-work in
+strength and endurance.&nbsp; Since the final occupation of this
+region by the forces of Telal, all these towers have, without
+exception, been rendered unfit for defence, and some are even
+half-ruined.&nbsp; Here again the phenomena of Europe have
+repeated themselves in Arabia.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The houses are not unfrequently isolated each from the
+other by their gardens and plantations; and this is especially
+the case with the dwellings of chiefs and their families.&nbsp;
+What has just been said about the towers renders the reasons of
+this isolation sufficiently obvious.&nbsp; But the dwellings of
+the commoner sort are generally clustered together, though
+without symmetry or method.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The gardens of the Djowf are much celebrated in this
+part of the East, and justly so.&nbsp; They are of a
+productiveness and variety superior to those of Djebel Shomer or
+of upper Nedjed, and far beyond whatever the Hedjaz and its
+neighborhood can offer.&nbsp; Here, for the first time in our
+southward course, we found the date-palm a main object of
+cultivation; and if its produce be inferior to that of the same
+tree in Nedjed and Hasa, it is far, very far, above whatever
+Egypt, Africa, or the valley of the Tigris from Bagdad to Bassora
+can show.&nbsp; However, the palm is by no means alone
+here.&nbsp; The apricot and the peach, the fig-tree and the vine,
+abound throughout these orchards, and their fruit surpasses in
+copiousness and flavor that supplied by the gardens of Damascus
+or the hills of Syria and Palestine.&nbsp; In <a
+name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>the
+intervals between the trees or in the fields beyond, corn,
+leguminous plants, gourds, melons, etc., etc., are widely
+cultivated.&nbsp; Here, too, for the last time, the traveller
+bound for the interior sees the irrigation indispensable to all
+growth and tillage in this droughty climate kept up by running
+streams of clear water, whereas in the Nedjed and its
+neighborhood it has to be laboriously procured from wells and
+cisterns.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Besides the Djowf itself, or capital, there exist
+several other villages belonging to the same homonymous province,
+and all subject to the same central governor.&nbsp; Of these the
+largest is Sekakah; it lies at about twelve miles distant to the
+northeast, and though inferior to the principal town in
+importance and fertility of soil, almost equals it in the number
+of its inhabitants.&nbsp; I should reckon the united population
+of these two localities&mdash;men, women, and children&mdash;at
+about thirty-three or thirty-four thousand souls.&nbsp; This
+calculation, like many others before us in the course of the
+work, rests partly on an approximate survey of the number of
+dwellings, partly on the military muster, and partly on what I
+heard on the subject from the natives themselves.&nbsp; A census
+is here unknown, and no register records birth, marriage, or
+death.&nbsp; Yet, by aid of the war list, which generally
+represents about one-tenth of the entire population, a fair
+though not absolute idea may be obtained on this point.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Lastly, around and at no great distance from these main
+centres, are several small villages or hamlets, eight or ten in
+number, as I was told, and <a name="page115"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 115</span>containing each of them from twenty
+to fifty or sixty houses.&nbsp; But I had neither time nor
+opportunity to visit each separately.&nbsp; They cluster round
+lesser water springs, and offer in miniature features much
+resembling those of the capital.&nbsp; The entire population of
+the province cannot exceed forty or forty-two thousand, but it is
+a brave one, and very liberally provided with the physical
+endowments of which it has been acutely said that they are seldom
+despised save by those who do not themselves possess them.&nbsp;
+Tall, well-proportioned, of a tolerably fair complexion, set off
+by long curling locks of jet-black hair, with features for the
+most part regular and intelligent, and a dignified carriage, the
+Djowfites are eminently good specimens of what may be called the
+pure northern or Ishmaelitish Arab type, and in all these
+respects they yield the palm to the inhabitants of Djebel Shomer
+alone.&nbsp; Their large-developed forms and open countenance
+contrast strongly with the somewhat dwarfish stature and
+suspicious under-glance of the Bedouin.&nbsp; They are, besides,
+a very healthy people, and keep up their strength and activity
+even to an advanced age.&nbsp; It is no uncommon occurrence here,
+to see an old man of seventy set out full-armed among a band of
+youths; though, by the way, such &ldquo;green old age&rdquo; is
+often to be met with also in the central province farther south,
+as I have had frequent opportunity of witnessing.&nbsp; The
+climate, too, is good and dry, and habits of out-door life
+contribute not a little to the maintenance of health and
+vigor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In manners, as in locality, the worthies of Djowf
+occupy a sort of half-way position between Bedouins <a
+name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>and the
+inhabitants of the cultivated districts.&nbsp; Thus they partake
+largely in the nomad&rsquo;s aversion to mechanical occupations,
+in his indifference to literary acquirements, in his aimless
+fickleness too, and even in his treacherous ways.&nbsp; I have
+said, in the preceding chapter, that while we were yet threading
+the narrow gorge near the first entrance of the valley, several
+horsemen appeared on the upper margin of the pass, and one of
+them questioned our guide, and then, after a short consultation
+with his companions, called out to us to go on and fear
+nothing.&nbsp; Now, the name of this individual was
+Suliman-ebn-Dahir, a very adventurous and fairly intelligent
+young fellow, with whom next-door neighborhood and frequent
+intercourse rendered us intimate during our stay at the
+Djowf.&nbsp; One day, while we were engaged in friendly
+conversation, he said, half laughing, &lsquo;Do you know what we
+were consulting about while you were in the pass below on the
+morning of your arrival?&nbsp; It was whether we should make you
+a good reception, and thus procure ourselves the advantage of
+having you residents among us, or whether we should not do better
+to kill you all three, and take our gain from the booty to be
+found in your baggage.&rsquo;&nbsp; I replied with equal
+coolness, &lsquo;It might have proved an awkward affair for
+yourself and your friends, since Hamood your governor could
+hardly have failed to get wind of the matter, and would have
+taken it out of you.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Pooh!&rsquo; replied our
+friend, &lsquo;never a bit; as if a present out of the plunder
+would not have tied Hamood&rsquo;s tongue.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Bedouins that you are,&rsquo; said I, laughing.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Of course we are,&rsquo; answered <a
+name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>Suliman,
+&lsquo;for such we all were till quite lately, and the present
+system is too recent to have much changed us.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+However, he admitted that they all had, on second thoughts,
+congratulated themselves on not having preferred bloodshed to
+hospitality, though perhaps the better resolution was rather
+owing to interested than to moral motives.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The most distinctive good feature of the inhabitants of
+Djowf is their liberality.&nbsp; Nowhere else, even in Arabia, is
+the guest, so at least he be not murdered before admittance,
+better treated, or more cordially invited to become in every way
+one of themselves.&nbsp; Courage, too, no one denies them, and
+they are equally lavish of their own lives and property as of
+their neighbors&rsquo;.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let us now resume the narrative.&nbsp; On the morning
+after our arrival&mdash;it was now the 1st of July&mdash;Ghafil
+caused a small house in the neighborhood, belonging to one of his
+dependents, to be put at our entire disposal, according to our
+previous request.&nbsp; This, our new abode, consisted of a small
+court with two rooms, one on each side, for warehouse and
+habitation, the whole being surrounded with an outer wall, whose
+door was closed by lock and bolt.&nbsp; Of a kitchen-room there
+was small need, so constant and hospitable are the invitations of
+the good folks here to strangers; and if our house was not over
+capacious, it afforded at least what we most desired, namely,
+seclusion and privacy at will; it was, moreover, at our
+host&rsquo;s cost, rent and reparations.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hither, accordingly, we transferred baggage and
+chattels, and arranged everything as comfortably as <a
+name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>we best
+could.&nbsp; And as we had already concluded, from the style and
+conversation of those around us, that their state of society was
+hardly far enough advanced to offer a sufficiently good prospect
+for medical art, whose exercise, to be generally advantageous,
+requires a certain amount of culture and aptitude in the patient,
+no less than of skill in the physician, we resolved to make
+commerce our main affair here, trusting that by so doing we
+should gain a second advantage, that of lightening our more bulky
+goods, such as coffee and cloth, whose transport had already
+annoyed us not a little.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But in fact we were not more desirous to sell than the
+men, women, and children of the Djowf were to buy.&nbsp; From the
+very outset our little courtyard was crowded with customers, and
+the most amusing scenes of Arab haggling, in all its mixed
+shrewdness and simplicity, diverted us through the week.&nbsp;
+Handkerchief after handkerchief, yard after yard of cloth, beads
+for the women, knives, combs, looking-glasses, and what not? (for
+our stock was a thorough miscellany) were soon sold off, some for
+ready money, others on credit; and it is but justice to say that
+all debts so contracted were soon paid in very honestly; Oxford
+High Street tradesmen, at least in former times, were not always
+equally fortunate.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Meanwhile we had the very best opportunity of becoming
+acquainted with and appreciating all classes, nay, almost all
+individuals, of the place.&nbsp; Peasants, too, from various
+hamlets arrived, led by rumor, whose trumpet, prone to exaggerate
+under every sky, <a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+119</span>had proclaimed us throughout the valley of Djowf for
+much more important characters, and possessed of a much larger
+stock in hand, than was really the case.&nbsp; All crowded in,
+and before long there were more customers than wares assembled in
+the storeroom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our manner of passing the time was as follows: We used
+to rise at early dawn, lock up the house, and go out in the pure
+cool air of the morning to some quiet spot among the neighboring
+palm-groves, or scale the wall of some garden, or pass right on
+through the by-lanes to where cultivation merges in the adjoining
+sands of the valley; in short, to any convenient place where we
+might hope to pass an hour of quiet, undisturbed by Arab
+sociability, and have leisure to plan our work for the day.&nbsp;
+We would then return home about sunrise, and find outside the
+door some tall lad sent by his father, generally one of the
+wealthier and more influential inhabitants of the quarter yet
+unvisited by us, waiting our return, to invite us to an early
+breakfast.&nbsp; We would now accompany our Mercury to his
+domicile, where a hearty reception, and some neighbors collected
+for the occasion, or attracted by a cup of good coffee, were sure
+to be in attendance.&nbsp; Here an hour or so would wear away,
+and some medical or mercantile transaction be sketched out.&nbsp;
+We, of course, would bring the conversation, whenever it was
+possible, on local topics, according as those present seemed
+likely to afford us exact knowledge and insight into the real
+state and circumstances of the land.&nbsp; We would then return
+to our own quarters, <a name="page120"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 120</span>where a crowd of customers, awaiting
+us, would allow us neither rest nor pause till noon.&nbsp; Then a
+short interval for date or pumpkin eating in some
+neighbor&rsquo;s house would occur, and after that business be
+again resumed for three or four hours.&nbsp; A walk among the
+gardens, rarely alone, more often in company with friends and
+acquaintances, would follow; and meanwhile an invitation to
+supper somewhere had unfailingly been given and
+accepted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After supper all rise, wash their hands, and then go
+out into the open air to sit and smoke a quiet pipe under the
+still transparent sky of the summer evening.&nbsp; Neither mist
+nor vapor, much less a cloud, appears; the moon dips down in
+silvery whiteness to the very verge of the palm-tree tops, and
+the last rays of daylight are almost as sharp and clear as the
+dawn itself.&nbsp; Chat and society continue for an hour or two,
+and then everyone goes home, most to sleep, I fancy, for few
+Penseroso lamps are here to be seen at midnight hour, nor does
+the spirit of Plato stand much risk of unsphering from the
+nocturnal studies of the Djowf; we, to write our journal, or to
+compare observations and estimate characters.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes a comfortable landed proprietor would invite
+us to pass an extemporary holiday morning in his garden, or
+rather orchard, there to eat grapes and enjoy ourselves at will,
+seated under clustering vine-trellises, with palm-trees above and
+running streams around.&nbsp; How pleasant it was after the
+desert!&nbsp; At other times visits of patients, prescriptions,
+and similar duties would take up a part of the day; or some young
+fellow, particularly desirous of information <a
+name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>about Syria
+or Egypt, or perhaps curious after history and moral science,
+would hold us for a couple of hours in serious and sensible talk,
+at any rate to our advantage.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was necessary that the travellers should not delay in
+paying their official visit to Hamood, the vice-gerent of
+Telal.&nbsp; His residence is in the centre of the garden region,
+near a solitary round tower, whose massive stone walls are
+mentioned in Arabian poetry.&nbsp; Hamood&rsquo;s residence is an
+irregular structure, of more recent date, with no distinguishing
+feature except a tower about fifty feet in height.&nbsp; Palgrave
+and his companion were accompanied by a large number of their
+newly-found friends.&nbsp; After passing through an outer court,
+filled with armed guards, they found the ruler seated in his
+large reception-hall:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There, in the place of distinction, which he never
+yields to any individual of Djowf, whatever be his birth or
+wealth, appeared the governor, a strong, broad-shouldered,
+dark-browed, dark-eyed man, clad in the long white shirt of the
+country, and over it a handsome black cloak, embroidered with
+crimson silk; on his august head a silken handkerchief or
+<i>keffee&rsquo;yeh</i>, girt by a white band of finely woven
+camel&rsquo;s hair; and in his fingers a grass fan.&nbsp; He rose
+graciously on our approach, extended to us the palm of his hand,
+and made us sit down near his side, keeping, however, Ghafil, as
+an old acquaintance, between himself and us, perhaps as a
+precautionary arrangement against any sudden assault or
+treasonable intention on our part, for an Arab, be he who he may,
+is never off his guard when new faces <a name="page122"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 122</span>are in presence.&nbsp; In other
+respects he showed us much courtesy and good-will, made many
+civil inquiries about our health after so fatiguing a journey,
+praised Damascus and the Damascenes, by way of an indirect
+compliment, and offered us a lodging in the castle.&nbsp; But
+here Ghafil availed himself of the privileges conceded by Arab
+custom to priority of host-ship to put in his negative on our
+behalf; nor were we anxious to press the matter.&nbsp; A pound or
+so of our choicest coffee, with which we on this occasion
+presented his excellency, both as a mute witness to the object of
+our journey, and the better to secure his good-will, was accepted
+very readily by the great man, who in due return offered us his
+best services.&nbsp; We replied that we stood in need of nothing
+save his long life, this being the Arab formula for rejoinder to
+such fair speeches; and, next in order, of means to get safe on
+to Ha&rsquo;yel so soon as our business at the Djowf should
+permit, being desirous to establish ourselves under the immediate
+patronage of Telal.&nbsp; In this he promised to aid us, and kept
+his word.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Hamood afterward politely returned their visit, and they
+frequently went to his castle for the purpose of studying the
+many interesting scenes presented by the exercise of the very
+primitive Arab system of justice.&nbsp; Palgrave gives the
+following case as a specimen:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;One day my comrade and myself were on a visit of mere
+politeness at the castle; the customary ceremonies had been gone
+through, and business, at first interrupted by our entrance, had
+resumed its course.&nbsp; A Bedouin of the Ma&rsquo;az tribe was
+pleading his cause <a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+123</span>before Hamood, and accusing someone of having forcibly
+taken away his camel.&nbsp; The governor was seated with an air
+of intense gravity in his corner, half leaning on a cushion,
+while the Bedouin, cross-legged on the ground before him, and
+within six feet of his person, flourished in his hand a large
+reaping-hook, identically that which is here used for cutting
+grass.&nbsp; Energetically gesticulating with this graceful
+implement, he thus challenged his judge&rsquo;s attention:
+&lsquo;You, Hamood, do you hear?&rsquo; (stretching out at the
+same time the hook toward the governor, so as almost to reach his
+body, as though he meant to rip him open); &lsquo;he has taken
+from me my camel; have you called God to mind?&rsquo; (again
+putting his weapon close to the unflinching magistrate).&nbsp;
+&lsquo;The camel is my camel; do you hear?&rsquo; (with another
+reminder from the reaping-hook); &lsquo;he is mine, by
+God&rsquo;s award, and yours too; do you hear, child?&rsquo; and
+so on, while Hamood sat without moving a muscle of face or limb,
+imperturbable and impassible till some one of the counsellors
+quieted the plaintiff with &lsquo;Remember God, child; it is of
+no consequence, you shall not be wronged.&rsquo;&nbsp; Then the
+judge called on the witnesses, men of the Djowf, to say their
+say, and on their confirmation of the Bedouin&rsquo;s statement,
+gave orders to two of his satellites to search for and bring
+before him the accused party; while he added to the
+Ma&rsquo;azee, &lsquo;All right, daddy, you shall have your own;
+put your confidence in God,&rsquo; and composedly motioned him
+back to his place.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A fortnight and more went by, and found us still in the
+Djowf, &lsquo;honored guests&rsquo; in Arab phrase, and <a
+name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>well rested
+from the bygone fatigues of the desert.&nbsp; Ghafil&rsquo;s
+dwelling was still, so to speak, our official home; but there
+were two other houses where we were still more at our ease; that
+of Dafee, the same who along with Ghafil came to meet us on our
+first arrival; and that of Salim, a respectable and, in his way,
+a literary old man, our near neighbor, and surrounded by a large
+family of fine strapping youths, all of them brought up more or
+less in the fear of Allah and in good example.&nbsp; Hither we
+used to retire when wearied of Ghafil and his like, and pass a
+quiet hour in their k&rsquo;hawah, reciting or hearing Arab
+poetry, talking over the condition of the country and its future
+prospects, discussing points of morality, or commenting on the
+ways and fashions of the day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The important question for the travellers was how they should
+get to Djebel Shomer, the great fertile oasis to the south, under
+the rule of the famous Prince Telal.&nbsp; The terrible
+<i>Nefood</i>, or sand-passes, which the Arabs themselves look
+upon with dread, must be crossed, and it was now the middle of
+summer.&nbsp; The hospitable people of the Djowf begged Palgrave
+and his friends to remain until September, and they probably
+would have been delayed for some time but for a lucky
+chance.&nbsp; The Azzam tribe of Bedouins, which had been
+attacked by Prince Telal, submitted, and a dozen of their chiefs
+arrived at the Djowf, on their way to Djebel Shomer, where they
+purposed to win Telal&rsquo;s good graces by tendering him their
+allegiance in his very capital.&nbsp; Hamood received them and
+lodged them for several days, while they rested from their past
+fatigues, and prepared <a name="page125"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 125</span>themselves for what yet lay before
+them.&nbsp; Some inhabitants of the Djowf, whose business
+required their presence at Ha&rsquo;yel, were to join the
+party.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hamood sent for us,&rdquo; Palgrave
+continues, &ldquo;and gave us notice of this expedition, and on
+our declaring that we desired to profit by it, he handed us a
+scrap of paper, addressed to Telal himself, wherein he certified
+that we had duly paid the entrance fee exacted from strangers on
+their coming within the limits of Shomer rule, and that we were
+indeed respectable individuals, worthy of all good
+treatment.&nbsp; We then, in presence of Hamood, struck our
+bargain with one of the band for a couple of camels, whose price,
+including all the services of their master as guide and companion
+for ten days of July travelling, was not extravagant either; it
+came up to just a hundred and ten piastres, equivalent to
+eighteen or nineteen shillings of English money.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Many delays occurred, and it was not till the 18th of
+July, when the figs were fully ripe&mdash;a circumstance which
+furnished the natives of Djowf with new cause of wonder at our
+rushing away, in lieu of waiting like rational beings to enjoy
+the good things of the land&mdash;that we received our final
+&lsquo;Son of Hodeirah, depart.&rsquo;&nbsp; This was intimated
+to us, not by a locust, but by a creature almost as queer,
+namely, our new conductor, a half-cracked Arab, neither peasant
+nor Bedouin, but something anomalous between the two, hight
+Djedey&rsquo;, and a native of the outskirts of Djebel Shomer,
+who darkened our door in the forenoon, and warned us to make our
+final packing up, and get ready for starting the same day.</p>
+<p><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+126</span>&ldquo;When once clear of the houses and gardens,
+Djedey&rsquo; led us by a road skirting the southern side of the
+valley, till we arrived, before sunset, at the other, or eastern,
+extremity of the town.&nbsp; Here was the rendezvous agreed on by
+our companions; but they did not appear, and reason good, for
+they had right to a supper more under Hamood&rsquo;s roof, and
+were loath to lose it.&nbsp; So we halted and alighted
+alone.&nbsp; The chief of this quarter, which is above two miles
+distant from the castle, invited us to supper, and thence we
+returned to our baggage, there to sleep.&nbsp; To pass a
+summer&rsquo;s night in the open air on a soft sand bed implies
+no great privation in these countries, nor is anyone looked on as
+a hero for so doing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Early next morning, while Venus yet shone like a drop
+of melted silver on the slaty blue, three of our party arrived
+and announced that the rest of our companions would soon come
+up.&nbsp; Encouraged by the news, we determined to march on
+without further tarrying, and ere sunrise we climbed the steep
+ascent of the southerly bank, whence we had a magnificent view of
+the whole length of the Djowf, its castle and towers, and groves
+and gardens, in the ruddy light of morning, and beyond the drear
+northern deserts stretching far away.&nbsp; We then dipped down
+the other side of the bordering hill, not again to see the Djowf
+till&mdash;who knows when?&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+127</span>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Crossing the Nefood</span>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Our</span> way was now to the
+southeast, across a large plain varied with sand-mounds and
+covered with the ghada-bush, already described, so that our
+camels were much more inclined to crop pasture than to do their
+business in journeying ahead.&nbsp; About noon we halted near a
+large tuft of this shrub, at least ten feet high.&nbsp; We
+constructed a sort of cabin with boughs broken off the
+neighboring plants and suitably arranged shedwise, and thus
+passed the noon hours of intolerable heat till the whole band
+came in sight.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They were barbarous, nay, almost savage, fellows, like
+most Sherarat, whether chiefs or people; but they had been
+somewhat awed by the grandeurs of Hamood, and yet more so by the
+prospect of coming so soon before the terrible majesty of Telal
+himself.&nbsp; All were duly armed, and had put on their best
+suits of apparel, an equipment worthy of a scarecrow or of an
+Irishman at a wake.&nbsp; Tattered red overalls; cloaks with more
+patches than original substance, or, worse yet, which opened
+large mouths to cry for patching, but had not got it; little
+broken tobacco pipes, and no trousers soever (by the way, all
+genuine Arabs are <i>sans-culottes</i>); faces meagre <a
+name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>with
+habitual hunger, and black with dirt and weather
+stains&mdash;such were the high-born chiefs of Azzam, on their
+way to the king&rsquo;s levee.&nbsp; Along with them were two
+Bedouins of the Shomer tribe, a degree better in guise and person
+than the Sherarat; and lastly, three men of Djowf, who looked
+almost like gentlemen among such ragamuffins.&nbsp; As to my
+comrade and myself, I trust that the reader will charitably
+suppose us the exquisites of the party.&nbsp; So we rode on
+together.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Next morning, a little after sunrise, we arrived at a
+white calcareous valley, girt round with low hills of marl and
+sand.&nbsp; Here was the famous Be&rsquo;er Shekeek, or
+&lsquo;well of Shekeek,&rsquo; whence we were to fill our
+water-skins, and that thoroughly, since no other source lay
+before us for four days&rsquo; march amid the sand passes, up to
+the very verge of Djebel Shomer.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Daughters of the Great Desert, to use an Arab phrase,
+the &lsquo;Nefood,&rsquo; or sand-passes, bear but too strong a
+family resemblance to their unamiable mother.&nbsp; What has been
+said elsewhere about their origin, their extent, their bearings,
+and their connection with the Dhana, or main sand-waste of the
+south, may exempt me from here entering on a minute enarration of
+all their geographical details; let it suffice for the present
+that they are offshoots&mdash;inlets, one might not unsuitably
+call them&mdash;of the great ocean of sand that covers about
+one-third of the peninsula, into whose central and comparatively
+fertile plateau they make deep inroads, nay, in some places
+almost intersect it.&nbsp; Their general character, of which <a
+name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>the
+following pages will, I trust, give a tolerably correct idea, is
+also that of Dahna, or &lsquo;red desert,&rsquo; itself.&nbsp;
+The Arabs, always prone to localize rather than generalize, count
+these sand-streams by scores, but they may all be referred to
+four principal courses, and he who would traverse the centre must
+necessarily cross two of them, perhaps even three, as we did.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p129b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Captain Burton as a Pilgrim"
+title=
+"Captain Burton as a Pilgrim"
+src="images/p129s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;The general type of Arabia is that of a central
+table-land, surrounded by a desert ring, sandy to the south,
+west, and east, and stony to the north.&nbsp; This outlying
+circle is in its turn girt by a line of mountains, low and
+sterile for the most, but attaining in Yemen and Oman
+considerable height, breadth, and fertility, while beyond these a
+narrow rim of coast is bordered by the sea.&nbsp; The surface of
+the midmost table-land equals somewhat less than one-half of the
+entire peninsula, and its special demarcations are much affected,
+nay, often absolutely fixed, by the windings and in-runnings of
+the Nefood.&nbsp; If to these central highlands, or Nedjed,
+taking that word in its wider sense, we add the Djowf, the
+Ta&rsquo;yif, Djebel &rsquo;Aaseer, Yemen, Oman, and Hasa, in
+short, whatever spots of fertility belong to the outer circles,
+we shall find that Arabia contains about two-thirds of
+cultivated, or at least of cultivable, land, with a remaining
+third of irreclaimable desert, chiefly to the south.&nbsp; In
+most other directions the great blank spaces often left in maps
+of this country are quite as frequently indications of
+non-information as of real non-inhabitation.&nbsp; However, we
+have just now a strip, though fortunately only a strip, of pure,
+unmitigated desert before us, after which better lands await us;
+and in <a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+130</span>this hope let us take courage and boldly enter the
+Nefood.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Much had we heard of them from Bedouins and countrymen,
+so that we had made up our minds to something very terrible and
+very impracticable.&nbsp; But the reality, especially in these
+dog days, proved worse than aught heard or imagined.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We were now traversing an immense ocean of loose
+reddish sand, unlimited to the eye, and heaped up in enormous
+ridges, running parallel to each other from north to south,
+undulation after undulation, each swell two or three hundred feet
+in average height, with slant sides and rounded crests furrowed
+in every direction by the capricious gales of the desert.&nbsp;
+In the depths between the traveller finds himself as it were
+imprisoned in a suffocating sand-pit, hemmed in by burning walls
+on every side; while at other times, while laboring up the slope,
+he overlooks what seems a vast sea of fire, swelling under a
+heavy monsoon wind, and ruffled by a cross blast into little
+red-hot waves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Palgrave devotes several pages to his journey across the
+Nefood, bearing out in his general description its character, as
+above.</p>
+<p>Lady Anne Blunt, who with her husband and native followers
+crossed the Nefood sixteen years later, however, takes issue with
+Mr. Palgrave as to its character, as will be found in Chapter
+XVII., largely devoted to her travels in Arabia.</p>
+<p>Arriving at the eastern edge of the Nefood Palgrave
+continues:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The morning broke on us still toiling amid the <a
+name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+131</span>sands.&nbsp; By daylight we saw our straggling
+companions like black specks here and there, one far ahead on a
+yet vigorous dromedary, another in the rear dismounted, and
+urging his fallen beast to rise by plunging a knife a good inch
+deep into its haunches, a third lagging in the extreme
+distance.&nbsp; Everyone for himself and God for us all!&mdash;so
+we quickened our pace, looking anxiously before us for the hills
+of Djobbah, which could not now be distant.&nbsp; At noon we came
+in sight of them all at once, close on our right, wild and
+fantastic cliffs, rising sheer on the margin of the sand
+sea.&nbsp; We coasted them awhile, till at a turn the whole plain
+of Djobbah and its landscape opened on our view.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here we had before us a cluster of black granite rock,
+streaked with red, and about seven hundred feet, at a rough
+guess, in height; beyond them a large barren plain, partly white
+and encrusted with salt, partly green with tillage, and studded
+with palm-groves, amongst which we could discern, not far off,
+the village of Djobbah, much resembling that of Djowf in
+arrangement and general appearance, only smaller, and without
+castle or tower.&nbsp; Beyond the valley glistened a second line
+of sand-hills, but less wild and desolate-looking than those
+behind us, and far in the distance the main range of Djebel
+Shomer, a long purple sierra of most picturesque outline.&nbsp;
+Had we there and then mounted, as we afterward did, the heights
+on our right, we should have also seen in the extreme southwest a
+green patch near the horizon, where cluster the palm plantations
+of Teymah, a place famed in Arab history, and by <a
+name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>some
+supposed identical with the Teman of Holy Writ.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But for the moment a drop of fresh water and a shelter
+from the July sun was much more in our thoughts than all the
+Teymahs or Temans that ever existed.&nbsp; My camel, too,
+was&mdash;not at the end of his wits, for he never had
+any&mdash;but of his legs, and hardly capable of advance, while I
+was myself too tired to urge him on vigorously, and we took a
+fair hour to cross a narrow white strip of mingled salt and sand
+that yet intervened between us and the village.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Without its garden walls was pitched the very identical
+tent of our noble guide, and here his wife and family were
+anxiously awaiting their lord.&nbsp; Djedey&rsquo; invited
+us&mdash;indeed he could not conformably with Shomer customs do
+less&mdash;to partake of his board and lodging, and we had no
+better course than to accept of both.&nbsp; So we let our camels
+fling themselves out like dead or dying alongside of the
+tabernacle, and entered to drink water mixed with sour
+milk.&rdquo;&nbsp; Here the caravan rested for a day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About sunrise on the 25th of July we left Djobbah,
+crossed the valley to the southeast, and entered once more on a
+sandy desert, but a desert, as I have before hinted, of a milder
+and less inhospitable character than the dreary Nefood of two
+days back.&nbsp; Here the sand is thickly sprinkled with shrubs
+and not altogether devoid of herbs and grass; while the
+undulations of the surface, running invariably from north to
+south, according to the general rule of that phenomenon, are much
+less deeply traced, though never wholly absent.&nbsp; <a
+name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>We paced on
+all day; at nightfall we found ourselves on the edge of a vast
+funnel-like depression, where the sand recedes on all sides to
+leave bare the chalky bottom-strata below; here lights glimmering
+amid Bedouin tents in the depths of the valley invited us to try
+our chance of a preliminary supper before the repose of the
+night.&nbsp; We had, however, much ado to descend the cavity, so
+steep was the sandy slope; while its circular form and spiral
+marking reminded me of Edgar Poe&rsquo;s imaginative
+&lsquo;Maelstrom.&rsquo;&nbsp; The Arabs to whom the watch-fires
+belonged were shepherds of the numerous Shomer tribe, whence the
+district, plain and mountain, takes its name.&nbsp; They welcomed
+us to a share of their supper; and a good dish of rice, instead
+of insipid samh or pasty, augured a certain approach to
+civilization.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At break of day we resumed our march, and met with
+camels and camel-drivers in abundance, besides a few sheep and
+goats.&nbsp; Before noon we had got clear of the sandy patch, and
+entered in its stead on a firm gravelly soil.&nbsp; Here we
+enjoyed an hour of midday halt and shade in a natural cavern,
+hollowed out in a high granite rock, itself an advanced guard of
+the main body of Djebel Shomer.&nbsp; This mountain range now
+rose before us, wholly unlike any other that I had ever seen; a
+huge mass of crag and stone, piled up in fantastic disorder, with
+green valleys and habitations intervening.&nbsp; The sun had not
+yet set when we reached the pretty village of Kenah, amid groves
+and waters&mdash;no more, however, running streams like those of
+Djowf, but an artificial irrigation by means of wells and
+buckets.&nbsp; At some <a name="page134"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 134</span>distance from the houses stood a
+cluster of three or four large overshadowing trees, objects of
+peasant veneration here, as once in Palestine.&nbsp; The welcome
+of the inhabitants, when we dismounted at their doors, was hearty
+and hospitable, nay, even polite and considerate; and a good
+meal, with a dish of fresh grapes for dessert, was soon set
+before us in the veranda of a pleasant little house, much
+reminding me of an English farm-cottage, whither the good man of
+the dwelling had invited us for the evening.&nbsp; All expressed
+great desire to profit by our medical skill; and on our reply
+that we could not conveniently open shop except at the capital,
+Ha&rsquo;yel, several announced their resolution to visit us
+there; and subsequently kept their word, though at the cost of
+about twenty-four miles of journey.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We rose very early.&nbsp; Our path, well tracked and
+trodden, now lay between ridges of precipitous rock, rising
+abruptly from a level and grassy plain; sometimes the road was
+sunk in deep gorges, sometimes it opened out on wider spaces,
+where trees and villages appeared, while the number of wayfarers,
+on foot or mounted, single or in bands, still increased as we
+drew nearer to the capital.&nbsp; There was an air of newness and
+security about the dwellings and plantations hardly to be found
+nowadays in any other part of Arabia, Oman alone excepted.&nbsp;
+I may add also the great frequency of young trees and ground
+newly enclosed, a cheerful sight, yet further enhanced by the
+total absence of ruins, so common in the East; hence the general
+effect produced by Djebel Shomer, when contrasted with most other
+<a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+135</span>provinces or kingdoms around, near and far, is that of
+a newly coined piece, in all its sharpness and shine, amid a
+dingy heap of defaced currency.&nbsp; It is a fresh creation, and
+shows what Arabia might be under better rule than it enjoys for
+the most part: an inference rendered the more conclusive by the
+fact that in natural and unaided fertility Djebel Shomer is
+perhaps the least favored district in the entire central
+peninsula.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We were here close under the backbone of Djebel Shomer,
+whose reddish crags rose in the strangest forms on our right and
+left, while a narrow cleft down to the plain-level below gave
+opening to the capital.&nbsp; Very hard to bring an army through
+this against the will of the inhabitants thought I; fifty
+resolute men could, in fact, hold the pass against thousands; nor
+is there any other approach to Ha&rsquo;yel from the northern
+direction.&nbsp; The town is situated near the very centre of the
+mountains; it was as yet entirely concealed from our view by the
+windings of the road amid huge piles of rock.&nbsp; Meanwhile
+from Djobbah to Ha&rsquo;yel the whole plain gradually rises,
+running up between the sierras, whose course from northeast to
+southwest crosses two-thirds of the upper peninsula, and forms
+the outwork of the central high country.&nbsp; Hence the name of
+Nedjed, literally &lsquo;highland,&rsquo; in contradistinction to
+the coast and the outlying provinces of lesser elevation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The sun was yet two hours&rsquo; distance above the
+western horizon, when we threaded the narrow and winding defile,
+till we arrived at its farther end.&nbsp; <a
+name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>Here we
+found ourselves on the verge of a large plain, many miles in
+length and breadth, and girt on every side by a high mountain
+rampart, while right in front of us, at scarce a quarter of an
+hour&rsquo;s march, lay the town of Ha&rsquo;yel, surrounded by
+fortifications of about twenty feet in height, with bastion
+towers, some round, some square, and large folding gates at
+intervals; it offered the same show of freshness, and even of
+something like irregular elegance, that had before struck us in
+the villages on our way.&nbsp; This, however, was a full-grown
+town, and its area might readily hold three hundred thousand
+inhabitants or more, were its streets and houses close packed
+like those of Brussels or Paris.&nbsp; But the number of citizens
+does not, in fact, exceed twenty or twenty-two thousand, thanks
+to the many large gardens, open spaces, and even plantations,
+included within the outer walls, while the immense palace of the
+monarch alone, with its pleasure-grounds annexed, occupies about
+one-tenth of the entire city.&nbsp; Our attention was attracted
+by a lofty tower, some seventy feet in height, of recent
+construction and oval form, belonging to the royal
+residence.&nbsp; The plain all around the town is studded with
+isolated houses and gardens, the property of wealthy citizens, or
+of members of the kingly family, and on the far-off skirts of the
+plain appear the groves belonging to Kafar, &rsquo;Adwah, and
+other villages, placed at the openings of the mountain gorges
+that conduct to the capital.&nbsp; The town walls and buildings
+shone yellow in the evening sun, and the whole prospect was one
+of thriving security, delightful to view, though wanting in the
+<a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>peculiar
+luxuriance of vegetation offered by the valley of Djowf.&nbsp; A
+few Bedouin tents lay clustered close by the ramparts, and the
+great number of horsemen, footmen, camels, asses, peasants,
+townsmen, boys, women, and other like, all passing to and fro on
+their various avocations, gave cheerfulness and animation to the
+scene.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We crossed the plain and made for the town gate,
+opposite the castle; next, with no little difficulty, prevailed
+on our camels to pace the high-walled street, and at last arrived
+at the open space in front of the palace.&nbsp; It was yet an
+hour before sunset, or rather more; the business of the day was
+over in Ha&rsquo;yel, and the outer courtyard where we now stood
+was crowded with loiterers of all shapes and sizes.&nbsp; We made
+our camels kneel down close by the palace gate, alongside of some
+forty or fifty others, and then stepped back to repose our very
+weary limbs on a stone bench opposite the portal, and awaited
+what might next occur.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+138</span>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Life in Ha&rsquo;yel</span>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">At</span> our first appearance a
+slight stir takes place.&nbsp; The customary salutations are
+given and returned by those nearest at hand; and a small knot of
+inquisitive idlers, come up to see what and whence we are, soon
+thickens into a dense circle.&nbsp; Many questions are asked,
+first of our conductor, Djedey&rsquo;, and next of ourselves; our
+answers are tolerably laconic.&nbsp; Meanwhile a thin,
+middle-sized individual, whose countenance bears the type of
+smiling urbanity and precise etiquette, befitting his office at
+court, approaches us.&nbsp; His neat and simple dress, the long
+silver-circled staff in his hand, his respectful salutation, his
+politely important manner, all denote him one of the palace
+retinue.&nbsp; It is Seyf, the court chamberlain, whose special
+duty is the reception and presentation of strangers.&nbsp; We
+rise to receive him, and are greeted with a decorous &lsquo;Peace
+be with you, brothers,&rsquo; in the fulness of every inflection
+and accent that the most scrupulous grammarian could
+desire.&nbsp; We return an equally Priscianic salutation.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Whence have you come?&rsquo; is the first question.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;May good attend you!&rsquo;&nbsp; Of course we declare
+ourselves physicians from Syria, for our bulkier wares had <a
+name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>been
+disposed of in the Djowf, and we were now resolved to depend on
+medical practice alone.&nbsp; &lsquo;And what do you desire here
+in our town? may God grant you success!&rsquo; says Seyf.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;We desire the favor of God most high, and, secondly, that
+of Telal,&rsquo; is our answer, conforming our style to the
+correctest formulas of the country, which we had already begun to
+pick up.&nbsp; Whereupon Seyf, looking very sweet the while,
+begins, as in duty bound, a little encomium on his master&rsquo;s
+generosity and other excellent qualities, and assures us that we
+have exactly reached right quarters.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But alas! while my comrade and myself were exchanging
+side-glances of mutual felicitation at such fair beginnings,
+Nemesis suddenly awoke to claim her due, and the serenity of our
+horizon was at once overcast by an unexpected and most unwelcome
+cloud.&nbsp; My readers are doubtless already aware that nothing
+was of higher importance for us than the most absolute incognito,
+above all in whatever regarded European origin and
+character.&nbsp; In fact, once known for Europeans, all intimate
+access and sincerity of intercourse with the people of the land
+would have been irretrievably lost, and our onward progress to
+Nedjed rendered totally impossible.&nbsp; These were the very
+least inconveniences that could follow such a detection; others
+much more disagreeable might also be well apprehended.&nbsp; Now
+thus far nothing had occurred capable of exciting serious
+suspicion; no one had recognized us, or pretended to
+recognize.&nbsp; We, too, on our part, had thought that Gaza,
+Ma&rsquo;an, and perhaps the Djowf, were the only localities <a
+name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>where this
+kind of recognition had to be feared.&nbsp; But we had reckoned
+without our host; the first real danger was reserved for
+Ha&rsquo;yel, within the very limits of Nedjed, and with all the
+desert-belt between us and our old acquaintances.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For while Seyf was running through the preliminaries of
+his politeness, I saw to my horror, amid the circle of
+bystanders, a figure, a face well known to me scarce six months
+before in Damascus, and well known to many others also, now
+merchant, now trader, now post-contractor, shrewd, enterprising,
+and active, though nigh fifty years of age, and intimate with
+many Europeans of considerable standing in Syria and
+Bagdad&mdash;one, in short, accustomed to all kinds of men, and
+not to be easily imposed on by any.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;While I involuntarily stared dismay on my friend, and
+yet doubted if it could possibly be he, all incertitude was
+dispelled by his cheerful salutation, in the confidential tone of
+an old acquaintance, followed by wondering inquiries as to what
+wind had blown me hither, and what I meant to do here in
+Ha&rsquo;yel.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wishing him most heartily somewhere else, I had nothing
+for it but to &lsquo;fix a vacant stare,&rsquo; to give a formal
+return of greeting, and then silence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But misfortunes never come single.&nbsp; While I was
+thus on my defensive against so dangerous an antagonist in the
+person of my free-and-easy friend, lo! a tall, sinister-featured
+individual comes up, clad in the dress of an inhabitant of
+Kaseem, and abruptly breaks in with, &lsquo;And I too have seen
+him <a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>at
+Damascus,&rsquo; naming at the same time the place and date of
+the meeting, and specifying exactly the circumstances most
+calculated to set me down for a genuine European.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Had he really met me as he said?&nbsp; I cannot
+precisely say; the place he mentioned was one whither men,
+half-spies, half-travellers, and whole intriguers from the
+interior districts, nay, even from Nedjed itself, not
+unfrequently resort; and, as I myself was conscious of having
+paid more than one visit there, my officious interlocutor might
+very possibly have been one of those present on some such
+occasion.&nbsp; So that although I did not now recognize him in
+particular, there was a strong intrinsic probability in favor of
+his ill-timed veracity; and his thus coming in to support the
+first witness in his assertions rendered my predicament, already
+unsafe, yet worse.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But ere I could frame an answer or resolve what course
+to hold, up came a third, who, by overshooting the mark, put the
+game into our hands.&nbsp; He too salaams me as an old friend,
+and then, turning to those around, now worked up to a most
+extraordinary pitch of amazed curiosity, says, &lsquo;And I also
+know him perfectly well; I have often met him at Cairo, where he
+lives in great wealth in a large house near the
+Kasr-el-&rsquo;Eynee; his name is &rsquo;Abd-es-Saleeb; he is
+married, and has a very beautiful daughter, who rides an
+expensive horse,&rsquo; etc.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here at last was a pure invention or mistake (for I
+know not which it was) that admitted of a flat denial.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Aslahek Allah,&rsquo; &lsquo;May Heaven set you
+right,&rsquo; <a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+142</span>said I; &lsquo;never did I live at Cairo, nor have I
+the blessing of any horse-riding young ladies for
+daughters.&rsquo;&nbsp; Then, looking very hard at my second
+detector, toward whom I had all the right of doubt, &lsquo;I do
+not remember having ever seen you; think well as to what you say;
+many a man besides myself has a reddish beard and straw-colored
+mustaches,&rsquo; taking pains, however, not to seem particularly
+&lsquo;careful to answer him in this matter,&rsquo; but as if
+merely questioning the precise identity.&nbsp; But for the first
+of the trio I knew not what to do or to reply, so I continued to
+look at him with a killing air of inquisitive stupidity, as
+though not fully understanding his meaning.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But Seyf, though himself at first somewhat staggered by
+this sudden downpour of recognition, was now reassured by the
+discomfiture of the third witness, and came to the convenient
+conclusion that the two others were no better worthy of
+credit.&nbsp; &lsquo;Never mind them,&rsquo; exclaimed he,
+addressing himself to us, &lsquo;they are talkative liars, mere
+gossipers; let them alone, they do not deserve attention; come
+along with me to the k&rsquo;hawah in the palace, and rest
+yourselves.&rsquo;&nbsp; Then turning to my poor Damascene
+friend, whose only wrong was to have been overmuch in the right,
+he sharply chid him, and next the rest, and led us off, most glad
+to follow the leader, through the narrow and dark portal into the
+royal residence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here we remained whilst coffee was, as wont, prepared
+and served.&nbsp; Seyf, who had left us awhile, now came back to
+say that Telal would soon return <a name="page143"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 143</span>from his afternoon walk in a garden
+where he had been taking the air, and that if we would pass into
+the outer court we should then and there have the opportunity of
+paying him our introductory respects.&nbsp; He added that we
+should afterward find our supper ready, and be provided also with
+good lodgings for the night; finally, that the k&rsquo;hawah and
+what it contained were always at our disposition so long as we
+should honor Ha&rsquo;yel by our presence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We rose accordingly and returned with Seyf to the
+outside area.&nbsp; It was fuller than ever, on account of the
+expected appearance of the monarch.&nbsp; A few minutes later we
+saw a crowd approach from the upper extremity of the place,
+namely, that toward the market.&nbsp; When the new-comers drew
+near, we saw them to be almost exclusively armed men, with some
+of the more important-looking citizens, but all on foot.&nbsp; In
+the midst of this circle, though detached from those around them,
+slowly advanced three personages, whose dress and deportment,
+together with the respectful distance observed by the rest,
+announced superior rank.&nbsp; &lsquo;Here comes Telal,&rsquo;
+said Seyf, in an undertone.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The midmost figure was in fact that of the prince
+himself.&nbsp; Short of stature, broad-shouldered, and strongly
+built, of a very dusky complexion, with long black hair, dark and
+piercing eyes, and a countenance rather severe than open, Telal
+might readily be supposed above forty years in age, though he is
+in fact thirty-seven or thirty-eight at most.&nbsp; His step was
+measured, his demeanor grave and somewhat haughty.&nbsp; His
+dress, a long robe of cashmere shawl, covered <a
+name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>the white
+Arab shirt, and over all he wore a delicately worked cloak of
+camel&rsquo;s-hair from Oman, a great rarity, and highly valued
+in this part of Arabia.&nbsp; His head was adorned by a broidered
+handkerchief, in which silk and gold thread had not been spared,
+and girt by a broad band of camel&rsquo;s-hair entwined with red
+silk, the manufacture of Meshid &rsquo;Alee.&nbsp; A gold-mounted
+sword hung by his side, and his dress was perfumed with musk, in
+a degree better adapted to Arab than to European nostrils.&nbsp;
+His glance never rested for a moment; sometimes it turned on his
+nearer companions, sometimes on the crowd; I have seldom seen so
+truly an &lsquo;eagle eye,&rsquo; in rapidity and in
+brilliancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By his side walked a tall, thin individual, clad in
+garments of somewhat less costly material, but of gayer colors
+and embroidery than those of the king himself.&nbsp; His face
+announced unusual intelligence and courtly politeness; his sword
+was not, however, adorned with gold, the exclusive privilege of
+the royal family, but with silver only.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This was Zamil, the treasurer and prime
+minister&mdash;sole minister, indeed, of the autocrat.&nbsp;
+Raised from beggary by Abdallah, the late king, who had seen in
+the ragged orphan signs of rare capacity, he continued to merit
+the uninterrupted favor of his patron, and after his death, had
+become equally, or yet more, dear to Telal, who raised him from
+post to post, till he at last occupied the highest position in
+the kingdom after the monarch himself.&nbsp; Of the demurely
+smiling Abd-el-Mahsin, the second companion of the king&rsquo;s
+evening walk, I will say nothing for the <a
+name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 145</span>moment; we
+shall have him before long for a very intimate acquaintance and a
+steady friend.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everyone stood up as Telal drew nigh.&nbsp; Seyf gave
+us a sign to follow him, made way through the crowd, and saluted
+his sovereign with the authorized formula of &lsquo;Peace be with
+you, O the Protected of God!&rsquo;&nbsp; Telal at once cast on
+us a penetrating glance, and addressed a question in a low voice
+to Seyf, whose answer was in the same tone.&nbsp; The prince then
+looked again toward us, but with a friendlier expression of
+face.&nbsp; We approached and touched his open hand, repeating
+the same salutation as that used by Seyf.&nbsp; No bow,
+hand-kissing, or other ceremony is customary on these
+occasions.&nbsp; Telal returned our greeting, and then, without a
+word more to us, whispered a moment to Seyf, and passed on
+through the palace gate.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;He will give you a private audience
+to-morrow,&rsquo; said Seyf, &lsquo;and I will take care that you
+have notice of it in due time; meanwhile come to
+supper.&rsquo;&nbsp; The sun had already set when we re-entered
+the palace.&nbsp; This time, after passing the arsenal, we turned
+aside into a large square court, distinct from the former, and
+surrounded by an open veranda, spread with mats.&nbsp; Two large
+ostriches, presents offered to Telal by some chiefs of the
+Solibah tribe, strutted about the enclosure, and afforded much
+amusement to the negro boys and scullions of the
+establishment.&nbsp; Seyf conducted us to the further side of the
+court, where we seated ourselves under the portico.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hither some black slaves immediately brought the
+supper; the &lsquo;pi&egrave;ce de r&eacute;sistance&rsquo; was,
+as usual, a <a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+146</span>huge dish of rice and boiled meat, with some thin cakes
+of unleavened bread and dates, and small onions with chopped
+gourds intermixed.&nbsp; The cookery was better than what we had
+heretofore tasted, though it would, perhaps, have hardly passed
+muster with a Vatel.&nbsp; We made a hearty meal, took coffee in
+the k&rsquo;hawah, and then returned to sit awhile and smoke our
+pipes in the open air.&nbsp; Needs not say how lovely are the
+summer evenings, how cool the breeze, how pure the sky, in these
+mountainous districts.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Palgrave gives a historical sketch of the rise of Prince Telal
+to a position of power and importance in Central Arabia, scarcely
+secondary to that of the Wahabee ruler of Nedjed.&nbsp; The
+region of Djebel Shomer was subjected to the Wahabee rule during
+the last century, and the severe discipline of the new creed was
+forced upon its inhabitants.&nbsp; But, after the taking of
+Derreyeh by Ibrahim Pasha, the people regained a partial
+independence, and a rivalry for the chieftainship ensued between
+the two noble houses of Djaaper and Beyt Alee.&nbsp; The leader
+of the former was a young man named Abdallah, of more than
+ordinary character and intelligence, wealthy and popular.&nbsp;
+But he was defeated in the struggle, and about the year 1820 was
+driven into exile.</p>
+<p>With a small band of followers he reached the Wady Sirhan
+(traversed by Palgrave on his way to the Djowf), where they were
+attacked by the Aneyzeh Bedouins, all the rest slain, and
+Abdallah left for dead on the sands.&nbsp; The Arab story is that
+the locusts came around them, scattered the sand with their wings
+and feet upon his wounds and thus stopped the <a
+name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>flow of
+blood, while a flock of partridges hung above him to screen him
+from the burning sun.&nbsp; A merchant of Damascus, passing by
+with his caravan, beheld the miracle, took the youth, bound up
+his wounds, and restored him to health by the most tender
+care.&nbsp; When he had recovered his vigor in Damascus, the
+generous merchant sent him back to Arabia.</p>
+<p>He went first to the Nedjed, entered the service of the
+Wahabee chief, rose to high military rank, and finally, by his
+own personal bravery, secured the sovereignty to Feysul, the
+present (1863) ruler.&nbsp; The latter then gave him an army to
+recover his heritage of Djebel Shomer, and about the year 1830
+his sway was secured in his native country.&nbsp; The rival clan
+of Beyt Alee was extirpated, only one child being left, whom
+Telal afterward, with a rare but politic generosity, restored to
+wealth and honors.</p>
+<p>Abdallah took every means to strengthen his power.&nbsp; He
+found it necessary, through his dependence on Feysul, to
+establish the Wahabee creed; he used the Bedouins as allies, in
+order to repress the rivalry of the nobles, and thus gained power
+at the expense of popularity.&nbsp; Many plots were formed
+against him, many attempts made to assassinate him, but they all
+failed: his lucky star attended him throughout.&nbsp; Up to this
+time he had dwelt in a quarter of the capital which the old
+chieftains and the nobility had mainly chosen for their domicile,
+and where the new monarch was surrounded by men his equals in
+birth and of even more ancient title to command.&nbsp; But now he
+added a new quarter to the town, and <a name="page148"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 148</span>there laid the foundations of a vast
+palace destined for the future abode of the king and the display
+of all his grandeur, amid streets and nobles of his own
+creation.&nbsp; The walls of the projected edifice were fast
+rising when he died, almost suddenly, in 1844 or 1845, leaving
+three sons&mdash;Telal, Meta&rsquo;ab, and Mohammed&mdash;the
+eldest scarce twenty years of age, besides his only surviving
+brother Obeyd, who could not then have been much under fifty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Telal was already highly popular,&rdquo; says Palgrave,
+&ldquo;much more so than his father, and had given early tokens
+of those superior qualities which accompanied him to the
+throne.&nbsp; All parties united to proclaim him sole heir to the
+kingdom and lawful successor to the regal power, and thus the
+rival pretensions of Obeyd, hated by many and feared by all, were
+smothered at the outset and put aside without a contest.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The young sovereign possessed, in fact, all that Arab
+ideas require to insure good government and lasting
+popularity.&nbsp; Affable toward the common people, reserved and
+haughty with the aristocracy, courageous and skilful in war, a
+lover of commerce and building in time of peace, liberal even to
+profusion, yet always careful to maintain and augment the state
+revenue, neither over-strict nor yet scandalously lax in
+religion, secret in his designs, but never known to break a
+promise once given, or violate a plighted faith; severe in
+administration, yet averse to bloodshed, he offered the very type
+of what an Arab prince should be.&nbsp; I might add, that among
+all rulers or governors, European or Asiatic, with whose <a
+name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+149</span>acquaintance I have ever chanced to be honored, I know
+few equal in the true art of government to Telal, son of
+Abdallah-ebn-Rasheed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;His first cares were directed to adorn and civilize the
+capital.&nbsp; Under his orders, enforced by personal
+superintendence, the palace commenced by his father was soon
+brought to completion.&nbsp; But he added, what probably his
+father would hardly have thought of, a long row of warehouses,
+the dependencies and property of the same palace; next he built a
+market-place consisting of about eighty shops or magazines,
+destined for public commerce and trade, and lastly constructed a
+large mosque for the official prayers of Friday.&nbsp; Round the
+palace, and in many other parts of the town, he opened streets,
+dug wells, and laid out extensive gardens, besides strengthening
+the old fortifications all round and adding new ones.&nbsp; At
+the same time he managed to secure at once the fidelity and the
+absence of his dangerous uncle by giving him charge of those
+military expeditions which best satisfied the restless energy of
+Obeyd.&nbsp; The first of these wars was directed, I know not on
+what pretext, against Kheybar.&nbsp; But as Telal intended rather
+to enforce submission than to inflict ruin, he associated with
+Obeyd in the military command his own brother Meta&rsquo;ab, to
+put a check on the ferocity of the former.&nbsp; Kheybar was
+conquered, and Telal sent thither, as governor in his name, a
+young man of Ha&rsquo;yel, prudent and gentle, whom I
+subsequently met when he was on a visit at the capital.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not long after, the inhabitants of Kaseem, weary of
+Wahabee tyranny, turned their eyes toward Telal, <a
+name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>who had
+already given a generous and inviolable asylum to the numerous
+political exiles of that district.&nbsp; Secret negotiations took
+place, and at a favorable moment the entire uplands of that
+province&mdash;after a fashion not indeed peculiar to
+Arabia&mdash;annexed themselves to the kingdom of Shomer by
+universal and unanimous suffrage.&nbsp; Telal made suitable
+apologies to the Nedjean monarch, the original sovereign of the
+annexed district; he could not resist the popular wish; it had
+been forced on him, etc.&mdash;but Western Europe is familiar
+with the style.&nbsp; Feysul felt the inopportuneness of a
+quarrel with the rapidly growing power to which he himself had
+given origin only a few years before, and, after a wry face or
+two, swallowed the pill.&nbsp; Meanwhile Telal knowing the
+necessity of a high military reputation, both at home and abroad,
+undertook in person a series of operations against Teyma&rsquo;
+and its neighborhood, and at last against the Djowf itself.&nbsp;
+Everywhere his arms were successful, and his moderation in
+victory secured the attachment of the vanquished themselves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Toward his own subjects his conduct is uniformly of a
+nature to merit their obedience and attachment, and few
+sovereigns have here met with better success.&nbsp; Once a day,
+often twice, he gives public audience, hears patiently, and
+decides in person, the minutest causes with great good
+sense.&nbsp; To the Bedouins, no insignificant portion of his
+rule, he makes up for the restraint he imposes, and the tribute
+he levies from them, by a profusion of hospitality not to be
+found elsewhere in the whole of Arabia from Akabah to Aden.&nbsp;
+His guests at the midday <a name="page151"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 151</span>and evening meal are never less than
+fifty or sixty, and I have often counted up to two hundred at a
+banquet, while presents of dress and arms are of frequent if not
+daily occurrence.&nbsp; It is hard for Europeans to estimate how
+much popularity such conduct brings an Asiatic prince.&nbsp;
+Meanwhile the townsfolk and villagers love him for the more solid
+advantages of undisturbed peace at home, of flourishing commerce,
+of extended dominion, and military glory.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To capital punishment he is decidedly adverse, and the
+severest penalty with which he has hitherto chastised political
+offences is banishment or prison.&nbsp; Indeed, even in cases of
+homicide or murder, he has been known not unfrequently to avail
+himself of the option allowed by Arab custom between a fine and
+retaliation, and to buy off the offender, by bestowing on the
+family of the deceased the allotted price of blood from his own
+private treasury, and that from a pure motive of humanity.&nbsp;
+When execution does take place, it is always by beheading; nor is
+indeed any other mode of putting to death customary in
+Arabia.&nbsp; Stripes, however, are not uncommon, though
+administered on the broad back, not on the sole of the
+foot.&nbsp; They are the common chastisement for minor offences,
+like stealing, cursing, or quarrelling; in this last case both
+parties usually come in for their share.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With his numerous retainers he is almost
+over-indulgent, and readily pardons a mistake or a negligence;
+falsehood alone he never forgives; and it is notorious that
+whoever has once lied to Telal must give up all hopes of future
+favor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 152</span>After
+describing the public audience which is daily given by this
+excellent prince, Palgrave describes the more private reception
+which was accorded to himself and his companion:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Telal, once free from the mixed crowd, pauses a moment
+till we rejoin him.&nbsp; The simple and customary salutations
+are given and returned.&nbsp; I then present him with our only
+available testimonial, the scrap written by Hamood from the
+Djowf.&nbsp; He opens it, and hands it over to Zamil, better
+skilled in reading than his master.&nbsp; Then laying aside all
+his wonted gravity, and assuming a good-humored smile, he takes
+my hand in his right and my companion&rsquo;s in his left, and
+thus walks on with us through the court, past the mosque, and
+down the market-place, while his attendants form a moving wall
+behind and on either side.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He was in his own mind thoroughly persuaded that we
+were, as we appeared, Syrians; but imagined, nor was he entirely
+in the wrong thus far, that we had other objects in view than
+mere medical practice.&nbsp; But if he was right in so much, he
+was less fortunate in the interpretation he chose to put on our
+riddle, having imagined that our real scope must be to buy horses
+for some government, of which we must be the agents; a conjecture
+which had certainly the merit of plausibility.&nbsp; However,
+Telal had, I believe, no doubt on the matter, and had already
+determined to treat us well in the horse business, and to let us
+have a good bargain, as it shortly appeared.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Accordingly he began a series of questions and
+cross-questions, all in a jocose way, but so that the <a
+name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>very drift
+of his inquiries soon allowed us to perceive what he really
+esteemed us.&nbsp; We, following our previous resolution, stuck
+to medicine, a family in want, hopes of good success under the
+royal patronage and much of the same tenor.&nbsp; But Telal was
+not so easily to be blinkered, and kept to his first
+judgment.&nbsp; Meanwhile we passed down the street, lined with
+starers at the king and us, and at last arrived at the outer door
+of a large house near the farther end of the Sook or
+market-place; it belonged to Hasan, the merchant from Meshid
+&rsquo;Alee.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Three of the retinue stationed themselves by way of
+guard at the street door, sword in hand.&nbsp; The rest entered
+with the king and ourselves; we traversed the court-yard, where
+the remainder of the armed men took position, while we went on to
+the k&rsquo;hawah.&nbsp; It was small, but well furnished and
+carpeted.&nbsp; Here Telal placed us amicably by his side in the
+highest place; his brother Mohammed and five or six others were
+admitted, and seated themselves each according to his rank, while
+Hasan, being master of the house, did the honors.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Coffee was brought and pipes lighted.&nbsp; Meantime
+Ebn-Rasheed renewed his interrogatory, skilfully throwing out
+side remarks, now on the government of Syria, now on that of
+Egypt, then on the Bedouins to the north of Djowf, or on the
+tribes of Hedjaz, or on the banks of the Euphrates, thus to gain
+light whence and to what end we had in fact come.&nbsp; Next he
+questioned us on medicine, perhaps to discover whether we had the
+right professional tone; then on horses, about which same noble
+<a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>animals
+we affected an ignorance unnatural and very unpardonable in an
+Englishman; but for which I hope afterward to make amends to my
+readers.&nbsp; All was in vain; and after a full hour our noble
+friend had only managed by his cleverness to get himself farther
+off the right track than he had been at the outset.&nbsp; He felt
+it, and determined to let matters have their own course, and to
+await the result of time.&nbsp; So he ended by assuring us of his
+entire confidence and protection, offering us, to boot, a lodging
+on the palace grounds.&nbsp; But this we declined, being desirous
+of studying the country as it was in itself, not through the
+medium of a court atmosphere; so we begged that an abode might be
+assigned us as near the market-place as possible; and this he
+promised, though evidently rather put out by our independent
+ways.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Excellent water-melons, ready peeled and cut up, with
+peaches hardly ripe, for it was the beginning of the season, were
+now brought in, and we all partook in common.&nbsp; This was the
+signal for breaking up; Telal renewed his proffers of favor and
+patronage; and we were at last reconducted to our lodgings by one
+of the royal guard.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Seyf now went in search of a permanent dwelling-place
+wherein to install us; and, before evening, succeeded in finding
+one situated in a street leading at right angles to the market,
+and at no unreasonable distance from the palace.&nbsp; Every door
+was provided with its own distinct lock; the keys here are made
+of iron, and in this respect Ha&rsquo;yel has the better of any
+other Arab town it was my chance to visit, where the <a
+name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>keys were
+invariably wooden, and thus very liable to break and get out of
+order.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The court-yard was soon thronged with visitors, some
+from the palace, others from the town.&nbsp; One had a sick
+relation, whom he begged us to come and see, another some
+personal ailment, a third had called out of mere politeness or
+curiosity; in short, men of all conditions and of all ages, but
+for the most part open and friendly in manner, so that we could
+already anticipate a very speedy acquaintance with the town and
+whatever it contained.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The nature of our occupations now led to a certain
+daily routine, though it was often agreeably diversified by
+incidental occurrences.&nbsp; Perhaps a leaf taken at random from
+my journal, now regularly kept, may serve to set before my
+readers a tolerable sample of our ordinary course of life and
+society at Ha&rsquo;yel, while it will at the same time give a
+more distinct idea of the town and people than we have yet
+supplied.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be it, then, the 10th of August, whose jotted notes I
+will put together and fill up the blanks.&nbsp; I might equally
+have taken the 9th or the 11th, they are all much the same; but
+the day I have chosen looks a little the closer written of the
+two, and for that sole reason I prefer giving it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On that day, then, in 1862, about a fortnight after our
+establishment at Ha&rsquo;yel, and when we were, in consequence,
+fully inured to our town existence, Seleem Abou
+Mahmood-el-&rsquo;Eys and Barakat-esh-Shamee, that is, my
+companion and myself, rose, not from our beds, for we had none,
+but from our <a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+156</span>roof-spread carpets, and took advantage of the silent
+hour of the first faint dawn, while the stars yet kept watch in
+the sky over the slumbering inhabitants of Shomer, to leave the
+house for a cool and undisturbed walk ere the sun should arise
+and man go forth unto his work and to his labor.&nbsp; We locked
+the outer door, and then passed into the still twilight gloom
+down the cross-street leading to the market-place, which we next
+followed up to its farther or southwestern end, where large
+folding-gates separate it from the rest of the town.&nbsp; The
+wolfish city-dogs, whose bark and bite, too, render walking the
+streets at night a rather precarious business, now tamely stalked
+away in the gloaming, while here and there a crouching camel, the
+packages yet on his back, and his sleeping driver close by,
+awaited the opening of the warehouse at whose door they had
+passed the night.&nbsp; Early though it was, the market gates
+were already unclosed, and the guardian sat wakeful in his
+niche.&nbsp; On leaving the market we had yet to go down a broad
+street of houses and gardens cheerfully intermixed, till at last
+we reached the western wall of the town, or, rather, of the new
+quarter added by &rsquo;Abdallah, where the high portal between
+round flanking towers gave us issue on the open plain, blown over
+at this hour by a light gale of life and coolness.&nbsp; To the
+west, but some four or five miles distant, rose the serrated mass
+of Djebel Shomer, throwing up its black fantastic peaks, now
+reddened by the reflected dawn, against the lead-blue sky.&nbsp;
+Northward the same chain bends round till it meets the town, and
+then stretches away for a length of ten or twelve <a
+name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 157</span>days&rsquo;
+journey, gradually losing in height on its approach to Meshid
+&rsquo;Alee and the valley of the Euphrates.&nbsp; On our south
+we have a little isolated knot of rocks, and far off the extreme
+ranges of Djebel Shomer, or &rsquo;Aja, to give it its historical
+name, intersected by the broad passes that lead on in the same
+direction to Djebel Solma.&nbsp; Behind us lies the
+capital.&nbsp; Telal&rsquo;s palace, with its high oval keep,
+houses, gardens, walls, and towers, all coming out black against
+the ruddy bars of eastern light, and behind, a huge pyramidal
+peak almost overhanging the town, and connected by lower rocks
+with the main mountain range to north and south, those stony ribs
+that protect the central heart of the kingdom.&nbsp; In the plain
+itself we can just distinguish by the doubtful twilight several
+blackish patches irregularly scattered over its face, or seen as
+though leaning upward against its craggy verge; these are the
+gardens and country houses of &rsquo;Obeyd and other chiefs,
+besides hamlets and villages, such as Kefar and &rsquo;Adwah,
+with their groves of palm and &lsquo;ithel&rsquo; (the Arab
+larch), now blended in the dusk.&nbsp; One solitary traveller on
+his camel, a troop of jackals sneaking off to their rocky cavern,
+a few dingy tents of Shomer Bedouins, such are the last details
+of the landscape.&nbsp; Far away over the southern hills beams
+the glory of Canopus, and announces a new Arab year; the
+pole-star to the north lies low over the mountain tops.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We pace the pebble-strown flat to the south till we
+leave behind us the length of the town wall, and reach the little
+cluster of rocks already mentioned.&nbsp; We scramble up to a
+sort of niche near its summit, <a name="page158"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 158</span>whence, at a height of a hundred
+feet or more, we can overlook the whole extent of the plain and
+wait the sunrise.&nbsp; Yet before the highest crags of Shomer
+are gilt with its first rays, or the long giant shadows of the
+easterly chain have crossed the level, we see groups of peasants,
+who, driving their fruit and vegetable-laden asses before them,
+issue like little bands of ants from the mountain gorges around,
+and slowly approach on the tracks converging to the
+capital.&nbsp; Horsemen from the town ride out to the gardens,
+and a long line of camels on the westerly Medina road winds up
+toward Ha&rsquo;yel.&nbsp; We wait ensconced in our rocky lookout
+and enjoy the view till the sun has risen, and the coolness of
+the night air warms rapidly into the sultry day; it is time to
+return.&nbsp; So we quit our solitary perch and descend to the
+plain, where, keeping in the shadow of the western
+fortifications, we regain the town gate and thence the
+market.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There all is now life and movement; some of the
+warehouses, filled with rice, flour, spices, or coffee, and often
+concealing in their inner recesses stores of the prohibited
+American weed, are already open; we salute the owners while we
+pass, and they return a polite and friendly greeting.&nbsp;
+Camels are unloading in the streets, and Bedouins standing by,
+looking anything but at home in the town.&nbsp; The shoemaker and
+the blacksmith, those two main props of Arab handicraft, are
+already at their work, and some gossiping bystanders are
+collected around them.&nbsp; At the corner where our cross-street
+falls into the market-place, three or four country women are <a
+name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 159</span>seated,
+with piles of melons, gourds, egg-plant fruits, and the other
+garden produce before them for sale.&nbsp; My companion falls a
+haggling with one of these village nymphs, and ends by obtaining
+a dozen &lsquo;badinjans&rsquo; and a couple of water-melons,
+each bigger than a man&rsquo;s head, for the equivalent of an
+English twopence.&nbsp; With this purchase we return home, where
+we shut and bolt the outer door, then take out of a flat basket
+what has remained from over night of our wafer-like Ha&rsquo;yel
+bread, and with this and a melon make a hasty breakfast.&nbsp; I
+say a hasty one, for although it is only half an hour after
+sunrise, repeated knocks at our portal show the arrival of
+patients and visitors: early rising being here the fashion, and
+in reason must be wherever artificial lighting is scanty.&nbsp;
+However, we do not at once open to our friends, nor will they
+take offence at the delay, but remain where they are, chatting
+together before our door till we admit them; of so little value
+is time here.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In comes a young man of good appearance, clad in the
+black cloak common to all of the middle or upper classes in
+Central Arabia; in his hand he bears a wand of the Sidr or
+lotos-wood.&nbsp; A silver-hilted sword and a glistening
+Kafee&rsquo;yah announce him to be a person of some importance,
+while his long, black ringlets, handsome features, and slightly
+olive complexion, with a tall stature and easy gait, declare him
+a native of Djebel Shomer, and townsman of Ha&rsquo;yel; it is
+&rsquo;Ojeyl, the eldest-born of a large family, and successor to
+the comfortable house and garden of his father, not long since
+deceased, in a <a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+160</span>quarter of the town some twenty minutes&rsquo; walk
+distant.&nbsp; He leads by the hand his younger brother, a
+modest-looking lad of fair complexion and slim make, but almost
+blind, and evidently out of health also.&nbsp; After passing
+through the preliminary ceremonies of introduction to Barakat, he
+approaches my recess, and standing without, salutes me with the
+greatest deference.&nbsp; Thinking him a desirable acquaintance I
+receive him very graciously, and he begs me to see what is the
+matter with his brother.&nbsp; I examine the case, finding it to
+be within the limits of my skill, and not likely to require more
+than a very simple course of treatment.&nbsp; Accordingly I make
+my bargain for the chances of recovery, and find &rsquo;Ojeyl
+docile to the terms proposed, and with little disposition, all
+things considered, to backwardness in payment.&nbsp; Arabs,
+indeed, are in general close in driving a bargain and open in
+downright giving; they will chaffer half a day about a penny,
+while they will throw away the worth of pounds on the first
+asker.&nbsp; But &rsquo;Ojeyl was one of the best specimens of
+the Ha&rsquo;yel character, and of the clan Ta&rsquo;i, renowned
+in all times for their liberal ways and high sense of
+honor.&nbsp; I next proceed to administer to my patient such
+drugs as his state requires, and he receives them with that air
+of absolute and half-religious confidence which well-educated
+Arabs show to their physician, whom they regard as possessed of
+an almost sacred and supernatural power&mdash;a feeling, by the
+way, hardly less advantageous to the patient than to the
+practitioner, and which may often contribute much to the success
+of the treatment.</p>
+<p><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+161</span>&ldquo;During the rest of my stay at Ha&rsquo;yel,
+&rsquo;Ojeyl continued to be one of my best friends, I had almost
+said disciples; our mutual visits were frequent, and always
+pleasing and hearty.&nbsp; His brother&rsquo;s cure, which
+followed in less than a fortnight, confirmed his attachment, nor
+had I reason to complain of scantiness in his retribution.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Meanwhile the court-yard has become full of
+visitors.&nbsp; Close by my door I see the intelligent and
+demurely smiling face of &rsquo;Abd-el-Mahsin, where he sits
+between two pretty and well-dressed boys; they are the two elder
+children of Telal&mdash;Bedr and Bander.&nbsp; Their guardsman, a
+negro slave with a handsome cloak and sword, is seated a little
+lower down; farther on are two townsmen, one armed, the other
+with a wand at his side.&nbsp; A rough, good-natured youth, of a
+bronzed complexion, and whose dingy clothes bespeak his
+mechanical profession, is talking with another of a dress
+somewhat different in form and coarser in material than that
+usually worn in Ha&rsquo;yel; this latter must be a peasant from
+some one of the mountain villages.&nbsp; Two Bedouins, ragged and
+uncouth, have straggled in with the rest; while a tall,
+dark-featured youth, with a gilded hilt to his sword, and more
+silk about him than a Wahabee would approve, has taken his place
+opposite to &rsquo;Abd-el-Mahsin, and is trying to draw him into
+conversation.&nbsp; But this last has asked Barakat to lend him
+one of my Arabic books to read, and is deeply engaged in its
+perusal.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Ojeyl has taken leave, and I give the next turn
+of course to &rsquo;Abd-el-Mahsin.&nbsp; He informs me that Telal
+has sent me his two sons, Bedr and Bander, that <a
+name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>I may
+examine their state of health, and see if they require
+doctoring.&nbsp; This is in truth a little stroke of policy on
+Telal&rsquo;s part, who knows equally with myself that the boys
+are perfectly well and want nothing at all.&nbsp; But he wishes
+to give us a mark of his confidence, and at the same time to help
+us in establishing our medical reputation in the town; for though
+by no means himself persuaded of the reality of our doctoral
+title, he understands the expediency of saving appearances before
+the public.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, the children are passed in review with all the
+seriousness due to a case of heart complaint or brain fever,
+while at a wink from me Barakat prepares in the kitchen a draught
+of cinnamon water, which, with sugar, named medicine for the
+occasion, pleases the young heirs of royalty and keeps up the
+farce; &rsquo;Abd-el-Mahsin expatiating all the time to the
+bystanders on the wonderful skill with which I have at once
+discovered the ailments and their cure, and the small boys
+thinking that if this be medicine they will do their best to be
+ill for it every day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Abd-el-Mahsin now commits them to the negro,
+who, however, before taking them back to the palace, has his own
+story to tell of some personal ache, for which I prescribe
+without stipulating for payment, since he belongs to the palace,
+where it is important to have the greatest number of friends
+possible, even on the back stairs.&nbsp; But &rsquo;Abd-el-Mahsin
+remains, reading, chatting, quoting poetry, and talking history,
+recent events, natural philosophy, or medicine, as the case may
+be.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Let us now see some of the other patients.&nbsp; The <a
+name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>gold-hilted
+swordsman has naturally a special claim on our attention.&nbsp;
+He is the son of Rosheyd, Telal&rsquo;s maternal uncle.&nbsp; His
+palace stands on the other side of the way, exactly opposite to
+our house; and I will say nothing more of him for the present,
+intending to pay him afterward a special visit, and thus become
+more thoroughly acquainted with the whole family.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Next let us take notice of those two townsmen who are
+conversing, or rather &lsquo;chaffing,&rsquo; together.&nbsp;
+Though both in plain apparel, and much alike in stature and
+features, there is yet much about them to distinguish the two;
+one has a civilian look, the other a military.&nbsp; He of the
+wand is no less a personage than Mohammed-el-Kadee, chief justice
+of Ha&rsquo;yel, and of course a very important individual in the
+town.&nbsp; However, his exterior is that of an elderly,
+unpretentious, little man, and one, in spite of the proverb which
+attributes gravity to judges, very fond of a joke, besides being
+a tolerable representative of what may here be called the
+moderate party, neither participating in the fanaticism of the
+Wahabee, nor yet, like the most of the indigenous chiefs, hostile
+to Mahometanism; he takes his cue from the court direction and is
+popular with all factions because belonging properly to none.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He requires some medical treatment for himself, and
+more for his son, a big, heavy lad with a swollen arm, who has
+accompanied him hither.&nbsp; Here, too, is a useful
+acquaintance, well up to all the scandal and small talk of the
+town, and willing to communicate it.&nbsp; Our visits were
+frequent, and I found his house <a name="page164"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 164</span>well stored with books, partly
+manuscript, partly printed in Egypt, and mainly on legal or
+religious subjects.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of the country folks in the villages around, like
+Mogah, Delhemee&rsquo;eh, and the rest, Mohammed-el-Kadee used to
+speak with a sort of half-contemptuous pity, much like a Parisian
+talking of Low Bretons; in fact, the difference between these
+rough and sturdy boors and the more refined inhabitants of the
+capital is, all due proportion allowed, no less remarkable here
+than in Europe itself.&nbsp; We will now let one of them come
+forward in his own behalf, and my readers shall be judges.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is accordingly a stout clown from Mogah, scantily
+dressed in working wear, and who has been occupied for the last
+half hour in tracing sundry diagrams on the ground before him
+with a thick peach-tree switch, thus to pass his time till his
+betters shall have been served.&nbsp; He now edges forward, and
+taking his seat in front of the door, calls my attention with an
+&lsquo;I say, doctor.&rsquo;&nbsp; Whereon I suggest to him that
+his bulky corporation not being formed of glass or any other
+transparent material, he has by his position entirely intercepted
+whatever little light my recess might enjoy.&nbsp; He apologizes,
+and shuffles an inch or two sideways.&nbsp; Next I inquire what
+ails him, not without some curiosity to hear the answer, so
+little does the herculean frame before me announce disease.&nbsp;
+Whereto Do&rsquo;eymis, or whatever may be his name, replies,
+&lsquo;I say, I am all made up of pain.&rsquo;&nbsp; This
+statement, like many others, appears to me rather too general to
+be exactly true.&nbsp; So I proceed <a name="page165"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 165</span>in my interrogatory: &lsquo;Does
+your head pain you?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No.&rsquo;&nbsp; (I might
+have guessed that; these fellows never feel what our
+cross-Channel friends entitle &lsquo;<i>le mal des beaux
+esprits</i>.&rsquo;)&nbsp; &lsquo;Does your back
+ache?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Your
+arms?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Your
+legs?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Your
+body?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;No.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;But,&rsquo; I
+conclude, &lsquo;if neither your head nor your body, back, arms,
+or legs pain you, how can you possibly be such a composition of
+suffering?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I am all made up of pain,
+doctor,&rsquo; replies he, manfully intrenching himself within
+his first position.&nbsp; The fact is, that there is really
+something wrong with him, but he does not know how to localize
+his sensations.&nbsp; So I push forward my inquiries, till it
+appears that our man of Mogah has a chronic rheumatism; and on
+ulterior investigation, conducted with all the skill that Barakat
+and I can jointly muster, it comes out that three or four months
+before he had an attack of the disease in its acute form,
+accompanied by high fever, since which he has never been himself
+again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This might suffice for the diagnosis, but I wish to see
+how he will find his way out of more intricate questions;
+besides, the townsmen sitting by, and equally alive to the joke
+with myself, whisper, &lsquo;Try him again.&rsquo;&nbsp; In
+consequence, I proceed with, &lsquo;What was the cause of your
+first illness?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;I say, doctor, its cause was
+God,&rsquo; replies the patient.&nbsp; &lsquo;No doubt of
+that,&rsquo; say I; &lsquo;all things are caused by God: but what
+was the particular and immediate occasion?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Doctor, its cause was God, and secondly, that I ate
+camel&rsquo;s flesh when I was cold,&rsquo; rejoins my scientific
+friend.&nbsp; &lsquo;But was there nothing else?&rsquo; I
+suggest, <a name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+166</span>not quite satisfied with the lucid explanation just
+given.&nbsp; &lsquo;Then, too, I drank camel&rsquo;s milk; but it
+was all, I say, from God, doctor,&rsquo; answers he.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I consider the case, and make up my mind
+regarding the treatment.&nbsp; Next comes the grand question of
+payment, which must be agreed on beforehand, and rendered
+conditional on success; else no fees for the doctor, not at
+Ha&rsquo;yel only, but throughout Arabia.&nbsp; I inquire what he
+will give me on recovery.&nbsp; &lsquo;Doctor,&rsquo; answers the
+peasant, &lsquo;I will give you, do you hear?&nbsp; I say, I will
+give you a camel.&rsquo;&nbsp; But I reply that I do not want
+one.&nbsp; &lsquo;I say, remember God,&rsquo; which being
+interpreted here means, &lsquo;do not be unreasonable; I will
+give you a fat camel, everyone knows my camel; if you choose, I
+will bring witnesses, I say.&rsquo;&nbsp; And while I persist in
+refusing the proffered camel, he talks of butter, meal, dates,
+and such like equivalents.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is a patient and a paymaster for you.&nbsp;
+However, all ends by his behaving reasonably enough; he follows
+my prescriptions with the ordinary docility, gets better, and
+gives me for my pains an eighteen-penny fee.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>During this residence in Ha&rsquo;yel, Palgrave made many
+friends, and soon established those relations of familiar
+intercourse which are so much easier in Moslem than in Christian
+lands&mdash;a natural result of the preservation of the old
+importance, which in the earliest Hebrew days was attached to
+&ldquo;the stranger.&rdquo;&nbsp; Palgrave&rsquo;s intimacies
+embraced many families related to Telal, and others, whose
+knowledge of Arabian history or literature made their
+acquaintance <a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+167</span>welcome.&nbsp; His own knowledge of these subjects,
+fortunately, was equal to theirs, and, from the number of his
+invitations to dinners and suppers, he seems to have been a
+welcome guest to the better classes of Ha&rsquo;yel.&nbsp; One of
+the aristocracy, by name Dohey, was his most agreeable
+acquaintance; and we quote the following pleasant account of his
+intercourse:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dohey&rsquo;s invitations were particularly welcome,
+both from the pleasantness of his dwelling-place, and from the
+varied and interesting conversation that I was sure to meet with
+there.&nbsp; This merchant, a tall and stately man of between
+fifty and sixty years of age, and whose thin features were
+lighted up by a lustre of more than ordinary intelligence, was a
+thorough Ha&rsquo;yelite of the old caste, hating Wahabees from
+the bottom of his heart, eager for information on cause and
+effect, on lands and governments, and holding commerce and social
+life for the main props if not the ends of civil and national
+organization.&nbsp; His uncle, now near eighty years old, to
+judge by conjecture in a land where registers are not much in
+use, had journeyed to India, and traded at Bombay; in token
+whereof he still wore an Indian skullcap and a cashmere
+shawl.&nbsp; The rest of the family were in keeping with the
+elder members, and seldom have I seen more dutiful children or a
+better educated household.&nbsp; My readers will naturally
+understand that by education I here imply its moral not its
+intellectual phase.&nbsp; The eldest son, himself a middle-aged
+man, would never venture into his father&rsquo;s presence without
+unbuckling his sword and leaving it in <a
+name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 168</span>the
+vestibule, nor on any account presume to sit on a level with him
+or by his side in the divan.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The divan itself was one of the prettiest I met with in
+these parts.&nbsp; It was a large square room, looking out on the
+large house-garden, and cheerfully lighted up by trellised
+windows on two sides, while the wall of the third had purposely
+been discontinued at about half its height, and the open space
+thus left between it and the roof propped by pillars, between
+which &lsquo;a fruitful vine by the sides of the house&rsquo; was
+intertwined so as to fill up the interval with a gay net-work of
+green leaves and tendrils, transparent like stained glass in the
+eastern sunbeams.&nbsp; Facing this cheerful light, the floor of
+the apartment was raised about two feet above the rest, and
+covered with gay Persian carpets, silk cushions, and the best of
+Arab furniture.&nbsp; In the lower half of the k&rsquo;hawah, and
+at its farthest angle, was the small stone coffee-stove, placed
+at a distance where its heat might not annoy the master and his
+guests.&nbsp; Many of the city nobility would here resort, and
+the talk generally turned on serious subjects, and above all on
+the parties and politics of Arabia; while Dohey would show
+himself a thorough Arab patriot, and at the same time a courteous
+and indulgent judge of foreigners, qualities seldom to be met
+with together in any notable degree, and therefore more
+welcome.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Many a pleasant hour have I passed in this half
+greenhouse, half k&rsquo;hawah, mid cheerful faces and varied
+talk, while inly commenting on the natural resources of this
+manly and vigorous people, and <a name="page169"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 169</span>straining the eye of forethought to
+discern through the misty curtain of the future by what outlet
+their now unfruitful, because solitary, good may be brought into
+fertilizing contact with that of other more advanced nations, to
+the mutual benefit of each and all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Talk went on with the ease and decorum characteristic
+of good Eastern society, without the flippancy and excitement
+which occasionally mars it in some countries, no less than
+over-silence does in others.&nbsp; To my mind the Easterns are
+generally superior in the science of conversation to the
+inhabitants of the West; perhaps from a greater necessity of
+cultivating it, as the only means of general news and intercourse
+where newspapers and pamphlets are unknown.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Or else some garden was the scene of our afternoon
+leisure, among fruit-trees and palms, by the side of a
+watercourse, whose constant supply from the well hid from view
+among thick foliage, seemed the work not of laborious art, but of
+unassisted nature.&nbsp; Here, stretched in the cool and welcome
+shade, would we for hours canvass with &rsquo;Abd-el-Mahsin, and
+others of similar pursuits, the respective merits of Arab poets
+and authors, of Omar-ebn-el-Farid or Aboo&rsquo;l &rsquo;Ola, in
+meetings that had something of the Attic, yet with just enough of
+the Arab to render them more acceptable by their Semitic
+character of grave cheerfulness and mirthful composure.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Or when the stars came out, Barakat and myself would
+stroll out of the heated air of the streets <a
+name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>and market
+to the cool open plain, and there pass an hour or two alone, or
+in conversation with what chance passer-by might steal on us,
+half-unperceived and unperceiving in the dusk, and amuse
+ourselves with his simplicity if he were a Bedouin, or with his
+shrewdness if a townsman.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thus passed our ordinary life at Ha&rsquo;yel.&nbsp;
+Many minor incidents occurred to diversify it, many of the little
+ups and downs that human intercourse never fails to furnish;
+sometimes the number of patients and the urgency of their
+attendance allowed of little leisure for aught except our
+professional duties; sometimes a day or two would pass with
+hardly any serious occupation.&nbsp; But of such incidents my
+readers have a sufficient sample in what has been already set
+down.&nbsp; Suffice to say, that from the 27th of July to the 8th
+of September we remained doctoring in the capital or in its
+immediate neighborhood.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>By this time Palgrave had obtained sufficient knowledge of the
+country, and was anxious to advance farther eastward before the
+autumn&mdash;the best season for travel&mdash;should be
+spent.&nbsp; Now, the journey across the Shomer frontier could
+only be pursued with Telal&rsquo;s cognizance, and by his good
+will.&nbsp; In fact, a passport bearing the royal signature is
+indispensable for all who desire to cross the boundary,
+especially into the Wahabee territory; without such a document in
+hand no one would venture to conduct them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Accordingly,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;we requested and
+obtained a special audience at the palace.&nbsp; Telal, of <a
+name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>whose
+good-will we had received frequent, indeed daily, proofs during
+our sojourn at Ha&rsquo;yel, proved a sincere friend&mdash;patron
+would be a juster word&mdash;to the last; exemplifying the Scotch
+proverb about the guest not only who &lsquo;will stay,&rsquo; but
+also who &lsquo;maun gang.&rsquo;&nbsp; To this end he then
+dictated to Zamil, for Telal himself is no scribe, a passport or
+general letter of safe conduct, enough to insure us good
+treatment within the limits of his rule, and even beyond.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When this was written, Telal affixed his seal, and rose
+to leave us alone with Zamil, after a parting shake of the hand,
+and wishing us a prosperous journey and speedy return.&nbsp; Yet
+with all these motives for going, I could not but feel reluctant
+to quit a pleasing town, where we certainly possessed many
+sincere friends and well-wishers, for countries in which we could
+by no means anticipate equal favor, or even equal safety.&nbsp;
+Indeed, so ominous was all that we heard about Wahabee Nedjed, so
+black did the landscape before us look, on nearer approach, that
+I almost repented of my resolution, and was considerably inclined
+to say, &lsquo;Thus far enough, and no farther.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Obeyd, Telal&rsquo;s uncle, had left
+Ha&rsquo;yel the day before on a military expedition against the
+Bedouins of the West.&nbsp; In common with all the sight-seers of
+the town, we had gone to witness his departure.&nbsp; It was a
+gay and interesting scene.&nbsp; &rsquo;Obeyd had caused his tent
+to be pitched in the plain without the northern walls, and there
+reviewed his forces.&nbsp; About one-third were on horseback, the
+rest were mounted <a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+172</span>on light and speedy camels; all had spears and
+matchlocks, to which the gentry added swords; and while they rode
+hither and thither in sham man&oelig;uvres over the parade
+ground, the whole appearance was very picturesque and tolerably
+martial.&nbsp; &rsquo;Obeyd now unfurled his own peculiar
+standard, in which the green color, distinctive of Islam, had
+been added border-wise to the white ground of the ancestral
+Nedjean banner, mentioned fourteen centuries back by
+&rsquo;Omar-ebn-Kelthoom, the poet of Taghleb, and many
+others.&nbsp; Barakat and myself mixed with the crowd of
+spectators.&nbsp; &rsquo;Obeyd saw us, and it was now several
+days since we had last met.&nbsp; Without hesitating he cantered
+up to us, and while he tendered his hand for a farewell shake, he
+said: &lsquo;I have heard that you intend going to Ri&rsquo;ad;
+there you will meet with &rsquo;Abdallah, the eldest son of
+Feysul; he is my particular friend; I should much desire to see
+you high in his good graces, and to that end I have written him a
+letter in your behalf, of which you yourselves are to be the
+bearers; you will find it in my house, where I have left it for
+you with one of my servants.&rsquo;&nbsp; He then assured us that
+if he found us still at Ha&rsquo;yel on his return, he would
+continue to befriend us in every way; but that if we journeyed
+forward to Nedjed, we should meet with a sincere friend in
+&rsquo;Abdallah, especially if we gave him the letter in
+question.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He then took his leave with a semblance of affectionate
+cordiality that made the bystanders stare; thus supporting to the
+last the profound dissimulation which he had only once belied for
+a moment.&nbsp; <a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+173</span>The letter was duly handed over to us the same
+afternoon by his head steward, whom he had left to look after the
+house and garden in his absence.&nbsp; Doubtless my readers will
+be curious to know what sort of recommendation &rsquo;Obeyd had
+provided us with.&nbsp; It was written on a small scrap of thick
+paper, about four inches each way, carefully folded up and
+secured by three seals.&nbsp; However, &lsquo;our fears
+forgetting manners,&rsquo; we thought best with Hamlet to make
+perusal of this grand commission before delivering it to its
+destination.&nbsp; So we undid the seals with precautions
+admitting of reclosing them in proper form, and read the royal
+knavery.&nbsp; I give it word for word; it ran thus: &lsquo;In
+the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate, we,
+&rsquo;Obeyd-ebn-Rasheed, salute you, O &rsquo;Abdallah, son of
+Feysul-ebn-Sa&rsquo;ood, and peace be on you, and the mercy of
+God and His blessings.&rsquo;&nbsp; (This is the invariable
+commencement of all Wahabee epistles, to the entire omission of
+the complimentary formulas used by other Orientals.)&nbsp;
+&lsquo;After which,&rsquo; so proceeded the document, &lsquo;we
+inform you that the bearers of this are one Seleem-el-&rsquo;Eys,
+and his comrade, Barakat-esh-Shamee, who give themselves out for
+having some knowledge in&rsquo;&mdash;here followed a word of
+equivocal import, capable of interpretation alike by
+&lsquo;medicine&rsquo; or &lsquo;magic,&rsquo; but generally used
+in Nedjed for the latter, which is at Ri&rsquo;ad a capital
+crime.&nbsp; &lsquo;Now may God forbid that we should hear of any
+evil having befallen you.&nbsp; We salute also your father,
+Feysul, and your brothers, and all your family, and anxiously
+await your news in answer.&nbsp; Peace be with you.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+Here followed the signet impression.</p>
+<p><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+174</span>&ldquo;A pretty recommendation, especially under the
+actual circumstances!&nbsp; However, not content with this,
+&rsquo;Obeyd found means to transmit further information
+regarding us, and all in the same tenor, to Ri&rsquo;ad, as we
+afterward discovered.&nbsp; For his letter, I need hardly say
+that it never passed from our possession, where it yet remains as
+an interesting autograph, to that of &rsquo;Abdallah; with whom
+it would inevitably have proved the one only thing wanting, as we
+shall subsequently see, to make us leave the forfeit of our lives
+in the Nedjean man-trap.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Before evening three men knocked at our door; they were
+our future guides.&nbsp; The eldest bore the name of Mubarek, and
+was a native of the suburbs of Bereydah; all three were of the
+genuine Kaseem breed, darker and lower in stature than the
+inhabitants of Ha&rsquo;yel, but not ill-looking, and extremely
+affable in their demeanor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We had soon made all necessary arrangements for our
+departure, got in a few scattered debts, packed up our
+pharmacopoeia, and nothing now remained but the pleasurable pain
+of farewells.&nbsp; They were many and mutually sincere.&nbsp;
+Meta&rsquo;ab had indeed made his a few days before, when he a
+second time left Ha&rsquo;yel for the pastures; Telal we had
+already taken leave of, but there remained his younger brother
+Mohammed to give us a hearty adieu of good augury.&nbsp; Most of
+my old acquaintance or patients, Dohey the merchant, Mohammed the
+judge, Doheym and his family, not forgetting our earliest friend
+Seyf the chamberlain, Sa&rsquo;eed, the cavalry officer, and
+others of the court, freemen and slaves, white or black (for <a
+name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>negroes
+readily follow the direction indicated by their masters, and are
+not ungrateful if kindly treated, while kept in their due
+position), and many others of whose names Homer would have made a
+catalogue and I will not, heard of our near departure and came to
+express their regrets, with hopes of future meeting and
+return.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Early next morning, before day, Mubarek and another of
+his countrymen, named Dahesh, were at our door with the
+camels.&nbsp; Some of our town friends had also come, even at
+this hour, to accompany us as far as the city gates.&nbsp; We
+mounted our beasts, and while the first sunbeams streamed level
+over the plain, passed through the southwestern portal beyond the
+market-place, the 8th of September, 1862, and left the city of
+Ha&rsquo;yel.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+176</span>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Journey to Bereydah</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Another</span> stage of our way.&nbsp;
+From Gaza to Ma&rsquo;an, from Ma&rsquo;an to the Djowf, from the
+Djowf to Ha&rsquo;yel, three such had now been gone over, not
+indeed without some fatigue or discomfort, yet at comparatively
+little personal risk, except what nature herself, not man, might
+occasion.&nbsp; For to cross the stony desert of the northern
+frontier, or the sandy Nefood in the very height of summer, could
+not be said to be entirely free from danger, where in these
+waterless wastes thirst, if nothing else, may alone, and often
+does, suffice to cause the disappearance of the over-venturous
+traveller, nay, even of many a Bedouin, no less effectually than
+a lance-thrust or a musket-ball.&nbsp; But if nature had been so
+far unkind, of man at least we had hitherto not much to complain;
+the Bedouins on the route, however rough and uncouth in their
+ways, had, with only one exception, meant us fairly well, and the
+townsmen in general had proved friendly and courteous beyond our
+expectation.&nbsp; Once within the established government limits
+of Telal, and among his subjects, we had enjoyed our share in the
+common security afforded to wayfarers and inhabitants for life
+and property, while good success had hitherto accompanied
+us.&nbsp; <a name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+177</span>&lsquo;Judge of the day by its dawn,&rsquo; say the
+Arabs; and although this proverb, like all proverbs, does not
+always hold exactly true, whether for sunshine or cloud, yet it
+has its value at times.&nbsp; And thus, whatever unfavorable
+predictions or dark forebodings our friends might hint regarding
+the inner Nedjed and its denizens, we trusted that so favorable a
+past augured somewhat better things for the future.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;From physical and material difficulties like those
+before met with, there was henceforward much less to fear.&nbsp;
+The great heats of summer were past, the cooler season had set
+in; besides, our path now lay through the elevated table-land of
+Central Arabia, whose northern rim we had already surmounted at
+our entrance on the Djebel Shomer.&nbsp; Nor did there remain any
+uncultivated or sandy track to cross comparable to the Nefood of
+Djowf between Ha&rsquo;yel and Ri&rsquo;ad; on the contrary, we
+were to expect pasture lands and culture, villages and
+habitations, cool mountain air, and a sufficiency, if not an
+abundance, of water.&nbsp; Nor were our fellow-companions now
+mere Bedouins and savages, but men from town or village life,
+members of organized society, and so far civilized beings.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When adieus, lookings back, wavings of the hand, and
+all the customary signs of farewell and good omen were over
+between our Ha&rsquo;yel friends and ourselves, we pursued our
+road by the plain which I have already described as having been
+the frequent scene of our morning walks; but instead of following
+the southwesterly path toward Kefar, whose groves and roof-tops
+now rose in a blended mass before us, <a name="page178"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 178</span>we turned eastward, and rounded,
+though at some distance, the outer wall of Ha&rsquo;yel for
+nearly half an hour, till we struck off by a southeasterly track
+across stony ground, diversified here and there by wells, each
+with a cluster of gardens and a few houses in its
+neighborhood.&nbsp; At last we reached a narrow winding pass
+among the cliffs of Djebel &rsquo;Aja&rsquo;, whose mid-loop
+encircles Ha&rsquo;yel on all sides, and here turned our heads to
+take a last far-off view of what had been our home, or the
+agreeable semblance of a home, for several weeks.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our only companions as yet were Mubarek and
+Dahesh.&nbsp; We had outstripped the rest, whose baggage and
+equipments had required a more tedious arrangement than our
+own.&nbsp; Before long they came up&mdash;a motley crew.&nbsp;
+Ten or thereabouts of the Kaseem, some from Bereydah itself,
+others from neighboring towns; two individuals, who gave
+themselves out, but with more asseveration than truth, to be
+natives of Mecca itself; three Bedouins, two of whom belonged to
+the Shomer clan, the third an &rsquo;Anezah of the north; next a
+runaway negro, conducting four horses, destined to pass the whole
+breadth of Arabia, and to be shipped off at Koweyt, on the
+Persian Gulf, for Indian sale; two merchants, one from Zulphah,
+in the province of Sedeyr, the other from Zobeyr, near Bussora;
+lastly, two women, wives of I know not exactly whom in the
+caravan, with some small children; all this making up, ourselves
+included, a band of twenty-seven or twenty-eight persons, the
+most mounted on camels, a few on horseback, and accompanied by a
+few beasts of <a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+179</span>burden alongside&mdash;such was our Canterbury
+pilgrims&rsquo; group.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thus assembled, on we went together, now amid granite
+rocks, now crossing grassy valleys, till near sunset we stopped
+under a high cliff, at the extreme southerly verge of Djebel
+&rsquo;Aja&rsquo;, or, in modern parlance, of Djebel
+Shomer.&nbsp; The mountain here extended far away to right and
+left, but in front a wide plain of full twenty miles across
+opened out before us, till bounded southward by the long bluish
+chain of Djebel Solma, whose line runs parallel to the heights we
+were now to leave, and belongs to the same formation and rocky
+mass denominated in a comprehensive way the mountains of
+Ta&rsquo;i or Shomer.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At about three in the afternoon, next day, we saw, some
+way off to our west, a troop of Bedouins coming up from the
+direction of Medina.&nbsp; While they were yet in the distance,
+and half-hidden from view by the shrubs and stunted acacias of
+the plain, we could not precisely distinguish their numbers; but
+they were evidently enough to make us desire, with Orlando,
+&lsquo;that we might be better strangers.&rsquo;&nbsp; On our
+side we mustered about fifteen matchlocks, besides a few spears
+and swords.&nbsp; The Bedouins had already perceived us, and
+continued to approach, though in the desultory and circuitous way
+which they affect when doubtful of the strength of their
+opponent; still they gained on us more than was pleasant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fourteen armed townsmen might stand for a reasonable
+match against double the number of Bedouins, and in any case we
+had certainly nothing better <a name="page180"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 180</span>to do than to put a bold face on the
+matter.&nbsp; The &rsquo;Eyoon chief, Foleyh, with two of his
+countrymen and Ghashee, carefully primed their guns, and then set
+off at full gallop to meet the advancing enemy, brandishing their
+weapons over their heads, and looking extremely fierce.&nbsp;
+Under cover of this man&oelig;uvre the rest of our band set about
+getting their arms ready, and an amusing scene ensued.&nbsp; One
+had lost his match, and was hunting for it in his housings;
+another, in his haste to ram the bullet home had it stick midway
+in the barrel, and could neither get it up nor down; the lock of
+a third was rusty and would not do duty; the women began to whine
+piteously; the two Meccans, who for economy&rsquo;s sake were
+both riding one only camel, a circumstance which caused between
+them many international squabbles, tried to make their beast
+gallop off with them, and leave the others to their fate; while
+the more courageous animal, despising such cowardly measures,
+insisted on remaining with his companions and sharing their lot;
+all was thoroughly Arab, much hubbub and little done.&nbsp; Had
+the menacing feint of the four who protected our rear proved
+insufficient, we might all have been in a very bad predicament,
+and this feeling drew every face with reverted gaze in a backward
+direction.&nbsp; But the Harb banditti, intimidated by the bold
+countenance of Foleyh and his companions, wheeled about and
+commenced a skirmishing retreat, in which a few shots, guiltless
+of bloodshed, were fired for form&rsquo;s sake on either side,
+till at last our assailants fairly disappeared in the remote
+valley.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our valiant champions now returned from <a
+name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span>pursuit,
+much elated with their success, and we journeyed on together,
+skirting the last rocky spur of Solma, close by the spot where
+Hatim Ta&rsquo;i, the well-known model, half mythic and half
+historical, of Arab hospitality and exaggerated generosity, is
+said to be buried.&nbsp; Here we crossed some low hills that form
+a sort of offshoot to the Solma mountain, and limit the valley;
+and the last rays of the setting sun gilding to our view, in a
+sandy bottom some way off, the palm-trees of Feyd.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Feyd may be taken as a tolerable sample of the villages
+met with throughout Northern or Upper Kaseem, for they all bear a
+close likeness in their main features, though various in
+size.&nbsp; Imagine a little sandy hillock of about sixty or
+seventy feet high, in the midst of a wide and dusty valley; part
+of the eminence itself and the adjoining bottom is covered by low
+earth-built houses, intermixed with groups of the feathery
+ithel.&nbsp; The grounds in the neighborhood are divided by brick
+walls into green gardens, where gourds and melons, leguminous
+plants and maize, grow alongside of an artificial irrigation from
+the wells among them; palms in plenty&mdash;they were now heavy
+laden with red-brown fruits; and a few peach or apricot trees
+complete the general lineaments.&nbsp; The outer walls are low,
+and serve more for the protection of the gardens than of the
+dwellings; here are neither towers nor trenches, nor even, at
+least in many places, any central castle or distinguishable
+residence for the chief; his habitation is of the same
+one-storied construction as those of his neighbors, only a little
+larger.&nbsp; Some of the townlets are quite recent, and date
+from <a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>the
+Shomer annexation, which gave this part of the province a degree
+of quiet and prosperity unknown under their former Wahabee
+rulers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Next morning, the 10th of September, we were all up by
+moonlight, two or three hours before dawn, and off on our road to
+the southeast.&nbsp; The whole country that we had to traverse
+for the next four days was of so uniform a character that a few
+words of description may here serve for the landscape of this
+entire stage of our journey.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Upper Kaseem is an elevated plateau or steppe, and
+forms part of a long upland belt, crossing diagonally the
+northern half of the peninsula; one extremity reaches the
+neighborhood of Zobeyr and the Euphrates, while the other extends
+downward to the vicinity of Medina.&nbsp; Its surface is in
+general covered with grass in the spring and summer seasons, and
+with shrubs and brushwood at all times, and thus affords
+excellent pasture for sheep and camels.&nbsp; Across it blows the
+fresh eastern gale, so celebrated in Arab poetry under the name
+of &lsquo;Seba Nedjin,&rsquo; or &lsquo;Zephyr of Nedjed&rsquo;
+(only it comes from precisely the opposite corner to the Greek or
+Roman Zephyr), and continually invoked by sentimental bards to
+bring them news of imaginary loves or pleasing
+reminiscences.&nbsp; No wonder; for most of these versifiers
+being themselves natives of the barren Hedjaz or the scorching
+Tehama, perhaps inhabitants of Egypt and Syria, and knowing
+little of Arabia, except what they have seen on the dreary Meccan
+pilgrim road, they naturally look back to with longing, and
+frequently record, whatever glimpses chance may have allowed them
+of <a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 183</span>the
+cooler and more fertile highlands of the centre, denominated by
+them Nedjed, in a general way, with their transient experience of
+its fresh and invigorating climate, of its courteous men and
+sprightly maidens.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But when, nor is this seldom, the sweet smell of the
+aromatic thyme-like plants that here abound mixes with the light
+morning breeze and enhances its balmy influence, then indeed can
+one excuse the raptures of an Arab Ovid or Theocritus, and
+appreciate&mdash;at least I often did&mdash;their yearnings after
+Nedjed, and all the praises they lavish on its memory.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Then said I to my companion, while the
+camels were hastening<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; To bear us down the pass between Meneefah and
+Demar,<br />
+&lsquo;Enjoy while thou canst the sweets of the meadows of
+Nedjed:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; With no such meadows and sweets shalt thou meet
+after this evening.</p>
+<p>Ah! heaven&rsquo;s blessing on the scented gales of Nedjed,<br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp; And its greensward and groves glittering from the
+spring shower,<br />
+And thy dear friends, when thy lot was cast awhile in Nedjed,<br
+/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Little hadst thou to complain of what the days
+brought thee;</p>
+<p>Months flew past, they passed and we perceived not,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; Nor when their moons were new, nor when they
+waned.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>For three days more they travelled forward over this
+undulating table-land, making from sixty to seventy miles a
+day.&nbsp; The view was extensive, but rather monotonous.&nbsp;
+There were no high mountains, no rivers, no lakes, no deep
+valleys; but a constant <a name="page184"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 184</span>repetition of stony uplands, shallow
+and sandy hollows, and villages surrounded by belts of
+palm-groves, the extent and direction of which indicated the
+subterranean water-courses.</p>
+<p>On the third evening they reached Kowarah, the most southern
+station in Telal territory&mdash;a large village, lying in a
+wooded and well-watered hollow.&nbsp; Here they still found the
+order and security which that ruler had established, and
+maintained everywhere throughout his dominions.&nbsp; Leaving the
+next morning, the 14th of September, they crossed a few low
+hills, came to a sudden dip in the general level of the country,
+and then the extent of Southern Kaseem burst suddenly upon their
+view.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p184b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"The village of El Suwayrkiyah"
+title=
+"The village of El Suwayrkiyah"
+src="images/p184s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, for the first time,&rdquo; says Palgrave,
+&ldquo;we could in some measure appreciate the strength of the
+Wahabee in his mastery over such a land.&nbsp; Before us to the
+utmost horizon stretched an immense plain, studded with towns and
+villages, towers and groves, all steeped in the dazzling noon,
+and announcing everywhere life, opulence, and activity.&nbsp; The
+average breadth of this populous district is about sixty miles,
+its length twice as much, or more; it lies full two hundred feet
+below the level of the uplands, which here break off like a
+wall.&nbsp; Fifty or more good-sized villages and four or five
+large towns form the commercial and agricultural centres of the
+province, and its surface is moreover thickly strewn with smaller
+hamlets, isolated wells, and gardens, and traversed by a net-work
+of tracks in every direction.&nbsp; Here begin, and hence extend
+to Djebel Toweyk itself, the series of high watch-towers that
+afford the <a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+185</span>inhabitants a means, denied otherwise by their level
+flats, of discerning from afar the approach of foray or invasion,
+and thus preparing for resistance.&nbsp; For while no part of
+Central Arabia has an older or a better established title to
+civilization or wealth, no part also has been the starting-point
+and theatre of so many wars, or witnessed the gathering of such
+numerous armies.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We halted for a moment on the verge of the uplands to
+enjoy the magnificent prospect before us.&nbsp; Below lay the
+wide plain; at a few miles&rsquo; distance we saw the thick
+palm-groves of &rsquo;Eyoon, and what little of its towers and
+citadel the dense foliage permitted to the eye.&nbsp; Far off on
+our right, that is, to the west, a large dark patch marked the
+tillage and plantations which girdle the town of Rass; other
+villages and hamlets, too, were thickly scattered over the
+landscape.&nbsp; All along the ridge where we stood, and visible
+at various distances down the level, rose the tall, circular
+watch-towers of Kaseem.&nbsp; But immediately before us stood a
+more remarkable monument, one that fixed the attention and wonder
+even of our Arab companions themselves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For hardly had we descended the narrow path where it
+winds from ledge to ledge down to the bottom, when we saw before
+us several huge stones, like enormous bowlders, placed endways
+perpendicularly on the soil, while some of them yet upheld
+similar masses laid transversely over their summit.&nbsp; They
+were arranged in a curve, once forming part, it would appear, of
+a large circle, and many other like fragments lay rolled on the
+ground at a moderate <a name="page186"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 186</span>distance; the number of those still
+upright was, to speak by memory, eight or nine.&nbsp; Two, at
+about ten or twelve feet apart one from the other, and resembling
+huge gate-posts, yet bore their horizontal lintel, a long block
+laid across them; a few were deprived of their upper traverse,
+the rest supported each its headpiece in defiance of time and of
+the more destructive efforts of man.&nbsp; So nicely balanced did
+one of these cross-bars appear that, in hope it might prove a
+rocking-stone, I guided my camel right under it, and then
+stretching up my riding-stick at arm&rsquo;s-length could just
+manage to touch and push it, but it did not stir.&nbsp; Meanwhile
+the respective heights of camel, rider, and stick taken together
+would place the stone in question full fifteen feet from the
+ground.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These blocks seem, by their quality, to have been hewn
+from the neighboring limestone cliff, and roughly shaped, but
+present no further trace of art, no groove or cavity of
+sacrificial import, much less anything intended for figure or
+ornament.&nbsp; The people of the country attribute their
+erection to Darim, and by his own hands, too, seeing that he was
+a giant; perhaps, also, for some magical ceremony, since he was a
+magician.&nbsp; Pointing toward Rass, our companions affirmed
+that a second and similar stone circle, also of gigantic
+dimensions, existed there; and, lastly, they mentioned a third
+toward the southwest, that is, on the confines of Hedjaz.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here, as in most parts of Arabia, the staple article of
+cultivation is the date-palm.&nbsp; Of this tree there are,
+however, many widely differing species, and Kaseem can boast of
+containing the best known <a name="page187"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 187</span>anywhere, the Khalas of Hasa alone
+excepted.&nbsp; The ripening season coincides with the latter
+half of August and the first of September, and we had thus an
+ample opportunity for testing the produce.&nbsp; Those who, like
+most Europeans at home, only know the date from the dried
+specimens of that fruit shown beneath a label in shop-windows,
+can hardly imagine how delicious it is when eaten fresh and in
+Central Arabia.&nbsp; Nor is it, when newly gathered, heating, a
+defect inherent to the preserved fruit everywhere; nor does its
+richness, however great, bring satiety: in short, it is an
+article of food alike pleasant and healthy.&nbsp; Its cheapness
+in its native land might astonish a Londoner.&nbsp; Enough of the
+very best dates from the Bereydah gardens to fill a large Arab
+handkerchief, about fifteen inches each way, almost to bursting,
+cost Barakat and myself the moderate sum of three
+farthings.&nbsp; We hung it up from the roof-beam of our
+apartment to preserve the luscious fruit from the ants, and it
+continued to drip molten sweetness into a sugary pool on the
+floor below for three days together, before we had demolished the
+contents, though it figured at every dinner and supper during
+that period.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We were soon under the outer walls of &rsquo;Eyoon, a
+good-sized town containing at least ten thousand inhabitants
+according to my rough computation.&nbsp; Its central site, at the
+very juncture of the great northern and western lines of
+communication, renders it important, and for this reason it is
+carefully fortified, that is, for the country, and furnished with
+watchtowers much resembling manufactory chimneys, in <a
+name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>size and
+shape, beside a massive and capacious citadel.&nbsp; My readers
+may anticipate analogous, though proportionate, features in most
+other towns and villages of this province.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Between the town-walls and the sand-hills close by was
+a sheltered spot, where we took about four hours of sleep, till
+the waning moon rose.&nbsp; Then all were once more in movement,
+camels gnarling, men loading, and the doctor and his apprentice
+mounting their beasts, all for Bereydah.&nbsp; But that town was
+distant, and when day broke at last there was yet a long road to
+traverse.&nbsp; This now lay amid mounds and valleys, thick with
+the vegetation already described; and somewhat after sunrise we
+took a full hour to pass the gardens and fields of Ghat, a
+straggling village, where a dozen wells supplied the valley with
+copious irrigation.&nbsp; On the adjoining hillocks&mdash;I may
+not call them heights&mdash;was continued the series of
+watch-towers, corresponding with others farther off that belonged
+to villages seen by glimpses in the landscape; I heard, but soon
+forgot, their names.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A march of ten or twelve hours had tired us, and the
+weather was oppressively close, no uncommon phenomenon in Kaseem,
+where, what between low sandy ground and a southerly latitude,
+the climate is much more sultry than in Djebel Shomer, or the
+mountains of Toweyk.&nbsp; So that we were very glad when the
+ascent of a slight eminence discovered to our gaze the
+long-desired town of Bereydah, whose oval fortifications rose to
+view amid an open and cultivated plain.&nbsp; It was a view for
+Turner.&nbsp; An enormous watch-tower, near a hundred feet in <a
+name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>height, a
+minaret of scarce inferior proportions, a mass of bastioned
+walls, such as we had not yet witnessed in Arabia, green groves
+around and thickets of ithel, all under the dreamy glare of noon,
+offered a striking spectacle, far surpassing whatever I had
+anticipated, and announced populousness and wealth.&nbsp; We
+longed to enter those gates and walk those streets.&nbsp; But we
+had yet a delay to wear out.&nbsp; At about a league from the
+town our guide, Mubarek, led us off the main road to the right,
+up and down several little but steep sand-hills, and hot
+declivities, till about two in the afternoon, half-roasted with
+the sun, we reached, never so weary, his garden gate.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The morning was bright, yet cool, when we got free of
+the maze of ithel and sand-slopes, and entered the lanes that
+traverse the garden circle round the town, in all quiet and
+security.&nbsp; But our approach to Bereydah was destined to
+furnish us an unexpected and undesired surprise, though indeed
+less startling than that which discomposed our first arrival at
+Ha&rsquo;yel.&nbsp; We had just passed a well near the angle of a
+garden wall, when we saw a man whose garb and appearance at once
+bespoke him for a muleteer of the north, watering a couple of
+mules at the pool hard by.&nbsp; Barakat and I stared with
+astonishment, and could hardly believe our eyes.&nbsp; For since
+the day we left Gaza for the southeastern desert we had never met
+with a like dress, nor with these animals; and how, then, came
+they here?&nbsp; But there was no mistaking either the man or the
+beasts, and as the muleteer raised his head to look at the
+passers-by, he also started at our sight, and evidently <a
+name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 190</span>recognized
+in us something that took him unawares.&nbsp; But the riddle was
+soon solved.&nbsp; A few paces farther on, our way opened out on
+the great plain that lies immediately under the town walls to the
+north.&nbsp; This space was now covered with tents and thronged
+with men of foreign dress and bearing, mixed with Arabs of town
+and desert, women and children, talking and quarrelling, buying
+and selling, going and coming; everywhere baskets full of dates
+and vegetables, platters bearing eggs and butter, milk and whey,
+meat hung on poles, bundles of firewood, etc., stood ranged in
+rows, horsemen and camel-men were riding about between groups
+seated round fires or reclining against their baggage; in the
+midst of all this medley a gilt ball surmounted a large white
+pavilion of a make that I had not seen since last I left India,
+some eleven years before, and numerous smaller tents of striped
+cloth, and certainly not of Arab fashion, clustered around; a
+lively scene, especially of a clear morning, but requiring some
+explanation from its exotic and non-Arab character.&nbsp; These
+tents belonged to the great caravan of Persian pilgrims, on their
+return from Medina to Meshid &rsquo;Alee by the road of Kaseem,
+and hence all this unusual concourse and bustle.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p190b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"An Arab Encampment"
+title=
+"An Arab Encampment"
+src="images/p190s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Passing a little on to the east, we left the crowded
+encampment on one side and turned to enter the city gates.&nbsp;
+Here, and this is generally the case in the larger Arab towns of
+old date, the fortifications surround houses alone, and the
+gardens all lie without, sometimes defended&mdash;at
+&rsquo;Oneyzah, for example&mdash;by a second outer girdle of
+walls and <a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+191</span>towers, but sometimes, as at Bereydah, devoid of any
+mural protection.&nbsp; The town itself is composed exclusively
+of streets, houses, and market-places, and bears in consequence a
+more regular appearance than the recent and village-like
+arrangements of the Djowf and even of Ha&rsquo;yel.&nbsp; We
+passed a few streets, tolerably large but crooked, and then made
+the camels kneel down in a little square or public place, where I
+remained seated by them on the baggage, switch in hand, like an
+ordinary Arab traveller, and Barakat with Mubarek went in search
+of lodgings.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very long did the half-hour seem to me during which I
+had thus to mount guard till my companions returned from their
+quest; the streets were full of people, and a disagreeable crowd
+of the lower sort was every moment collecting round myself and my
+camels, with all the inquisitiveness of the idle and vulgar in
+every land.&nbsp; At last my companions came back to say that
+they had found what they wanted; a kick or two brought the camels
+on their legs again, and we moved off to our new quarters.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The house in question was hardly more than five
+minutes&rsquo; walk from the north gate, and at about an equal
+distance only from the great market-place on the other
+side.&nbsp; Its position was therefore good.&nbsp; It possessed
+two large rooms on the ground story, and three smaller, besides a
+spacious court-yard, surrounded by high walls.&nbsp; A winding
+stair of irregular steps and badly lighted, like all in the
+Nedjed, led up to an extent of flat roof, girt round by a parapet
+six feet high, and divided into two compartments by <a
+name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 192</span>a
+cross-wall, thus affording a very tolerable place for occupation
+morning and evening, at the hours when the side-walls might yet
+project enough shade to shelter those seated alongside of them,
+besides an excellent sleeping place for night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The day after their arrival they made a call upon Mohanna, the
+ruler of Bereydah, in order to ask his assistance in proceeding
+to Nedjed.&nbsp; But he was too busy in devising means to exact
+more tribute-money from the Persian pilgrims to give any notice
+to two persons whose dress and appearance gave no token of
+wealth.&nbsp; This neglect afterward proved to be a piece of good
+fortune.&nbsp; They then spent several days in a vain attempt to
+find camels and guides; no one was willing to undertake the
+service.&nbsp; The central province of Nedjed, the genuine
+Wahabee country, is to the rest of Arabia a sort of lion&rsquo;s
+den, into which few venture and yet fewer return.&nbsp; An
+elderly man of Bereydah, of whom Palgrave demanded information,
+simply replied, &ldquo;It is Nedjed; he who enters it does not
+come out again,&rdquo; and this is almost literally true.&nbsp;
+Its mountains, once the fastnesses of robbers and assassins, are
+at the present day equally, or even more, formidable as the
+stronghold of fanatics who consider everyone save themselves an
+infidel or a heretic, and who regard the slaughter of an infidel
+or a heretic as a duty, at least a merit.&nbsp; In addition to
+this general cause of anticipating a worse than cold reception in
+Nedjed, wars and bloodshed, aggression and tyranny, have
+heightened the original antipathy of the surrounding population
+into special and definite resentment for wrongs received, perhaps
+<a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+193</span>inflicted, till Nedjed has become for all but her born
+sons doubly dangerous and doubly hateful.</p>
+<p>Another circumstance, which seemed to make Palgrave&rsquo;s
+situation more difficult, although it was equally fortunate in
+the end, was a rebellion which had broken out in the neighboring
+city of &rsquo;Oneyzah, headed by Zamil, a native chief.&nbsp;
+The town was at that time besieged by the Wahabees, yet held out
+gallantly, and the sympathy of the people of all Kaseem was so
+strongly on the side of Zamil, that only the presence of the
+Wahabee troops in Bereydah kept that city, also, from
+revolt.&nbsp; The rebels had sent deputations to Mecca and also
+to Djebel Shomer for assistance, and there seemed to be some
+possibility of a general Central Arabian revolt against the hated
+Wahabee supremacy.&nbsp; It seemed thus to be a most unpropitious
+time for penetrating the stronghold of Nedjed.&nbsp; Palgrave did
+not so much fear the suspicion of being a European, as that of
+being an Ottoman spy.&nbsp; His first need, however, was the
+means of going forward safely.&nbsp; He thus described how an
+apparent chance made him acquainted with the man to whom almost
+the entire success of his later travels was due:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was the sixth day after our arrival, and the 22d of
+September, when about noon I was sitting alone and rather
+melancholy, and trying to beguile the time with reading the
+incomparable Divan of Ebn-el-Farid, the favorite companion of my
+travels.&nbsp; Barakat had at my request betaken himself out of
+doors, less in hopes of success than to &lsquo;go to and fro in
+the earth and walk up and down in it;&rsquo; nor did <a
+name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>I now dare
+to expect that he would return any wiser than he had set
+forth.&nbsp; When lo! after a long two hours&rsquo; absence he
+came in with cheerful face, index of good tidings.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good, indeed, they were, none better.&nbsp; Their
+bearer said, that after roaming awhile to no purport through the
+streets and market-place, he had bethought him of a visit to the
+Persian camp.&nbsp; There, while straying among the tents,
+&lsquo;like a washerwoman&rsquo;s dog,&rsquo; as a Hindoo would
+say, he noticed somewhat aloof from the crowd a small group of
+pilgrims seated near their baggage on the sand, while curls of
+smoke going up from amid the circle indicated the presence of a
+fire, which at that time of day could be for nothing else than
+coffee.&nbsp; Civilized though Barakat undoubtedly was, he was
+yet by blood and heart an Arab, and for an Arab to see
+coffee-making and not to put himself in the way of getting a
+share would be an act of self-restraint totally unheard of.&nbsp;
+So he approached the group, and was of course invited to sit down
+and drink.&nbsp; The party consisted of two wealthy Persians,
+accompanied by three or four of that class of men, half-servants,
+half-companions, who often hook on to travellers at Bagdad or its
+neighborhood, besides a mulatto of Arabo-negrine origin, and his
+master, this last being the leader of the band, and the giver of
+the aromatic entertainment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Barakat&rsquo;s whole attention was at once engrossed
+by this personage.&nbsp; A remarkably handsome face, of a type
+evidently not belonging to the Arab peninsula, long hair curling
+down to the shoulders, an over-dress <a name="page195"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 195</span>of fine spun silk, somewhat soiled
+by travel, a colored handkerchief of Syrian manufacture on the
+head, a manner and look indicating an education much superior to
+that ordinary in his class and occupation, a
+camel-driver&rsquo;s, were peculiarities sufficient of themselves
+to attract notice, and give rise to conjecture.&nbsp; But when
+these went along with a welcome and a salute in the forms and
+tone of Damascus or Aleppo, and a ready flow of that
+superabundant and overcharged politeness for which the Syrian
+subjects of the Turkish empire are renowned, Barakat could no
+longer doubt that he had a fellow-countryman, and one, too, of
+some note, before him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Such was in fact the case.&nbsp; Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa, to
+give him the name by which he was commonly known in these parts,
+though in his own country he bears another denomination, was a
+native of Aleppo, and son of a not unimportant individual in that
+fair city.&nbsp; His education, and the circumstances of his
+early youth, had rendered him equally conversant with townsmen
+and herdsmen, with citizens and Bedouins, with Arabs and
+Europeans.&nbsp; By lineal descent he was a Bedouin, since his
+grandfather belonged to the Mejadimah, who are themselves an
+offshoot of the Benoo-Khalid; but in habits, thoughts, and
+manners he was a very son of Aleppo, where he had passed the
+greater part of his boyhood and youth.&nbsp; When about
+twenty-five years of age he became involved, culpably or not, in
+the great conspiracy against the Turkish government which broke
+out in the Aleppine insurrection of 1852.&nbsp; Like many others
+he was compelled to anticipate consequences by a prompt
+flight.</p>
+<p><a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+196</span>&ldquo;After trying commerce in order to retrieve his
+ruined fortunes, but with ill success, Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa engaged
+in the horse trade between Persia and Arabia, and also
+failed.&nbsp; He then went to Ri&rsquo;ad, the capital of Nedjed,
+and by presents to Feysul, the chief, obtained a post as guide to
+the Persian caravans of pilgrims to Mecca, across Arabia.&nbsp;
+At this time he had followed that career for three years, and had
+amassed considerable wealth, for his politeness, easy manners,
+and strict probity made him popular with the pilgrims.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He recognized a fellow-countryman in Barakat,&rdquo;
+says Palgrave, &ldquo;received him with marked politeness, and
+carefully informed himself of our whence and whither.&nbsp;
+Barakat, overjoyed to find at last a kind of opening after
+difficulties that had appeared to obstruct all further progress,
+made no delay in inquiring whether he would undertake our
+guidance to Ri&rsquo;ad.&nbsp; Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa replied that he
+was just on the point of separating from his friends the
+Persians, whose departure would leave camels enough and to spare
+at his disposition, and that so far there was no hindrance to the
+proposal.&nbsp; As for the Wahabees and their unwillingness to
+admit strangers within their limits, he stated himself to be well
+known to them, and that in his company we should have nothing to
+fear from their suspicious criticism.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The agreement was made at once, and the travellers now only
+waited until their new companion should have made some final
+arrangements with the Persian pilgrims, who were to travel
+directly from Bereydah to Bagdad.&nbsp; In the meantime, the
+former <a name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+197</span>took advantage of the delay to see as much as possible
+of the place, and even to make excursions in the neighborhood,
+especially in the direction of the beleaguered city of
+&rsquo;Oneyzah.&nbsp; Palgrave&rsquo;s description of the place
+shows that it possesses the same general features as the other
+Arabian towns, yet may be quoted for its intrinsic
+picturesqueness:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Barakat and myself have made our morning household
+purchases at the fair, and the sun being now an hour or more
+above the horizon, we think it time to visit the market-place of
+the town, which would hardly be open sooner.&nbsp; We re-enter
+the city gate, and pass on our way by our house door, where we
+leave our bundle of eatables, and regain the high street of
+Bereydah.&nbsp; Before long we reach a high arch across the road;
+this gate divides the market from the rest of the quarter.&nbsp;
+We enter.&nbsp; First of all we see a long range of
+butchers&rsquo; shops on either side, thick hung with flesh of
+sheep and camel, and very dirtily kept.&nbsp; Were not the air
+pure and the climate healthy, the plague would assuredly be
+endemic here; but in Arabia no special harm seems to
+follow.&nbsp; We hasten on, and next pass a series of cloth and
+linen warehouses, stocked partly with home manufacture, but more
+imported; Bagdad cloaks and head-gear, for instance, Syrian
+shawls and Egyptian slippers.&nbsp; Here markets follow the law
+general throughout the East, that all shops or stores of the same
+description should be clustered together, a system whose
+advantages on the whole outweigh its inconveniences, at least for
+small towns like these.&nbsp; In the large cities and capitals of
+Europe greater extent <a name="page198"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 198</span>of locality requires evidently a
+different method of arrangement; it might be awkward for the
+inhabitants of Hyde Park were no hatters to be found nearer than
+the Tower.&nbsp; But what is Bereydah compared even with a
+second-rate European city?&nbsp; However, in a crowd, it yields
+to none; the streets at this time of the day are thronged to
+choking, and to make matters worse, a huge, splay-footed camel
+comes every now and then, heaving from side to side like a
+lubber-rowed boat, with a long beam on his back menacing the
+heads of those in the way, or with two enormous loads of
+firewood, each as large as himself, sweeping the road before him
+of men, women, and children, while the driver, high-perched on
+the hump, regards such trifles with the most supreme
+indifference, so long as he brushes his path open.&nbsp;
+Sometimes there is a whole string of these beasts, the head-rope
+of each tied to the crupper of his precursor, very uncomfortable
+passengers when met with at a narrow turning.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Through such obstacles we have found or made our way,
+and are now amid leather and shoemakers&rsquo; shops, then among
+coppersmiths and ironsmiths, whose united clang might waken the
+dead or kill the living, till at last we emerge on the central
+town-square, not a bad one either, nor very irregular,
+considering that it is in Kaseem.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The vegetable and fruit market is very extensive, and
+kept almost exclusively by women; so are also the shops for
+grocery and spices.&nbsp; Nor do the fair sex of Bereydah seem a
+whit inferior to their rougher partners in knowledge of business
+and thrifty <a name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+199</span>diligence.&nbsp; &lsquo;Close-handedness beseems a
+woman no less than generosity a man,&rsquo; says an Arab poet,
+unconsciously coinciding with Lance of Verona in his comments on
+the catalogue of his future spouse&rsquo;s
+&lsquo;conditions.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The whole town has an aspect of old but declining
+prosperity.&nbsp; There are few new houses, but many falling into
+ruin.&nbsp; The faces, too, of most we meet are serious, and
+their voices in an undertone.&nbsp; Silk dresses are prohibited
+by the dominant faction, and tobacco can only be smoked within
+doors, and by stealth.&nbsp; Every now and then zealous Wahabee
+missionaries from Ri&rsquo;ad pay a visit of reform and preaching
+to unwilling auditors, and disobedience to the customs of the
+Nedjean sect is noticed and punished, often severely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Enough of the town; the streets are narrow, hot, and
+dusty; the day, too, advances; but the gardens are yet
+cool.&nbsp; So we dash at a venture through a labyrinth of
+by-ways and cross-ways till we find ourselves in the wide street
+that, like a boulevard in France, runs immediately along but
+inside the walls.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We stroll about in the shade, hide ourselves amid the
+high maize to smoke a quiet pipe unobserved by prying Nedjean
+eyes, and then walk on till at some distance we come under a high
+ridge of sand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;While on one of our suburban excursions we took the
+direction of &rsquo;Oneyzah, but found it utterly impossible to
+arrive within its walls; so we contented ourselves with an
+outside and distant view of this large and populous town; the
+number of its <a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+200</span>houses, and their size, judging by the overtopping
+summits that marked out the dwelling of Zamil and his family, far
+surpassed anything in Bereydah.&nbsp; The outer fortifications
+are enormously thick, and the girdle of palm-trees between them
+and the town affords a considerable additional defence to the
+latter.&nbsp; For all I could see there is little stonework in
+the construction; they appear almost exclusively of unbaked
+bricks; yet even so they are formidable defences for
+Arabia.&nbsp; The whole country around, and whatever lay
+northeast toward Bereydah, was more or less ravaged by the war;
+and we were blamed by our friends as very rash in having ventured
+thus far; in fact, it was a mere chance that we did not fall in
+with skirmishers or plunderers; and in such a case the military
+discipline of Kaseem would hardly have insured our safety.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When all was ready for the long-expected departure, it
+was definitely fixed for the 3d of October, a Friday, I think, at
+nightfall.&nbsp; Since our first interview Barakat and myself had
+not again presented ourselves before Mohanna, except in chance
+meetings, accompanied by distant salutations in the street or
+market-place; and we did not see any need for paying him a
+special farewell call.&nbsp; Indeed, after learning who and what
+he was, we did our best not to draw his gray eye on us, and
+thereby escaped some additional trouble and surplus duties to
+pay, nor did any one mention us to him.&nbsp; At star-rise we
+bade our host and householder Ahmed a final adieu, and left the
+town with Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa for our guide.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+201</span>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Journey To Ri&rsquo;ad The Capital Of
+Nedjed</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Two</span> roads lay before us.&nbsp; The
+shorter, and for that reason the more frequented of the two, led
+southeast-by-east through Woshem and Wady Haneefah to
+Ri&rsquo;ad.&nbsp; But this track passed through a district often
+visited at the present moment by the troops of &rsquo;Oneyzah and
+their allies, and hence our companions, not over-courageous for
+the most, were afraid to follow it.&nbsp; Another road, much more
+circuitous, but farther removed from the scene of military
+operations, led northeast to Zulphah, and thence entered the
+province of Sedeyr, which it traversed in a southeasterly or
+southern direction, and thus reached the &rsquo;Aared.&nbsp; Our
+council of war resolved on the latter itinerary, nor did we
+ourselves regret a roundabout which promised to procure us the
+sight of much that we might scarcely have otherwise an
+opportunity of visiting.&nbsp; Barakat and I were mounted on two
+excellent dromedaries of Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa&rsquo;s stud; the
+Na&rsquo;ib <a name="citation201"></a><a href="#footnote201"
+class="citation">[201]</a> was on a lovely gray she camel with <a
+name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>a handsome
+saddle, crimson and gold.&nbsp; The Meccans shared between them a
+long-backed black beast; the rest were also mounted on camels or
+dromedaries, since the road before us was impracticable for
+horses, at any rate at this time of year.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our road lay in Kaseem, whose highlands we rejoined
+once more, and traversed till sunset.&nbsp; The view was very
+beautiful from its extent and variety of ups and downs, in broad,
+grassy hills; little groups of trees stood in scattered
+detachments around; and had a river, that desideratum of Arabia,
+been in sight, one might almost have fancied one&rsquo;s self in
+the country bordering the Lower Rhine for some part of its
+course; readers may suppose, too, that there was less verdure
+here than in the European parallel&mdash;my comparison bears only
+on the general turn of the view.&nbsp; No river exists nearer
+Kaseem than Shatt (Euphrates), some hundred leagues off, and our
+eyes had been too long accustomed to the deceptive pools of the
+mirage to associate with them even a passing idea of aught save
+drought and heat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We journeyed on till dark, and then reached certain
+hillocks of a different character from the hard ground lately
+under our feet.&nbsp; Here began the Nefood, whose course from
+the southwest to northeast, and then north, parts between Kaseem,
+Woshem, and Sedeyr.&nbsp; I have already said something of these
+sandy inlets when describing that which we crossed three months
+ago between Djowf and Shomer.</p>
+<p><a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+203</span>&ldquo;On the verge of the desert strip we now halted a
+little to eat a hasty supper, and to drink&mdash;the Arabs coffee
+and the Persians tea.&nbsp; But journeying in these sands, under
+the heat of the day, is alike killing to man and beast, and
+therefore Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa had resolved that we should cross the
+greater portion under favor of the cooler hours of night.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All night, a weary night, we waded up and down through
+waves of sand, in which the camels often sank up to their knees,
+and their riders were obliged to alight and help them on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now by full daylight appeared the true character of the
+region which we were traversing; its aspect resembled the Nefood
+north of Djebel Shomer, but the undulations were here higher and
+deeper, and the sand itself lighter and less stable.&nbsp; In
+most spots neither shrub nor blade of grass could fix its root,
+in others a scanty vegetation struggled through, but no trace of
+man anywhere.&nbsp; The camels ploughed slowly on; the Persians,
+unaccustomed to such scenes, were downcast and silent; all were
+tired, and no wonder.&nbsp; At last, a little before noon, and
+just as the sun&rsquo;s heat was becoming intolerable, we reached
+the verge of an immense crater-like hollow, certainly three or
+four miles in circumference, where the sand-billows receded on
+every side, and left in the midst a pit seven or eight hundred
+feet in depth, at whose base we could discern a white gleam of
+limestone rock, and a small group of houses, trees, and gardens,
+thus capriciously isolated in the very heart of the desert.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This was the little village and oasis of Wasit, or <a
+name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 204</span>&lsquo;the
+intermediary,&rsquo; so called because a central point between
+the three provinces of Kaseem, Sedeyr, and Woshem, yet belonging
+to none of them.&nbsp; Nor is it often visited by wayfarers, as
+we learned from the inhabitants, men simple and half-savage, from
+their little intercourse with the outer world, and unacquainted
+even with the common forms of Islamitic prayer, though dwelling
+in the midst of the Wahabee dominions.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A long, winding descent brought us to the bottom of the
+valley, where on our arrival men and boys came out to stare at
+the Persians, and by exacting double prices for fruit and
+camel&rsquo;s milk proved themselves not altogether such fools as
+they looked.&nbsp; For us, regarded as Arabs, we enjoyed their
+hospitality&mdash;it was necessarily a limited one&mdash;gratis;
+whereupon the Na&rsquo;ib grew jealous, and declaimed against the
+Arabs as &lsquo;infidels,&rsquo; for not treating with suitable
+generosity pilgrims like themselves returning from the
+&lsquo;house of God.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To get out of this pit was no easy matter; <i>facilis
+descensus</i>, etc., thought I; no ascending path showed itself
+in the required direction, and every one tried to push up his
+floundering beast where the sand appeared at a manageable slope,
+and firm to the footing.&nbsp; Camels and men fell and rolled
+back down the declivity, till some of the party shed tears of
+vexation, and others, more successful, laughed at the annoyance
+of their companions.&nbsp; Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa ran about from one to
+the other, attempting to direct and keep them together, till
+finally, as Heaven willed, we reached the upper rim to the
+north.</p>
+<p><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+205</span>&ldquo;Before us lay what seemed a storm-driven sea of
+fire in the red light of afternoon, and through it we wound our
+way, till about an hour before sunset we fell in with a sort of
+track or furrow.&nbsp; Next opened out on our road a long
+descent, at whose extreme base we discerned the important and
+commercial town of Zulphah.&nbsp; Beyond it rose the wall-like
+steeps of Djebel Toweyk, so often heard of, and now seen close at
+hand.&nbsp; Needless to say how joyfully we welcomed the first
+view of that strange ridge, the heart and central knot of Arabia,
+beyond which whatever lay might almost be reckoned as a return
+journey.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We had now, in fact, crossed the Nefood, and had at our
+feet the great valley which constitutes the main line of
+communication between Nedjed and the north, reaching even to the
+Tigris and Bagdad.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We passed the whole length of the town of Zulphah,
+several streets of which had been lately swept away by the winter
+torrents that pour at times their short-lived fury down this
+valley.&nbsp; Before us to the southeast stretched the long
+hollow; on our right was the Nefood, on our left Djebel Toweyk
+and the province of Sedeyr.&nbsp; The mountain air blew cool, and
+this day&rsquo;s journey was a far pleasanter one than its
+predecessor.&nbsp; We continued our march down the valley till
+the afternoon, when we turned aside into a narrow gorge running
+up at a sharp angle to the northeast, and thus entered between
+the heights of Djebel Toweyk itself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This mountain essentially constitutes Nedjed.&nbsp; It
+is a wide and flat chain, or rather plateau, whose general form
+is that of a huge crescent.&nbsp; If I may <a
+name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 206</span>be
+permitted here to give my rough guess regarding the elevation of
+the main plateau, a guess grounded partly on the vegetation,
+climate, and similar local features, partly on an approximate
+estimate of the ascent itself, and of the subsequent descent on
+the other or sea side, I should say that it varies from a height
+of one to two thousand feet above the surrounding level of the
+peninsula, and may thus be about three thousand feet at most
+above the sea.&nbsp; Its loftiest ledges occur in the Sedeyr
+district, where we shall pass them before long; the centre and
+the southwesterly arm is certainly lower.&nbsp; Djebel Toweyk is
+the middle knot of Arabia, its Caucasus, so to say; and is still,
+as it has often been in former times, the turning-point of the
+whole, or almost the whole, peninsula in a political and national
+bearing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The climate of the northern part of Djebel Toweyk,
+whether plateau or valley, coincident with the province of
+Sedeyr, is perhaps one of the healthiest in the world; an
+exception might be made in favor of Djebel Shomer alone.&nbsp;
+The above named districts resemble each other closely in dryness
+of atmosphere, and the inhabitants of Sedeyr, like those of
+Shomer, are remarkable for their ruddy complexion and
+well-developed stature.&nbsp; But when we approach the centre of
+the mountain crescent, where its whole level lowers, while the
+more southerly latitude brings it nearer to the prevailing
+influences of the tropical zone, the air becomes damper and more
+relaxing, and a less salubrious climate pictures itself in the
+sallower faces and slender make of its denizens.</p>
+<p><a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+207</span>&ldquo;Two days later we attained the great plateau, of
+which I have a few pages since given an anticipated
+description.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About noon we halted in a brushwood-covered plain to
+light fire and prepare coffee.&nbsp; After which we pursued our
+easterly way, still a little to the north, now and then meeting
+with travellers or peasants; but a European would find these
+roads very lonely in comparison with those of his own
+country.&nbsp; All the more did I admire the perfect submission
+and strict police enforced by the central government, so that
+even a casual robbery is very rare in the provinces, and
+highwaymen are totally out of the question.&nbsp; At last, near
+the same hour of afternoon that had brought us the day before to
+Ghat, we came in sight of Mejmaa&rsquo;, formerly capital of the
+province, and still a place of considerable importance, with a
+population, to judge by appearances and hearsay, of between ten
+and twelve thousand souls.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We were up early next morning, for the night air was
+brisk, and a few hours of sleep had sufficed us.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After sunrise we came on a phenomenon of a nature, I
+believe, without a second or a parallel in Central Arabia, yet
+withal most welcome, namely, a tolerably large source of running
+water, forming a wide and deepish stream, with grassy banks, and
+frogs croaking in the herbage.&nbsp; We opened our eyes in
+amazement; it was the first of the kind that we had beheld since
+leaving the valley of Djowf.&nbsp; But though a living, it is a
+short-lived rivulet, reaching only four or five hours&rsquo;
+distance to Djelajil, where it is lost amid the plantations of
+the suburbs.</p>
+<p><a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+208</span>&ldquo;We had not long traversed the Meteyr encampment,
+when we came in view of the walls of Toweym, a large town,
+containing between twelve and fifteen thousand inhabitants,
+according to the computation here in use, and which I follow for
+want of better.&nbsp; The houses are here built compactly, of two
+stories in general, sometimes three; the lower rooms are often
+fifteen or sixteen feet high, and the upper ten or twelve; while
+the roof itself is frequently surrounded by a blind wall of six
+feet or more, till the whole attains a fair altitude, and is not
+altogether unimposing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Early next day, at a short distance from Toweym, we
+passed another large village with battlemented walls, and on the
+opposite side of the road a square castle, looking very
+medi&aelig;val; this was Hafr.&nbsp; A couple of hours further on
+we reached Thomeyr, a straggling townlet, more abounding in
+broken walls than houses; close by was a tall white rock, crowned
+by the picturesque remains of an old outwork or fort, overlooking
+the place.&nbsp; Here our party halted for breakfast in the
+shadow of the ruins.&nbsp; Barakat and myself determined to try
+our fortune in the village itself; no guards appeared at its open
+gate; we entered unchallenged, and roamed through silent lanes
+and heaps of rubbish, vainly seeking news of milk and dates in
+this city of the dead.&nbsp; At last we met a meagre townsman, in
+look and apparel the apothecary of Romeo; and of him, not without
+misgivings of heart, we inquired where aught eatable could be had
+for love or money.&nbsp; He apologized, though there was scarce
+need of that, for not having <a name="page209"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 209</span>any such article at his disposal;
+&lsquo;but,&rsquo; added he, &lsquo;in such and such a house
+there will certainly be something good,&rsquo; and thitherward he
+preceded us in our search.&nbsp; We found indeed a large
+dwelling, but the door was shut; we knocked to no purpose: nobody
+at home.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/p208b.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Death on the Desert"
+title=
+"Death on the Desert"
+src="images/p208s.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our man now set us a bolder example, and we altogether
+scrambled through a breach in the mud wall, and found ourselves
+amid empty rooms and a desolate court-yard.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Everybody is out in the fields, women only
+excepted,&rsquo; said our guide, and we separated, no better off
+than before.&nbsp; Despairing of the village commissariat, we
+climbed a turret on the outer walls, and looked round.&nbsp; Now
+we saw at some distance a beautiful palm-grove, where we
+concluded that dates could not be wanting, and off we set for it
+across the stubble fields.&nbsp; But on arriving we found our
+paradise surrounded by high walls, and no gate
+discoverable.&nbsp; While thus we stood without, like
+Milton&rsquo;s fiend at Eden, but unable, like him, &lsquo;by one
+high bound to overleap all bound,&rsquo; up came a handsome
+Solibah lad, all in rags, half-walking, half-dancing, in the
+devil-may-care way of his tribe.&nbsp; &lsquo;Can you tell us
+which is the way in?&rsquo; was our first question, pointing to
+the garden before us; and, &lsquo;Shall I sing you a song?&rsquo;
+was his first answer.&nbsp; &lsquo;We don&rsquo;t want your
+songs, but dates; how are we to get at them?&rsquo; we
+replied.&nbsp; &lsquo;Or shall I perform you a dance?&rsquo;
+answered the grinning young scoundrel, and forthwith began an
+Arabian polka-step, laughing all the while at our undisguised
+impatience.&nbsp; At last he condescended to show us the way, but
+no other than <a name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+210</span>what befitted an orchard-robbing boy, like himself, for
+it lay a little farther off, right over the wall, which he scaled
+with practised ingenuity, and helped us to follow.&nbsp; So we
+did, though perhaps with honester intentions, and, once within,
+stood amid trees, shade, and water.&nbsp; The &lsquo;tender
+juvenile&rsquo; then set up a shout, and soon a man appeared,
+&lsquo;old Adam&rsquo;s likeness set to dress this garden,&rsquo;
+save that he was not old but young, as Adam might himself have
+been while yet in Eden.&nbsp; We were somewhat afraid of a surly
+reception, too well merited by our very equivocal introduction;
+but the gardener was better-tempered than many of his caste, and
+after saluting us very politely, offered his services at our
+disposal.&nbsp; We then proposed to purchase a stock of dates for
+our onward way, whereon the gardener conducted us to an outhouse
+where heaps of three or four kinds of this fruit, red and yellow,
+round or long, lay piled up, and bade us choose.&nbsp; At his
+recommendation we filled a large cloth, which we had brought with
+us for the purpose, with excellent ruddy dates, and gave in
+return a small piece of money, welcome here as elsewhere.&nbsp;
+We then took leave and returned, but this time through the garden
+gate, to the stubble fields, and passing under the broken walls
+of the village, reached our companions, who had become anxious at
+our absence.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>For three days longer the travellers journeyed southward,
+through the valleys branching out from Djebel Toweyk, encamping
+for the night near some of the small towns.&nbsp; &ldquo;In the
+early gray of the fourth morning,&rdquo; says Palgrave, &ldquo;we
+passed close under the <a name="page211"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 211</span>plantations of Rowdah down the
+valley, now dry and still, once overflowed with the best blood of
+Arabia, and through the narrow and high-walled pass which gives
+entrance to the great strongholds of the land.&nbsp; The sun rose
+and lighted up to our view wild precipices on either side, with a
+tangled mass of broken rock and brushwood below, while coveys of
+partridges started up at our feet, and deer scampered away by the
+gorges to right or left, or a cloud of dust announced the
+approach of peasant bands or horsemen going to and fro, and
+gardens or hamlets gleamed through side openings or stood niched
+in the bulging passes of the Wady itself, till before noon we
+arrived at the little hamlet of Malka, or &lsquo;the
+junction.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Its name is derived from its position.&nbsp; Here the
+valley divides in form of a Y, sending off two branches&mdash;one
+southerly to Derey&rsquo;eeyah, the other southeast-by-east
+through the centre of the province, and communicating with the
+actual capital, Ri&rsquo;ad.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa had meditated bringing us on that very
+evening to Ri&rsquo;ad.&nbsp; But eight good leagues remained
+from Malka to the capital; and when the Na&rsquo;ib had
+terminated his cosmetic operations, the easterly turning shadows
+left us no hope of attaining Ri&rsquo;ad before nightfall.&nbsp;
+However, we resumed our march, and took the arm of the valley
+leading to Derey&rsquo;eeyah; but before reaching it we once more
+quitted the Wady, and followed a shorter path by the highlands to
+the left.&nbsp; Our way was next crossed by a long range of
+towers, built by Ibraheem Pasha, as outposts for the defence of
+this important position.&nbsp; Within their line stood the lonely
+walls of a large, <a name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+212</span>square barrack; the towers were what we sometimes call
+Martello&mdash;short, large, and round.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The level rays of the setting sun now streamed across
+the plain, and we came on the ruins of Derey&rsquo;eeyah, filling
+up the whole breadth of the valley beneath.&nbsp; The palace
+walls, of unbaked brick, like the rest, rose close under the left
+or northern edge, but unroofed and tenantless; a little lower
+down a wide extent of fragments showed where the immense mosque
+had been, and hard by, the market-place; a tower on an isolated
+height was, I suppose, the original dwelling-place of the
+Sa&rsquo;ood family, while yet mere local chieftains, before
+growing greatness transferred them to their imperial
+palace.&nbsp; The outer fortifications remained almost uninjured
+for much of their extent, with turrets and bastions reddening in
+the western light; in other places the Egyptian artillery, or the
+process of years, had levelled them with the earth; within the
+town many houses were yet standing, but uninhabited, and the
+lines of the streets from gate to gate were distinct as in a
+ground plan.&nbsp; From the great size of the town (for it is
+full half a mile in length, and not much less in breadth), and
+from the close packing of the houses, I should estimate its
+capacity at above forty thousand indwellers.&nbsp; The gardens
+lie without, and still &lsquo;living waved where man had ceased
+to live,&rsquo; in full beauty and luxuriance, a deep green ring
+around the gray ruins.&nbsp; For although the Nedjeans, holding
+it for an ill omen to rebuild and reinhabit a town so fatally
+overthrown, have transplanted the seat of government, and with it
+the bulk of the city population, to Ri&rsquo;ad, they <a
+name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 213</span>have not
+deemed it equally necessary to abandon the rich plantations and
+well-watered fields belonging to the old capital; and thus a
+small colony of gardeners in scattered huts and village dwellings
+close under the walls protract the blighted existence of
+Derey&rsquo;eeyah.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;While from our commanding elevation we gazed
+thoughtfully on this scene, so full of remembrances, the sun set,
+and darkness grew on.&nbsp; We naturally proposed a halt, but
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa turned a deaf ear, and affirmed that a garden
+belonging to &rsquo;Abd-er-Rahman, already mentioned as grandson
+of the first Wahabee, was but a little farther before us, and
+better adapted to our night&rsquo;s rest than the ruins.&nbsp; In
+truth, three hours of brisk travelling yet intervened between
+Derey&rsquo;eeyah and the place in question; but our guide was
+unwilling to enter Derey&rsquo;eeyah in company of Persians and
+Syrians, Shiya&rsquo;ees and Christians; and this he afterward
+confessed to me.&nbsp; For, whether from one of those curious
+local influences which outlast even the change of races, and give
+one abiding color to the successive tenants of the same spot, or
+whether it be occasioned by the constant view of their fallen
+greatness and the triumph of their enemies, the scanty population
+of Derey&rsquo;eeyah comprises some of the bitterest and most
+bigoted fanatics that even &rsquo;Aared can offer.&nbsp;
+Accordingly we moved on, still keeping to the heights, and late
+at night descended a little hollow, where, amid an extensive
+garden, stood the country villa of &rsquo;Abd-er-Rahman.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We did not attempt to enter the house; indeed, at such
+an hour no one was stirring to receive us.&nbsp; But a shed in
+the garden close by sufficed for <a name="page214"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 214</span>travellers who were all too weary to
+desire aught but sleep; and this we soon found in spite of dogs
+and jackals, numerous here and throughout Nedjed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;From this locality to the capital was about four
+miles&rsquo; distance.&nbsp; Our party divided next morning; the
+Na&rsquo;ib and his associates remaining behind, while Barakat
+and myself, with Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa, set off straight for the town,
+where our guide was to give notice at the palace of the approach
+of the Persian dignitary, that the honors due to his reception
+might meet him half-way.&nbsp; At our request the Meccans stayed
+also in the rear; we did not desire the equivocal effect of their
+company on a first appearance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For about an hour we proceeded southward, through
+barren and undulating ground, unable to see over the country to
+any distance.&nbsp; At last we attained a rising eminence, and
+crossing it, came at once in full view of Ri&rsquo;ad, the main
+object of our long journey&mdash;the capital of Nedjed and half
+Arabia, its very heart of hearts.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Before us stretched a wild open valley, and in its
+foreground, immediately below the pebbly slope on whose summit we
+stood, lay the capital, large and square, crowned by high towers
+and strong walls of defence, a mass of roofs and terraces, where
+overtopping all frowned the huge but irregular pile of
+Feysul&rsquo;s royal castle, and hard by it rose the scarce less
+conspicuous palace, built and inhabited by his eldest son,
+&rsquo;Abdallah.&nbsp; Other edifices, too, of remarkable
+appearance broke here and there through the maze of gray
+roof-tops, but of their object and indwellers we were yet to
+learn.&nbsp; All around for full three miles <a
+name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 215</span>over the
+surrounding plain, but more especially to the west and south,
+waved a sea of palm-trees above green fields and well-watered
+gardens; while the singing, droning sound of the water-wheels
+reached us even where we had halted, at a quarter of a mile or
+more from the nearest town-walls.&nbsp; On the opposite side
+southward, the valley opened out into the great and even more
+fertile plains of Yemamah, thickly dotted with groves and
+villages, among which the large town of Manfoohah, hardly
+inferior in size to Ri&rsquo;ad itself, might be clearly
+distinguished.&nbsp; Farther in the background ranged the blue
+hills, the ragged Sierra of Yemamah, compared some thirteen
+hundred years since, by &rsquo;Amroo-ebn-Kelthoom, the Shomerite,
+to drawn swords in battle array; and behind them was concealed
+the immeasurable Desert of the South, or Dahna.&nbsp; On the west
+the valley closes in and narrows in its upward windings toward
+Derey&rsquo;eeyah, while to the southwest the low mounds of Aflaj
+are the division between it and Wady Dowasir.&nbsp; Due east in
+the distance a long blue line marks the farthest heights of
+Toweyk, and shuts out from view the low ground of Hasa and the
+shores of the Persian Gulf.&nbsp; In all the countries which I
+have visited, and they are many, seldom has it been mine to
+survey a landscape equal to this in beauty and in historical
+meaning, rich and full alike to eye and mind.&nbsp; But should
+any of my readers have ever approached Damascus from the side of
+the Anti-Lebanon, and surveyed the Ghootah from the heights above
+Mazzeh, they may thence form an approximate idea of the valley of
+Ri&rsquo;ad when viewed from the north.&nbsp; Only <a
+name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 216</span>this is
+wider and more varied, and the circle of vision here embraces
+vaster plains and bolder mountains; while the mixture of tropical
+aridity and luxuriant verdure, of crowded population and desert
+tracks, is one that Arabia alone can present, and in comparison
+with which Syria seems tame, and Italy monotonous.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+217</span>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Adventures in Ri&rsquo;ad</span>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Barakat</span> and myself stopped
+our dromedaries a few minutes on the height to study and enjoy
+this noble prospect, and to forget the anxiety inseparable from a
+first approach to the lion&rsquo;s own den.&nbsp;
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa, too, though not unacquainted with the scene,
+willingly paused with us to point out and name the main features
+of the view, and show us where lay the onward road to his home in
+Hasa. We then descended the slope and skirted the walls of the
+first outlying plantations which gird the town.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At last we reached a great open square: its right side,
+the northern, consists of shops and warehouses; while the left is
+entirely absorbed by the huge abode of Nedjean royalty; in front
+of us, and consequently to the west, a long covered passage,
+upborne high on a clumsy colonnade, crossed the breadth of the
+square, and reached from the palace to the great mosque, which it
+thus joins directly with the interior of the castle and affords
+old Feysul a private and unseen passage at will from his own
+apartments to his official post at the Friday prayers, without
+exposing him on his way to vulgar curiosity, or perhaps to the
+dangers of treachery.&nbsp; For the fate of his father and of his
+great-uncle, his predecessors on the throne, and each of them
+pierced by the dagger of an assassin <a name="page218"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 218</span>during public worship, has rendered
+Feysul very timid on this score, though not at prayer-time
+only.&nbsp; Behind this colonnade, other shops and warehouses
+make up the end of the square, or, more properly, parallelogram;
+its total length is about two hundred paces, by rather more than
+half the same width.&nbsp; In the midst of this space, and under
+the far-reaching shadow of the castle walls, are seated some
+fifty or sixty women, each with a stock of bread, dates, milk,
+vegetables, or firewood before her for sale.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But we did not now stop to gaze, nor indeed did we pay
+much attention to all this; our first introduction to the monarch
+and the critical position before us took up all our
+thoughts.&nbsp; So we paced on alongside of the long blind wall
+running out from the central keep, and looking more like the
+outside of a fortress than of a peaceful residence, till we came
+near a low and narrow gate, the only entry to the palace.&nbsp;
+Deep-sunk between the bastions, with massive folding doors iron
+bound, though thrown open at this hour of the day, and giving
+entrance into a dark passage, one might easily have taken it for
+the vestibule of a prison; while the number of guards, some
+black, some white, but all sword-girt, who almost choked the way,
+did not seem very inviting to those without, especially to
+foreigners.&nbsp; Long earth seats lined the adjoining walls, and
+afforded a convenient waiting-place for visitors; and here we
+took up our rest at a little distance from the palace gate; but
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa entered at once to announce our arrival, and the
+approach of the Na&rsquo;ib.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The first who drew near and saluted us was a <a
+name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 219</span>tall,
+meagre figure, of a sallow complexion, and an intelligent but
+slightly ill-natured and underhand cast of features.&nbsp; He was
+very well dressed, though of course without a vestige of unlawful
+silk in his apparel, and a certain air of conscious importance
+tempered the affability of his politeness.&nbsp; This was
+&rsquo;Abd-el-&rsquo;Azeez, whom, for want of a better title, I
+shall call the minister of foreign affairs, such being the
+approximate translation of his official style.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Accompanied by some attendants from the palace, he came
+stately up, and seated himself by our side.&nbsp; He next began
+the customary interrogations of whence and what, with much
+smiling courtesy and show of welcome.&nbsp; After hearing our
+replies, the same of course as those given elsewhere, he invited
+us to enter the precincts, and partake of his Majesty&rsquo;s
+coffee and hospitality, while he promised us more immediate
+communications from the king himself in the course of the
+day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If my readers have seen, as most of them undoubtedly
+will, the Paris Tuileries, they may hereby know that the whole
+extent of Feysul&rsquo;s palace equals about two-thirds of that
+construction, and is little inferior to it in height; if indeed
+we except the angular pyramidal roofs or extinguishers peculiar
+to the French edifice.&nbsp; But in ornament the Parisian pile
+has the better of it, for there is small pretensions to
+architectural embellishment in this Wahabee Louvre.&nbsp;
+Without, within, every other consideration has been sacrificed to
+strength and security; and the outer view of Newgate, at any
+rate, bears a very strong resemblance to the general effect of
+Feysul&rsquo;s palace.</p>
+<p><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+220</span>&ldquo;Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa meanwhile, in company with the
+outriders sent from the palace, had gone to meet the Na&rsquo;ib
+and introduce him to the lodgings prepared for his
+reception.&nbsp; Very much was the Persian astounded to find none
+of the royal family among those who thus came, no one even of
+high name or office; but yet more was his surprise when, instead
+of immediate admittance to Feysul&rsquo;s presence and eager
+embrace, he was quietly led aside to the very guest-room whither
+we had been conducted, and a dinner not a whit more sumptuous
+than ours was set before him, after which he was very coolly told
+that he might pray for Feysul and retire to his quarters, while
+the king settled the day and hour whereon he would vouchsafe him
+the honor of an audience.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Afterward, the minister of foreign affairs condescended
+to come in person, and, sweetly smiling, informed us that our
+temporary habitation was ready, and that Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa would
+conduct us thither without delay.&nbsp; We then begged to know,
+if possible, the king&rsquo;s good-will and pleasure regarding
+our stay and our business in the town.&nbsp; For on our first
+introduction we had duly stated, in the most correct Wahabee
+phraseology, that we had come to Ri&rsquo;ad &lsquo;desiring the
+favor of God, and secondly of Feysul; and that we begged of God,
+and secondly of Feysul, permission to exercise in the town our
+medical profession, under the protection of God, and in the next
+place of Feysul.&rsquo;&nbsp; For Dogberry&rsquo;s advice to
+&lsquo;set God first, for God defend but God should go before
+such villains,&rsquo; is here observed to the letter; whatever is
+desired, purported, or asked, the Deity must take the <a
+name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 221</span>lead.&nbsp;
+Nor this only, but even the subsequent mention of the creature
+must nowise be coupled with that of the Creator by the ordinary
+conjunction &lsquo;w&rsquo;,&rsquo; that is, &lsquo;and,&rsquo;
+since that would imply equality between the two&mdash;flat
+blasphemy in word or thought.&nbsp; Hence the disjunctive
+&lsquo;thumma,&rsquo; or &lsquo;next after,&rsquo; &lsquo;at a
+distance,&rsquo; must take the place of &lsquo;w&rsquo;,&rsquo;
+under penalty of prosecution under the statute.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Unlucky the man who visits Nedjed without being previously
+well versed in the niceties of grammar,&rsquo; said Barakat;
+&lsquo;under these schoolmasters a mistake might cost the scholar
+his head.&rsquo;&nbsp; But of this more anon; to return to our
+subject, &rsquo;Abd-el-&rsquo;Azeez, a true politician, answered
+our second interrogation with a vague assurance of good-will and
+unmeaning patronage.&nbsp; Meantime the Na&rsquo;ib and his train
+marched off in high dudgeon to their quarters, and
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa gave our dromedaries a kick, made them rise, and
+drove them before us to our new abode.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In the course of a day or two the travellers discovered what a
+sensation the arrival of their caravan had produced at
+court.&nbsp; The old king, Feysul, now in the thirty-third year
+of his reign, possessed all the superstition and bigotry of the
+old Wahabees, and the sudden presence of Syrians, suspected of
+being Christians, Persians, and Meccans, in his capital, was too
+much for him.&nbsp; He at once left the palace, took up his
+temporary residence in a house outside the city, and a strong
+guard was posted around him until the court officials should have
+time to examine the strangers, discover, if possible, their
+secret designs, and report them to the king.&nbsp; The first spy
+was a <a name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+222</span>shrewd and intelligent Affghan, a pretended convert to
+the Wahabee doctrine, who discovered nothing, and consequently
+made an unfavorable report.&nbsp; The second was a &ldquo;man of
+zeal,&rdquo; one of a committee of twenty-two inquisitors,
+appointed by the king to exercise constant espionage upon the
+inhabitants, with the power of punishing them at will for any
+infraction or neglect of the Wahabee discipline.&nbsp; Palgrave
+gives the following account of his visit:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Abbood, for such was his name, though I never met the
+like before or after in Arabia proper, however common it may be
+in Syria and Lebanon, took a different and more efficacious mode
+of espionage than &rsquo;Abd-el-Hameed had done before him.&nbsp;
+Affecting to consider us Mahometans, and learned ones too, he
+entered at once on religious topics, on the true character of
+Islam, its purity or corruptions, and inquired much after the
+present teaching and usages of Damascus and the North, evidently
+in the view of catching us in our words.&nbsp; But he had luckily
+encountered his match; for every citation of the Koran we replied
+with two, and proved ourselves intimately acquainted with the
+&lsquo;greater&rsquo; and the &lsquo;lesser&rsquo; polytheism of
+foreign nations and heterodox Mahometans, with the commentaries
+of Beydowee and the tales of the Hadeeth, till our visitor, now
+won over to confidence, launched out full sail on the sea of
+discussion, and thereby rendered himself equally instructive and
+interesting to men who had nothing more at heart than to learn
+the tenets of the sect from one of its most zealous professors,
+nay, a Zelator in person.&nbsp; In short, he ended by becoming
+half a friend, and his <a name="page223"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 223</span>regrets at our being, like other
+Damascenes, yet in the outer porch of darkness, were tempered by
+a hope, which he did not disguise, of at least putting a window
+in our porch for its better enlightenment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Next day, in the forenoon, while the travellers were
+sauntering about the market-place, they met the minister
+&rsquo;Abd-el-&rsquo;Azeez, who had that morning returned to the
+capital.&nbsp; With a smiling face and an air of great benignity
+he took them aside, and informed them the king did not consider
+Ri&rsquo;ad a proper field for their medical skill; that they had
+better at once continue their journey to Hofhoof, whither
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa should conduct them straightway; and that the
+king would furnish each of them with a camel, a new suit of
+clothes, and some money.&nbsp; To these arguments Palgrave could
+only answer that he greatly desired the profit to be expected
+from a few weeks of medical practice in Ri&rsquo;ad, since his
+success there would give him an immediate reputation in Hofhoof,
+while his departure might deprive him of all reputation at the
+latter place.&nbsp; The minister promised to present his plea to
+Feysul, but gave him no hope of a favorable answer.&nbsp; The
+order to leave was repeated, and then, as a last experiment,
+Palgrave sent to two of the ministers a pound of the fragrant
+wood, which is burned as pastilles in Arabia, and is highly
+prized by the upper classes.&nbsp; The next day he received
+permission to remain longer in Ri&rsquo;ad and exercise his
+profession.&nbsp; He thereupon took another residence, not so
+near the palace, and within convenient reach of one of the city
+gates.&nbsp; <a name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+224</span>Before describing the place he gives the following
+account of the famous Arabian coffee:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be it then known, by way of prelude, that coffee,
+though one in name, is manifold in fact; nor is every kind of
+berry entitled to the high qualifications too indiscriminately
+bestowed on the comprehensive genus.&nbsp; The best coffee, let
+cavillers say what they will, is that of the Yemen, commonly
+entitled &lsquo;Mokha,&rsquo; from the main place of
+exportation.&nbsp; Now, I should be sorry to incur a lawsuit for
+libel or defamation from our wholesale or retail salesmen; but
+were the particle <span class="GutSmall">NOT</span> prefixed to
+the countless labels in London shop windows that bear the name of
+the Red Sea haven, they would have a more truthy import than what
+at present they convey.&nbsp; Very little, so little indeed as to
+be quite inappreciable, of the Mocha or Yemen berry ever finds
+its way westward of Constantinople.&nbsp; Arabia itself, Syria,
+and Egypt consume fully two-thirds, and the remainder is almost
+exclusively absorbed by Turkish and Armenian
+&oelig;sophagi.&nbsp; Nor do these last get for their limited
+share the best or the purest.&nbsp; Before reaching the harbors
+of Alexandria, Jaffa, Beyrout, etc., for further exportation, the
+Mokhan bales have been, while yet on their way, sifted and
+resifted, grain by grain, and whatever they may have contained of
+the hard, rounded, half-transparent, greenish-brown berry, the
+only one really worth roasting and pounding, has been carefully
+picked out by experienced fingers; and it is the less generous
+residue of flattened, opaque, and whitish grains which alone, or
+almost alone, goes on board the shipping.&nbsp; So <a
+name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 225</span>constant is
+this selecting process, that a gradation regular as the degrees
+on a map may be observed in the quality of Mokha, that is, Yemen,
+coffee even within the limits of Arabia itself, in proportion as
+one approaches to or recedes from Wadi Nejran and the
+neighborhood of Mecca, the first stages of the radiating
+mart.&nbsp; I have myself been times out of number an eye-witness
+of this sifting; the operation is performed with the utmost
+seriousness and scrupulous exactness, reminding me of the
+diligence ascribed to American diamond-searchers when
+scrutinizing the torrent sands for their minute but precious
+treasure.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The berry, thus qualified for foreign use, quits its
+native land on three main lines of export&mdash;that of the Red
+Sea, that of the inner Hedjaz, and that of Kaseem.&nbsp; The
+terminus of the first line is Egypt, of the second Syria, of the
+third Nedjed and Shomer.&nbsp; Hence Egypt and Syria are, of all
+countries without the frontiers of Arabia, the best supplied with
+its specific produce, though under the restrictions already
+stated; and through Alexandria or the Syrian seaports,
+Constantinople and the North obtain their diminished share.&nbsp;
+But this last stage of transport seldom conveys the genuine
+article, except by the intervention of private arrangements and
+personal friendship or interest.&nbsp; Where mere sale and
+traffic are concerned, substitution of an inferior quality, or an
+adulteration almost equivalent to substitution, frequently takes
+place in the different storehouses of the coast, till whatever
+Mokha-marked coffee leaves them for Europe and the West, is often
+no more like <a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+226</span>the real offspring of the Yemen plant than the log-wood
+preparations of a London fourth-rate retail wine-seller resemble
+the pure libations of an Oporto vineyard.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The second species of coffee, by some preferred to that
+of Yemen, but in my poor opinion inferior to it, is the growth of
+Abyssinia; its berry is larger, and of a somewhat different and a
+less heating flavor.&nbsp; It is, however, an excellent species;
+and whenever the rich land that bears it shall be permitted by
+man to enjoy the benefits of her natural fertility, it will
+probably become an object of extensive cultivation and
+commerce.&nbsp; With this stops, at least in European opinion and
+taste, the list of coffee, and begins the list of beans.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;While we were yet in the Djowf I described with
+sufficient minuteness how the berry is prepared for actual use;
+nor is the process any way varied in Nedjed or other Arab
+lands.&nbsp; But in Nedjed an additional spicing of saffron,
+cloves, and the like, is still more common; a fact which is
+easily explained by the want of what stimulus tobacco affords
+elsewhere.&nbsp; A second consequence of non-smoking among the
+Arabs is the increased strength of their coffee decoctions in
+Nedjed, and the prodigious frequency of their use; to which we
+must add the larger &lsquo;finjans,&rsquo; or coffee-cups, here
+in fashion.&nbsp; So sure are men, when debarred of one pleasure
+or excitement, to make it up by another.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Palgrave gives the following picturesque description of the
+Wahabee capital: &ldquo;We wrap our headgear, like true Arabs,
+round our chins, put on our <a name="page227"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 227</span>grave-looking black cloaks, take
+each a long stick in hand, and thread the narrow streets
+intermediate between our house and the market-place at a funeral
+pace, and speaking in an undertone.&nbsp; Those whom we meet
+salute us, or we salute them; be it known that the lesser number
+should always be the first to salute the greater, he who rides
+him who walks, he who walks him who stands, the stander the
+sitter, and so forth; but never should a man salute a woman;
+difference of age or even of rank between men does not enter into
+the general rules touching the priority of salutation.&nbsp; If
+those whom we have accosted happen to be acquaintances or
+patients, or should they belong to the latitudinarian school, our
+salutation is duly returned.&nbsp; But if, by ill fortune, they
+appertain to the strict and high orthodox party, an under-look
+with a half scowl in silence is their only answer to our
+greeting.&nbsp; Whereat we smile, Malvolio-like, and pass on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At last we reach the market-place; it is full of women
+and peasants, selling exactly what we want to buy, besides meat,
+firewood, milk, etc.; around are customers, come on errands like
+our own.&nbsp; We single out a tempting basket of dates, and
+begin haggling with the unbeautiful Phyllis, seated beside her
+rural store.&nbsp; We find the price too high.&nbsp; &lsquo;By
+him who protects Feysul,&rsquo; answers she, &lsquo;I am the
+loser at that price.&rsquo;&nbsp; We insist.&nbsp; &lsquo;By Him
+who shall grant Feysul a long life, I cannot bate it,&rsquo; she
+replies.&nbsp; We have nothing to oppose to such tremendous
+asseverations, and accede or pass on, as the case may be.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Half of the shops, namely, those containing <a
+name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 228</span>grocery,
+household articles of use, shoemakers&rsquo; stalls and smithies,
+are already open and busily thronged.&nbsp; For the capital of a
+strongly centralized empire is always full of strangers, come
+will they nill they on their several affairs.&nbsp; But around
+the butchers&rsquo; shops awaits the greatest human and canine
+crowd.&nbsp; My readers, I doubt not, know that the only licensed
+scavengers throughout the East are the dogs.&nbsp; Nedjeans are
+great flesh-eaters, and no wonder, considering the cheapness of
+meat (a fine fat sheep costs at most five shillings, often less)
+and the keenness of mountaineer appetites.&nbsp; I wish that the
+police regulations of the city would enforce a little more
+cleanliness about these numerous shambles; every refuse is left
+to cumber the ground at scarce two yards&rsquo; distance.&nbsp;
+But dogs and dry air much alleviate the nuisance&mdash;a remark I
+made before at Ha&rsquo;yel and Bereydah; it holds true for all
+Central Arabia.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Barakat and I resolve on continuing our walk through
+the town.&nbsp; Ri&rsquo;ad is divided into four quarters: one,
+the northeastern, to which the palaces of the royal family, the
+houses of the state officers, and the richer class of proprietors
+and government men belong.&nbsp; Here the dwellings are in
+general high, and the streets tolerably straight and not
+over-narrow; but the ground level is low, and it is perhaps the
+least healthy locality of all.&nbsp; Next the northwestern, where
+we are lodged; a large irregular mass of houses, varying in size
+and keeping from the best to the worst; here strangers, and often
+certain equivocal characters, never wanting in large towns,
+however strictly regulated, chiefly abide; here too are <a
+name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 229</span>many noted
+for disaffection, and harboring other tenets than those of the
+son of &rsquo;Abdel-Wahab, men prone to old Arab ways and customs
+in &lsquo;Church and State,&rsquo; to borrow our own analogous
+phrase; here are country chiefs, here Bedouins and natives of
+Zulphah and the outskirts find a lodging; here, if anywhere, is
+tobacco smoked or sold, and the Koran neglected in
+proportion.&nbsp; However, I would not have my readers to think
+our entire neighborhood so absolutely disreputable.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But we gladly turn away our eyes from so dreary a view
+to refresh them by a survey of the southwestern quarter, the
+chosen abode of formalism and orthodoxy.&nbsp; In this section of
+Ri&rsquo;ad inhabit the most energetic Zelators, here are the
+most irreproachable five-prayers-a-day Nedjeans, and all the
+flower of Wahabee purity.&nbsp; Above all, here dwell the
+principal survivors of the family of the great religions Founder,
+the posterity of &rsquo;Abd-el-Wahab escaped from the Egyptian
+sword, and free from every stain of foreign contamination.&nbsp;
+Mosques of primitive simplicity and ample space, where the great
+dogma, not however confined to Ri&rsquo;ad, that &lsquo;we are
+exactly in the right, and everyone else is in the wrong,&rsquo;
+is daily inculcated to crowds of auditors, overjoyed to find
+Paradise all theirs and none&rsquo;s but theirs; smaller
+oratories of Musallas, wells for ablution, and Kaabah-directed
+niches adorn every corner, and fill up every interval of house or
+orchard.&nbsp; The streets of this quarter are open, and the air
+healthy, so that the invisible blessing is seconded by sensible
+and visible privileges of Providence.&nbsp; Think not, gentle
+reader, <a name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+230</span>that I am indulging in gratuitous or self-invented
+irony; I am only rendering expression for expression, and almost
+word for word, the talk of true Wahabees, when describing the
+model quarter of their model city.&nbsp; This section of the town
+is spacious and well-peopled, and flourishes, the citadel of
+national and religious intolerance, pious pride, and genuine
+Wahabeeism.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Round the whole town run the walls, varying from twenty
+to thirty feet in height; they are strong, in good repair, and
+defended by a deep trench and embankment.&nbsp; Beyond them are
+the gardens, much similar to those of Kaseem, both in arrangement
+and produce, despite the difference of latitude, here compensated
+by a higher ground level.&nbsp; But immediately to the south, in
+Yemamah, the eye remarks a change in the vegetation to a more
+tropical aspect; of this, however, I will not say more for the
+present.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;According to promise, Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa played his part
+to bring us in patients and customers, and the very second
+morning that dawned on us in our new house ushered in an invalid
+who proved a very godsend.&nbsp; This was no other than Djowhar,
+treasurer of Feysul, and of the Wahabee empire.&nbsp; My readers
+may be startled to learn that this great functionary was jet
+black, a negro in fact, though not a slave, having obtained his
+freedom from Turkee, the father of the present king.&nbsp; He was
+tall, and, for a negro, handsome; about forty-five years of age,
+splendidly dressed, a point never neglected by wealthy Africans,
+whatever be their theoretical creed, and girt with a
+golden-hilted sword.&nbsp; &lsquo;But,&rsquo; said he,
+&lsquo;gold, though <a name="page231"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 231</span>unlawful if forming a part of
+apparel or mere ornament, may be employed with a safe conscience
+in decorating weapons.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After ceremonies and coffee, I took my dusky patient
+into the consulting-room, where, by dint of questioning and
+surmise, for negroes in general are much less clear and less to
+the point than Arabs in their statements, I obtained the
+requisite elucidation of his case.&nbsp; The malady, though
+painful, was fortunately one admitting of simple and efficacious
+treatment, so that I was able on the spot to promise him a
+sensible amendment of condition within a fortnight, and that in
+three weeks&rsquo; time he should be in plight to undertake his
+journey to Bahreyn.&nbsp; I added that with so distinguished a
+personage I could not think of exacting a bargain and fixing the
+amount of fees; the requital of my care should be left to his
+generosity.&nbsp; He then took leave, and was re-conducted to his
+rooms in the palace by his fellow blacks of less
+degree.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The next visitor was Abd el-Kereem, of the oldest nobility of
+Nedjed, related to the ruling family; a bitter Wahabee, a strong,
+intelligent, bad, and dangerous man, who was both hated and
+feared by the people.&nbsp; His visit was a distinction for
+Palgrave, yet an additional danger.&nbsp; The latter, however,
+determined to draw as much information from him concerning
+Wahabee doctrine as he might be inclined to give; and, in
+reality, found him quite communicative.&nbsp; One day Palgrave
+asked him to define the difference between the <i>great</i> sins
+and the <i>little</i> ones&mdash;that is, those to be punished in
+the next world, or <a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+232</span>at least deserving of it, and those whose penalty is
+remissible in this life.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Abd-el-Kereem doubted not that he had a sincere scholar
+before him, nor would refuse his hand to a drowning man.&nbsp;
+So, putting on a profound air, and with a voice of first-class
+solemnity, he uttered his oracle, that &lsquo;the first of the
+great sins is the giving divine honors to a
+creature.&rsquo;&nbsp; A hit, I may observe, at ordinary
+Mahometans, whose whole doctrine of intercession, whether vested
+in Mahomet or in &rsquo;Alee, is classed by Wahabees along with
+direct and downright idolatry.&nbsp; A Damascene Shekh would have
+avoided the equivocation by answering,
+&lsquo;infidelity.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Of course,&rsquo; I replied, &lsquo;the enormity
+of such a sin is beyond all doubt.&nbsp; But if this be the
+first, there must be a second; what is it?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Drinking the shameful,&rsquo; in English,
+&lsquo;smoking tobacco,&rsquo; was the unhesitating answer.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;And murder, and adultery, and false
+witness?&rsquo; I suggested.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;God is merciful and forgiving,&rsquo; rejoined
+my friend; that is, these are merely little sins.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Hence two sins alone are great, polytheism and
+smoking,&rsquo; I continued, though hardly able to keep
+countenance any longer.&nbsp; And Abd-el-Kereem, with the most
+serious asseveration, replied that such was really the
+case.&nbsp; On hearing this, I proceeded humbly to entreat my
+friend to explain to me the especial wickedness inherent in
+tobacco leaves, that I might the more detest and eschew them
+hereafter.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Accordingly he proceeded to instruct me, <a
+name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 233</span>saying
+that, Firstly, all intoxicating substances are prohibited by the
+Koran; but tobacco is an intoxicating substance&mdash;ergo,
+tobacco is prohibited.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I insinuated that it was not intoxicating, and appealed
+to experience.&nbsp; But, to my surprise, my friend had
+experience too on his side, and had ready at hand the most
+appalling tales of men falling down dead drunk after a single
+whiff of smoke, and of others in a state of bestial and habitual
+ebriety from its use.&nbsp; Nor were his stories so purely
+gratuitous as many might at first imagine.&nbsp; The only tobacco
+known, when known, in Southern Nedjed, is that of Oman, a very
+powerful species.&nbsp; I was myself astonished, and almost
+&lsquo;taken in,&rsquo; more than once, by its extraordinary
+narcotic effects, when I experienced them, in the coffee-houses
+of Bahreyn.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Palgrave furnishes a tolerably complete account of the
+provinces of Nedjed and the tribes which inhabit them.&nbsp; His
+concluding statement, however, embodies all which will interest
+the reader.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To sum up, we may say that the Wahabee empire is a
+compact and well-organized government, where centralization is
+fully understood and effectually carried out, and whose
+main-springs and connecting links are force and fanaticism.&nbsp;
+There exist no constitutional checks either on the king or on his
+subordinates, save what the necessity of circumstance imposes or
+the Koran prescribes.&nbsp; Its atmosphere, to speak
+metaphorically, is sheer despotism&mdash;moral, intellectual,
+religious, and physical.&nbsp; This empire is capable of frontier
+extension, and hence is dangerous to its neighbors, some of whom
+it is even now <a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+234</span>swallowing up, and will certainly swallow more if not
+otherwise prevented.&nbsp; Incapable of true internal progress,
+hostile to commerce, unfavorable to arts and even to agriculture,
+and in the highest degree intolerant and aggressive, it can
+neither better itself nor benefit others; while the order and
+calm which it sometimes spreads over the lands of its conquest
+are described in the oft-cited <i>Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem
+appellant</i> of the Roman annalist.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In conclusion, I here subjoin a numerical list, taken
+partly from the government registers of Ri&rsquo;ad, partly from
+local information, and containing the provinces, the number of
+the principal towns or villages, the population, and the military
+contingent, throughout the Wahabee empire.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: center">Provinces</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: center">Towns or Villages</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: center">Population</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: center">Military muster</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>&rsquo;Aared</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">15</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">110,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">6,000</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Yemamah</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">32</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">140,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">4,500</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Hareek</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">16</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">45,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">3,000</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Aflaj</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">12</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">14,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">1,200</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Wady Dowasir</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">50</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">100,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">4,000</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Seley&rsquo;yel</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">14</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">30,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">1,400</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Woshem</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">20</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">80,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">4,000</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Sedeyr</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">25</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">140,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">5,200</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">IX.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Kaseem</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">60</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">300,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">11,000</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Hasa</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">50</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">160,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">7,000</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">XI.</p>
+</td>
+<td><p>Kateef</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">22</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">100,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">&mdash;</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2"><p>&nbsp;</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">316</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">1,219,000</p>
+</td>
+<td><p style="text-align: right">47,300</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>After a time, Palgrave was sent for by Abdallah, the eldest
+son of King Feysul, who pretended that he wished to learn
+something of the medical art.&nbsp; This led to a regular
+intercourse, which at least enabled the traveller to learn many
+things concerning the Wahabee government.&nbsp; Another important
+<a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 235</span>result
+was an opportunity of visiting the royal stables, where the
+finest specimens of the famous Nedjed breed of horses are
+kept.&nbsp; Of these he gives the following interesting
+description:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The stables are situated some way out of the town, to
+the northeast, a little to the left of the road which we had
+followed at our first arrival, and not far from the gardens of
+&rsquo;Abd-er-Rahman the Wahabee.&nbsp; They cover a large square
+space, about 150 yards each way, and are open in the centre, with
+a long shed running round the inner walls; under this covering
+the horses, about three hundred in number when I saw them, are
+picketed during the night; in the daytime they may stretch their
+legs at pleasure within the central court-yard.&nbsp; The greater
+number were accordingly loose; a few, however, were tied up at
+their stalls; some, but not many, had horse-cloths over
+them.&nbsp; The heavy dews which fall in Wady Haneefah do not
+permit their remaining with impunity in the open night air; I was
+told also that a northerly wind will occasionally injure the
+animals here, no less than the land wind does now and then their
+brethren in India.&nbsp; About half the royal stud was present
+before me, the rest were out at grass; Feysul&rsquo;s entire
+muster is reckoned at six hundred, or rather more.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No Arab dreams of tying up a horse by the neck; a
+tether replaces the halter, and one of the animal&rsquo;s hind
+legs is encircled about the pastern by a light iron ring,
+furnished with a padlock, and connected with an iron chain of two
+feet or thereabouts in length, ending in a rope, which is
+fastened to the <a name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+236</span>ground at some distance by an iron peg; such is the
+customary method.&nbsp; But should the animal be restless and
+troublesome, a foreleg is put under similar restraint.&nbsp; It
+is well known that in Arabia horses are much less frequently
+vicious or refractory than in Europe, and this is the reason why
+geldings are here so rare, though not unknown.&nbsp; No
+particular prejudice, that I could discover, exists against the
+operation itself; only it is seldom performed, because not
+otherwise necessary, and tending, of course, to diminish the
+value of the animal.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But to return to the horses now before us; never had I
+seen or imagined so lovely a collection.&nbsp; Their stature was
+indeed somewhat low; I do not think that any came fully up to
+fifteen hands; fourteen appeared to me about their average, but
+they were so exquisitely well shaped that want of greater size
+seemed hardly, if at all, a defect.&nbsp; Remarkably full in the
+haunches, with a shoulder of a slope so elegant as to make one,
+in the words of an Arab poet, &lsquo;go raving mad about
+it;&rsquo; a little, a very little, saddle-backed, just the curve
+which indicates springiness without any weakness; a head broad
+above, and tapering down to a nose fine enough to verify the
+phrase of &lsquo;drinking from a pint pot,&rsquo; did pint pots
+exist in Nedjed; a most intelligent and yet a singularly gentle
+look, full eye, sharp thorn-like little ear, legs fore and hind
+that seemed as if made of hammered iron, so clean and yet so well
+twisted with sinew; a neat, round hoof, just the requisite for
+hard ground; the tail set on, or rather thrown out at a perfect
+arch; coats smooth, shining, and light, the <a
+name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 237</span>mane long,
+but not overgrown nor heavy, and an air and step that seemed to
+say, &lsquo;Look at me, am I not pretty?&rsquo; their appearance
+justified all reputation, all value, all poetry.&nbsp; The
+prevailing color was chestnut or gray; a light bay, an iron
+color, white or black, were less common; full bay, flea-bitten or
+piebald, none.&nbsp; But if asked what are, after all, the
+specially distinctive points of the Nedjee horse, I should reply,
+the slope of the shoulder, the extreme cleanness of the shank,
+and the full, rounded haunch, though every other part, too, has a
+perfection and a harmony unwitnessed (at least by my eyes)
+anywhere else.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nedjee horses are especially esteemed for great speed
+and endurance of fatigue; indeed, in this latter quality, none
+come up to them.&nbsp; To pass twenty-four hours on the road
+without drink and without flagging is certainly something; but to
+keep up the same abstinence and labor conjoined under the burning
+Arabian sky for forty-eight hours at a stretch, is, I believe,
+peculiar to the animals of the breed.&nbsp; Besides, they have a
+delicacy, I cannot say of mouth, for it is common to ride them
+without bit or bridle, but of feeling and obedience to the knee
+and thigh, to the slightest check of the halter and the voice of
+the rider, far surpassing whatever the most elaborate
+man&eacute;ge gives a European horse, though furnished with
+snaffle, curb, and all.&nbsp; I often mounted them at the
+invitation of their owners, and without saddle, rein, or stirrup,
+set them off at full gallop, wheeled them round, brought them up
+in mid career at a dead halt, and that without the least
+difficulty or the smallest want of correspondence between the
+horse&rsquo;s <a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+238</span>movements and my own will; the rider on their back
+really feels himself the man-half of a centaur, not a distinct
+being.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>During the last week in November the Persian Na&rsquo;ib, who
+had been little edified by his experiences in Nedjed, set off for
+Bagdad.&nbsp; In the meantime, Feysul had made great preparations
+toward collecting an army for the reduction of the city of
+&rsquo;Oneyzah (near Bereydah), which still held out
+gallantly.&nbsp; Troops were summoned from the eastern coast and
+the adjoining provinces, and Sa&rsquo;ood, the second son of
+Feysul, was ordered to bring them together at the capital, when
+the command was to be given to Abdallah, the eldest son.&nbsp;
+Palgrave had then his only opportunity of seeing the old King of
+the Wahabees.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sa&rsquo;ood speedily arrived, and with him about two
+hundred horsemen; the rest of his men, more than two thousand,
+were mounted on camels.&nbsp; When they entered Ri&rsquo;ad,
+Feysul, for the first and last time during our stay, gave a
+public audience at the palace gate.&nbsp; It was a scene for a
+painter.&nbsp; There sat the blind old tyrant, corpulent,
+decrepit, yet imposing, with his large, broad forehead, white
+beard, and thoughtful air, clad in all the simplicity of a
+Wahabee; the gold-hafted sword at his side his only ornament or
+distinction.&nbsp; Beside him the ministers, the officers of his
+court, and a crowd of the nobler and wealthier citizens.&nbsp;
+Abdallah, the heir to the throne, was alone absent.&nbsp; Up came
+Sa&rsquo;ood with the bearing of a hussar officer, richly clad in
+cashmere shawls and a gold-wrought mantle, while man by man
+followed his red-dressed cavaliers, their spears <a
+name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 239</span>over their
+shoulders, and their swords hanging down; a musket, too, was
+slung behind the saddle of each warrior; and the sharp dagger of
+Hareek glittered in every girdle.&nbsp; Next came the common
+soldiers on camels or dromedaries, some with spears only, some
+with spears and guns, till the wide square was filled with armed
+men and gazing spectators, as the whole troop drew up before the
+great autocrat, and Sa&rsquo;ood alighted to bend and kiss his
+father&rsquo;s hand.&nbsp; &lsquo;God save Feysul!&nbsp; God give
+the victory to the armies of the Muslims!&rsquo; was shouted out
+on every side, and all faces kindled into the fierce smile of
+concentrated enthusiasm and conscious strength.&nbsp; Feysul
+arose from his seat and placed his son at his side; another
+moment, and they entered the castle together.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+240</span>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;His Escape to the Eastern Coast</span>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">For</span> a foreigner to enter
+Ri&rsquo;ad is not always easy, but to get away from it is harder
+still; Reynard himself would have been justly shy of venturing on
+this royal cave.&nbsp; There exists in the capital of Nedjed two
+approved means of barring the exit against those on whom mistrust
+may have fallen.&nbsp; The first and readiest is that of which it
+has been emphatically said, <i>Stone-dead hath no
+fellow</i>.&nbsp; But should circumstances render the bonds of
+death inexpedient, the bonds of Hymen and a Ri&rsquo;ad
+establishment may and occasionally do supply their office.&nbsp;
+By this latter proceeding, the more amiable of the two, Abdallah
+resolved to enchain us.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Accordingly, one morning arrived at our dwelling an
+attendant of the palace, with a smiling face, presage of some
+good in reserve, and many fair speeches.&nbsp; After inquiries
+about our health, comfort, well-being, etc., he added that
+Abdallah thought we might be desirous of purchasing this or that,
+and begged us to accept of a small present.&nbsp; It was a fair
+sum of money, just twice so much as the ordinary token of
+good-will, namely, four rials in place of two.&nbsp; After which
+the messenger took his leave.&nbsp; <a name="page241"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 241</span>Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa had been present at
+the interview: &lsquo;Be on the look-out,&rsquo; said he,
+&lsquo;there is something wrong.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That very afternoon Abdallah sent for me, and with
+abundance of encomiums and of promises, declared that he could
+not think of letting Ri&rsquo;ad lose so valuable a physician,
+that I must accordingly take up a permanent abode in the capital,
+where I might rely on his patronage, and on all good things; that
+he had already resolved on giving me a house and a garden,
+specifying them, with a suitable household, and a fair face to
+keep me company; he concluded by inviting me to go without delay
+and see whether the new abode fitted me, and take possession.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Much and long did I fight off; talked about a winter
+visit to the coast, and coming back in the spring; tried first
+one pretext and then another; but none would avail, and Abdallah
+continued to insist.&nbsp; To quiet him, I consented to go and
+see the house.&nbsp; For the intended Calypso, I had ready an
+argument derived from Mahometan law, which put her out of the
+question, but its explanation would require more space than these
+pages can afford.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The winter season was now setting in; it was the third
+week in November; and a thunder-storm, the first we had witnessed
+in Central Arabia, ushered in a marked change for cold in the
+temperature of Wady Haneefah.&nbsp; Rain fell abundantly, and
+sent torrents down the dry watercourses of the valley, changing
+its large hollows into temporary tanks.&nbsp; None of the streams
+showed, however, any disposition to reach the sea, nor indeed
+could they, for this part of Nedjed is entirely hemmed in to the
+east by <a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+242</span>the Toweyk range.&nbsp; The inhabitants welcomed the
+copious showers, pledges of fertility for the coming year, while
+at &rsquo;Oneyzah the same rains produced at least one excellent
+effect, but which I may well defy my readers to guess.&nbsp; The
+hostile armies, commanded by Zamil and Mohammed-ebn-Sa&rsquo;ood,
+were drawn up in face of each other, and on the point of fierce
+conflict, when the storm burst on them, and by putting out the
+lighted matchlocks of either party, prevented the discharge of
+bullets and the effusion of blood.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Abdallah, who hated his second brother, Sa&rsquo;ood, and had
+many other fierce enmities in the capital, then accidentally
+learned that Palgrave had employed a deadly poison (strychnine)
+in making a remarkable cure.&nbsp; Thenceforth all his powers of
+persuasion were employed in endeavoring to procure some of the
+drug; but Palgrave, suspecting his real design, positively
+refused to let him have any.&nbsp; His rage was suddenly and
+strongly expressed on his countenance, foreboding no good to the
+traveller, who took the first opportunity of returning to his
+house.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa, Barakat, and myself,&rdquo; he
+says, &ldquo;immediately held council to consider what was now to
+be done.&nbsp; That an outbreak must shortly take place seemed
+certain; to await it was dangerous, yet we could not safely leave
+the town in an over-precipitate manner, nor without some kind of
+permission.&nbsp; We resolved together to go on in quiet and
+caution a few days more, to sound the court, make our adieus at
+Feysul&rsquo;s palace, get a good word from Mahboob (no difficult
+matter), and then slip off <a name="page243"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 243</span>without attracting too much
+notice.&nbsp; But our destiny was not to run so
+smoothly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Late in the evening of November 21st, Palgrave was summoned to
+Abdallah&rsquo;s palace.&nbsp; The messenger refused to allow
+Barakat or Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa to accompany him.&nbsp; The occasion
+seemed portentous, but disobedience was out of the
+question.&nbsp; Palgrave followed the messenger.&nbsp; On
+entering the reception-room, he found Abdallah, Abd-el-Lateef,
+the successor of the Wahabee, Mahboob, and a few others.&nbsp;
+All were silent, and none returned his first salutation.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I saluted Abdallah,&rdquo; says Palgrave, &ldquo;who
+replied in an undertone, and gave me a signal to sit down at a
+little distance from him, but on the same side of the
+divan.&nbsp; My readers may suppose that I was not at the moment
+ambitious of too intimate a vicinity.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After an interval of silence, Abdallah turned half
+round toward me, and with his blackest look and a deep voice
+said, &lsquo;I now know perfectly well what you are; you are no
+doctors, you are Christians, spies, and revolutionists, come
+hither to ruin our religion and state in behalf of those who sent
+you.&nbsp; The penalty for such as you is death, that you know,
+and I am determined to inflict it without delay.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Threatened folks live long,&rsquo; thought I,
+and had no difficulty in showing the calm which I really
+felt.&nbsp; So looking him coolly in the face, I replied,
+&lsquo;<i>Istagh-fir Allah</i>,&rsquo; literally, &lsquo;Ask
+pardon of God.&rsquo;&nbsp; This is the phrase commonly addressed
+to one who has said something extremely out of place.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The answer was unexpected: he started, and said,
+&lsquo;Why so?&rsquo;</p>
+<p><a name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+244</span>&ldquo;&lsquo;Because,&rsquo; I rejoined, &lsquo;you
+have just now uttered a sheer absurdity.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Christians,&rdquo; be it so; but &ldquo;spies,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;revolutionists&rdquo;&mdash;as if we were not known by
+everybody in your town for quiet doctors, neither more nor
+less!&nbsp; And then to talk about putting me to death!&nbsp; You
+cannot, and you dare not.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;But I can and dare,&rsquo; answered Abdallah,
+&lsquo;and who shall prevent me?&nbsp; You shall soon learn that
+to your cost.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Neither can nor dare,&rsquo; repeated I.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;We are here your father&rsquo;s guests, and yours for a
+month and more, known as such, received as such.&nbsp; What have
+we done to justify a breach of the laws of hospitality in
+Nedjed?&nbsp; It is impossible for you to do what you say,&rsquo;
+continued I, thinking the while that it was a great deal too
+possible, after all; &lsquo;the obloquy of the deed would be too
+much for you.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He remained a moment thoughtful, then said, &lsquo;As
+if anyone need know who did it.&nbsp; I have the means, and can
+dispose of you without talk or rumor.&nbsp; Those who are at my
+bidding can take a suitable time and place for that, without my
+name being ever mentioned in the affair.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The advantage was now evidently on my side; I followed
+it up, and said with a quiet laugh, &lsquo;Neither is that within
+your power.&nbsp; Am I not known to your father, to all in his
+palace? to your own brother Sa&rsquo;ood among the rest?&nbsp; Is
+not the fact of this my actual visit to you known without your
+gates?&nbsp; Or is there no one here?&rsquo; added I, with a
+glance at Mahboob, &lsquo;who can report elsewhere what you have
+just now said?&nbsp; Better for you to leave off this <a
+name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>nonsense;
+do you take me for a child of four days old?&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He muttered a repetition of his threat.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Bear witness, all here present,&rsquo; said I, raising my
+voice so as to be heard from one end of the room to the other,
+&lsquo;that if any mishap befalls my companion or myself from
+Ri&rsquo;ad to the shores of the Persian Gulf, it is all
+Abdallah&rsquo;s doing.&nbsp; And the consequences shall be on
+his head, worse consequences than he expects or
+dreams.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The prince made no reply.&nbsp; All were silent;
+Mahboob kept his eyes steadily fixed on the fireplace;
+&rsquo;Abd-el-Lateef looked much and said nothing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Bring coffee,&rsquo; called out Abdallah to the
+servants.&nbsp; Before a minute had elapsed, a black slave
+approached with one, and only one, coffee-cup in his hand.&nbsp;
+At a second sign from his master he came before me and presented
+it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course the worst might be conjectured of so unusual
+and solitary a draught.&nbsp; But I thought it highly improbable
+that matters should have been so accurately prepared; besides,
+his main cause of anger was precisely the refusal of poisons, a
+fact which implied that he had none by him ready for use.&nbsp;
+So I said &lsquo;<i>Bismillah</i>,&rsquo; took the cup, looked
+very hard at Abdallah, drank it off, and then said to the slave,
+&lsquo;Pour me out a second.&rsquo;&nbsp; This he did; I
+swallowed it, and said, &lsquo;Now you may take the cup
+away.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The desired effect was fully attained.&nbsp;
+Abdallah&rsquo;s face announced defeat, while the rest of the
+assembly whispered together.&nbsp; The prince turned to
+&rsquo;Abd-el-Lateef and began talking about the dangers <a
+name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 246</span>to which
+the land was exposed from spies, and the wicked designs of
+infidels for ruining the kingdom of the Muslims.&nbsp; The Kadee
+and his companions chimed in, and the story of a pseudo-Darweesh
+traveller killed at Derey&rsquo;eeyah, and of another (but who he
+was I cannot fancy; perhaps a Persian, who had, said Abdallah,
+been also recognized for an intriguer, but had escaped to Muscat,
+and thus baffled the penalty due to his crimes), were now brought
+forward and commented on.&nbsp; Mahboob now at last spoke, but it
+was to ridicule such apprehensions.&nbsp; &lsquo;The thing is in
+itself unlikely,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;and were it so, what harm
+could they do?&rsquo; alluding to my companion and myself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On this I took up the word, and a general conversation
+ensued, in which I did my best to explode the idea of spies and
+spymanship, appealed to our own quiet and inoffensive conduct,
+got into a virtuous indignation against such a requital of evil
+for good after all the services which we had rendered court and
+town, and quoted verses of the Koran regarding the wickedness of
+ungrounded suspicion, and the obligation of not judging ill
+without clear evidence.&nbsp; Abdallah made no direct answer, and
+the others, whatever they may have thought, could not support a
+charge abandoned by their master.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What amused me not a little was that the Wahabee prince
+had after all very nearly hit the right nail on the head, and
+that I was snubbing him only for having guessed too well.&nbsp;
+But there was no help for it, and I had the pleasure of seeing
+that, though at heart unchanged in his opinion about us, he was
+<a name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 247</span>yet
+sufficiently cowed to render a respite certain, and our escape
+thereby practicable.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This kind of talk continued a while, and I purposely
+kept my seat, to show the unconcern of innocence, till Mahboob
+made me a sign that I might safely retire.&nbsp; On this I took
+leave of Abdallah and quitted the palace unaccompanied.&nbsp; It
+was now near midnight, not a light to be seen in the houses, not
+a sound to be heard in the streets; the sky too was dark and
+overcast, till, for the first time, a feeling of lonely dread
+came over me, and I confess that more than once I turned my head
+to look and see if no one was following with &lsquo;evil,&rsquo;
+as Arabs say, in his hand.&nbsp; But there was none, and I
+reached the quiet alley and low door where a gleam through the
+chinks announced the anxious watch of my companions, who now
+opened the entrance, overjoyed at seeing me back sound and safe
+from so critical a parley.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our plan for the future was soon formed.&nbsp; A day or
+two we were yet to remain in Ri&rsquo;ad, lest haste should seem
+to imply fear, and thereby encourage pursuit.&nbsp; But during
+that period we would avoid the palace, out-walks in gardens or
+after nightfall, and keep at home as much as possible.&nbsp;
+Meanwhile Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa was to get his dromedaries ready, and
+put them in a courtyard immediately adjoining the house, to be
+laden at a moment&rsquo;s notice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A band of travellers was to leave Ri&rsquo;ad for Hasa
+a few days later.&nbsp; Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa gave out publicly that
+he would accompany them to Hofhoof, while we were supposed to
+intend following the northern or Sedeyr track, by which the
+Na&rsquo;ib, after many <a name="page248"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 248</span>reciprocal farewells and assurances
+of lasting friendship, should we ever meet again, had lately
+departed.&nbsp; Mobeyreek, a black servant in
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa&rsquo;s pay, occupied himself diligently in
+feeding up the camels for their long march with clover and
+vetches, both abundant here; and we continued our medical
+avocations, but quietly, and without much leaving the house.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;During the afternoon of the 24th we brought three of
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa&rsquo;s camels into our courtyard, shut the
+outer door, packed, and laded.&nbsp; We then awaited the moment
+of evening prayer; it came, and the voice of the
+Mu&rsquo;eddineen summoned all good Wahabees, the men of the
+town-guard not excepted, to the different mosques.&nbsp; When
+about ten minutes had gone by, and all might be supposed at their
+prayers, we opened our door.&nbsp; Mobeyreek gave a glance up and
+down the street to ascertain that no one was in sight, and we led
+out the camels.&nbsp; Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa accompanied us.&nbsp;
+Avoiding the larger thoroughfares, we took our way by by-lanes
+and side-passages toward a small town-gate, the nearest to our
+house, and opening on the north.&nbsp; A late comer fell in with
+us on his way to the Mesjid, and as he passed summoned us also to
+the public service.&nbsp; But Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa unhesitatingly
+replied, &lsquo;We have this moment come from prayers,&rsquo; and
+our interlocutor, fearing to be himself too late and thus to fall
+under reprehension and punishment, rushed off to the nearest
+oratory, leaving the road clear.&nbsp; Nobody was in watch at the
+gate.&nbsp; We crossed its threshold, turned southeast, and under
+the rapid twilight reached a range of small hillocks, behind
+which we sheltered ourselves till the stars came <a
+name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 249</span>out, and
+the &lsquo;wing of night,&rsquo; to quote Arab poets, spread
+black over town and country.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So far so good.&nbsp; But further difficulties remained
+before us.&nbsp; It was now more than ever absolutely essential
+to get clear of Nedjed unobserved, to put the desert between us
+and the Wahabee court and capital; and no less necessary was it
+that Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa, so closely connected as he was with
+Ri&rsquo;ad and its government, should seem nohow implicated in
+our unceremonious departure, nor any way concerned with our
+onward movements.&nbsp; In a word, an apparent separation of
+paths between him and us was necessary before we could again come
+together and complete the remainder of our explorations.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In order to manage this, and while ensuring our own
+safety to throw a little dust in Wahabee eyes, it was agreed that
+before next morning&rsquo;s sunrise Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa should
+return to the town, and to his dwelling, as though nothing had
+occurred, and should there await the departure of the great
+merchant caravan, mentioned previously, and composed mainly of
+men from Hasa and Kateef, now bound for Hofhoof.&nbsp; This
+assemblage was expected to start within three days at
+latest.&nbsp; Meanwhile our friend should take care to show
+himself openly in the palaces of Feysul and Abdallah, and if
+asked about us should answer vaguely, with the off-hand air of
+one who had no further care regarding us.&nbsp; We ourselves
+should in the interim make the best of our way, with Mobeyreek
+for guide, to Wady Soley&rsquo;, and there remain concealed in a
+given spot, till Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa should come and pick us up.</p>
+<p><a name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+250</span>&ldquo;All this was arranged; at break of dawn,
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa took his leave, and Barakat, Mobeyreek, and
+myself were once more high-perched on our dromedaries, their
+heads turned to the southeast, keeping the hillock range between
+us and Ri&rsquo;ad, which we saw no more.&nbsp; Our path led us
+over low undulating ground, a continuation of Wady Haneefah, till
+after about four hours&rsquo; march we were before the gates of
+Manfoohah, a considerable town, surrounded by gardens nothing
+inferior in extent and fertility to those of Ri&rsquo;ad; but its
+fortifications, once strong, have long since been dismantled and
+broken down by the jealousy of the neighboring capital.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After winding here and there, we reached the spot
+assigned by Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa for our hiding-place.&nbsp; It was a
+small sandy depth, lying some way off the beaten track, amid
+hillocks and brushwood, and without water; of this latter article
+we had taken enough in the goat-skins to last us for three
+days.&nbsp; Here we halted, and made up our minds to patience and
+expectation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Two days passed drearily enough.&nbsp; We could not but
+long for our guide&rsquo;s arrival, nor be wholly without fear on
+more than one score.&nbsp; Once or twice a stray peasant stumbled
+on us, and was much surprised at our encampment in so droughty a
+locality.&nbsp; So the hours went by, till the third day brought
+closer expectation and anxiety, still increasing while the sun
+declined, and at last went down; yet nobody appeared.&nbsp; But
+just as darkness closed in, and we were sitting in a dispirited
+group beside our little fire, for the night air blew chill,
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa came suddenly <a name="page251"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 251</span>up, and all was changed for question
+and answer, for cheerfulness and laughter.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Early on November 28th we resumed our march through a
+light valley-mist, and soon fell in with our companions of the
+road.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Next morning the whole country, hill and dale, trees
+and bushes, was wrapped in a thick blanket of mist, fitter for
+Surrey than for Arabia.&nbsp; So dense was the milky fog, that we
+fairly lost our way, and went on at random, shouting and
+hallooing, driving our beasts now here, now there, over broken
+ground and amid tangling shrubs, till the sun gained strength and
+the vapor cleared off, showing us the path at some distance on
+our right.&nbsp; Before we had followed it far, we saw a black
+mass advancing from the east to meet us.&nbsp; It was the first
+division of the Hasa troops on their way to Ri&rsquo;ad; they
+were not less than four or five hundred in number.&nbsp; Like
+true Arabs, they marched with a noble contempt of order and
+discipline&mdash;walking, galloping, ambling, singing, shouting,
+alone or in bands, as fancy led.&nbsp; We interchanged a few
+words of greeting with these brisk boys, who avowed, without
+hesitation or shame, that they should much have preferred to stay
+at home, and that enforced necessity, not any military or
+religious ardor, was taking them to the field.&nbsp; We laughed,
+and wished them Zamil&rsquo;s head, or him theirs, whereon they
+laughed also, shouted, and passed on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On we went, but through a country of much more varied
+scenery than what we had traversed the day before, enjoying the
+&lsquo;pleasure situate in hill and <a name="page252"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 252</span>dale,&rsquo; till we arrived at the
+foot of a high white cliff, almost like that of Dover; but these
+crags, instead of having the sea at their foot, overlooked a wide
+valley full of trees, and bearing traces of many violent winter
+torrents from east to west; none were now flowing.&nbsp; Here we
+halted, and passed an indifferent night, much annoyed by
+&lsquo;chill November&rsquo;s surly blast,&rsquo; hardly less
+ungenial here than on the banks of Ayr, though sweeping over a
+latitude of 25&deg;, not 56&deg;.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Before the starlight had faded from the cold morning
+sky, we were up and in movement, for a long march was before
+us.&nbsp; At sunrise we stood on the last, and here the highest,
+ledge of Toweyk, that long chalky wall which bounds and backs up
+Nedjed on the east; beyond is the desert, and then the coast.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;After about three hours of level route we began to
+descend, not rapidly, but by degrees, and at noon we reached a
+singular depression, a huge natural basin, hollowed out in the
+limestone rock, with tracks resembling deep trenches leading to
+it from every side.&nbsp; At the bottom of this crater-like
+valley were a dozen or more wells, so abundant in their supply
+that they not unfrequently overflow the whole space, and form a
+small lake; the water is clear and good, but no other is to be
+met with on the entire line hence to Hasa.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For the rest of the day we continued steadily to
+descend the broad even slope, whose extreme barrenness and
+inanimate monotony reminded me of the pebbly uplands near
+Ma&rsquo;an on the opposite side of <a name="page253"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 253</span>the peninsula, traversed by us
+exactly seven months before.&nbsp; The sun set, night came on,
+and many of the travellers would gladly have halted, but
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa insisted on continuing the march.&nbsp; We were
+now many hundred feet lower than the crest behind us, and the air
+felt warm and heavy, when we noticed that the ground, hitherto
+hard beneath our feet, was changing step by step into a light
+sand, that seemed to encroach on the rocky soil.&nbsp; It was at
+first a shallow ripple, then deepened, and before long presented
+the well-known ridges and undulations characteristic of the land
+ocean when several fathoms in depth.&nbsp; Our beasts ploughed
+laboriously on through the yielding surface; the night was dark,
+but starry, and we could just discern amid the shade a white
+glimmer of spectral sand-hills, rising around us on every side,
+but no track or indication of a route.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was the great Dahna, or &lsquo;Red Desert,&rsquo;
+the bugbear of even the wandering Bedouin, and never traversed by
+ordinary wayfarers without an apprehension which has too often
+been justified by fatal incidents.&nbsp; So light are the sands,
+so capricious the breezes that shape and reshape them daily into
+unstable hills and valleys, that no traces of preceding
+travellers remain to those who follow; while intense heat and
+glaring light reflected on all sides combine with drought and
+weariness to confuse and bewilder the adventurer, till he loses
+his compass and wanders up and down at random amid a waste
+solitude which soon becomes his grave.&nbsp; Many have thus
+perished; even whole caravans have been known to disappear <a
+name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 254</span>in the
+Dahna without a vestige, till the wild Arab tales of demons
+carrying off wanderers, or ghouls devouring them, obtain a half
+credit among many accustomed elsewhere to laugh at such
+fictions.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For, after about three hours of night travelling, or
+rather wading, among the sand-waves, till men and beasts alike
+were ready to sink for weariness, a sharp altercation arose
+between Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa and El-Ghannam, each proposing a
+different direction of march.&nbsp; We all halted a moment, and
+raised our eyes, heavy with drowsiness and fatigue, as if to see
+which of the contending parties was in the right.&nbsp; It will
+be long before I forget the impression of that moment.&nbsp;
+Above us was the deep black sky, spangled with huge stars of a
+brilliancy denied to all but an Arab gaze, while what is
+elsewhere a ray of the third magnitude becomes here of the first
+amid the pure vacuum of a mistless, vaporless air; around us
+loomed high ridges, shutting us in before and behind with their
+white, ghost-like outlines; below our feet the lifeless sand, and
+everywhere a silence that seemed to belong to some strange and
+dreamy world where man might not venture.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When not far from the midmost of the Dahna, we fell in
+with a few Bedouins, belonging to the Aal-Morrah clan, sole
+tenants of this desert.&nbsp; They were leading their goats to
+little spots of scattered herbage and shrubs which here and there
+fix a precarious existence in the hollows of the sands.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Theirs is the great desert from Nedjed to
+Hadramaut.&nbsp; Not that they actually cover this immense space,
+a good fourth of the peninsula, but that they <a
+name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>have the
+free and undisputed range of the oases which it occasionally
+offers, where herbs, shrubs, and dwarf-palms cluster round some
+well of scant and briny water.&nbsp; These oases are sufficiently
+numerous to preserve a stray Bedouin or two from perishing,
+though not enough so to become landmarks for any regular route
+across the central Dahna, from the main body of which runs out
+the long and broad arm which we were now traversing.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Another night&rsquo;s bivouac, and then again over the
+white down-sloping plain.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was now three days and a half since our last supply
+of water, and Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa was anxious to reach the
+journey&rsquo;s end without delay.&nbsp; As darkness closed
+around we reached the farthermost heights of the coast-range of
+Hasa.&nbsp; Hence we overlooked the plains of Hasa, but could
+distinguish nothing through the deceptive rays of the rising
+moon; we seemed to gaze into a vast milky ocean.&nbsp; After an
+hour&rsquo;s halt for supper we wandered on, now up, now down,
+over pass and crag, till a long, corkscrew descent down the
+precipitous sea-side of the mountain, for a thousand feet or near
+it, placed us fairly upon the low level of Hasa, and within the
+warm, damp air of the sea-coast.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The ground glimmered white to the moon, and gave a firm
+footing to our dromedaries, who, by their renewed agility, seemed
+to partake in the joy of their riders, and to understand that
+rest was near.&nbsp; We were, in fact, all so eager to find
+ourselves at home and homestead, that although the town of
+Hofhoof, our destined goal, was yet full fifteen miles <a
+name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 256</span>to the
+northeast, we pressed on for the capital.&nbsp; And there, in
+fact, we should have all arrived in a body before day-dawn, had
+not a singular occurrence retarded by far the greater number of
+our companions.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Soon after, the crags in our rear had shut out, perhaps
+for years, perhaps forever, the desert and Central Arabia from
+our view, while before and around us lay the indistinct
+undulations and uncertain breaks of the great Hasa plain, when on
+a sloping bank at a short distance in front we discerned certain
+large black patches, in strong contrast with the white glister of
+the soil around, and at the same time our attention was attracted
+by a strange whizzing like that of a flight of hornets, close
+along the ground, while our dromedaries capered and started as
+though struck with sudden insanity.&nbsp; The cause of all this
+was a vast swarm of locusts, here alighted in their northerly
+wanderings from their birthplace in the Dahna; their camp
+extended far and wide, and we had already disturbed their
+outposts.&nbsp; These insects are wont to settle on the ground
+after sunset, and there, half stupefied by the night chill, to
+await the morning rays, which warm them once more into life and
+movement.&nbsp; This time our dromedaries did the work of the
+sun, and it would be hard to say which of the two were the most
+frightened, they or the locusts.&nbsp; It was truly laughable to
+see so huge a beast lose his wits for fear at the flight of a
+harmless, stingless insect; of all timid creatures none equals
+the &lsquo;ship of the desert&rsquo; for cowardice.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The swarm now before us was a thorough godsend for our
+Arabs, on no account to be neglected.&nbsp; <a
+name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 257</span>Thirst,
+weariness, all was forgotten, and down the riders leapt from
+their starting camels; this one spread out a cloak, that one a
+saddle-bag, a third his shirt, over the unlucky creatures
+destined for the morrow&rsquo;s meal.&nbsp; Some flew away
+whirring across our feet, others were caught and tied up in
+cloths and sacks.&nbsp; Cornish wreckers at work about a
+shattered East Indiaman would be beaten by Ghannam and his
+companions with the locusts.&nbsp; However, Barakat and myself
+felt no special interest in the chase, nor had we much desire to
+turn our dress and accoutrements into receptacles for living
+game.&nbsp; Luckily Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa still retained enough of his
+North Syrian education to be of our mind also.&nbsp; Accordingly
+we left our associates hard at work, turned our startled and
+still unruly dromedaries in the direction of Hofhoof, and set off
+full speed over the plain.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was not till near morning that we saw before us in
+indistinct row the long black lines of the immense date-groves
+that surround Hofhoof.&nbsp; Then, winding on amid rice-grounds
+and cornfields, we left on our right an isolated fort (to be
+described by daylight), passed some scattered villas, with their
+gardens, approached the ruined town walls, and entered the
+southern gate, now open and unguarded.&nbsp; Farther on a few
+streets brought us before the door of Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa&rsquo;s
+house, our desired resting-place.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was still night.&nbsp; All was silent in the street
+and house, at the entrance of which we now stood; indeed, none
+but the master of a domicile could think of knocking at such an
+hour, nor was <a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+258</span>Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa expected at that precise moment.&nbsp;
+With much difficulty he contrived to awake the tenants; next the
+shrill voice of the lady was heard within in accents of joy and
+welcome; the door at last opened, and Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa invited us
+into a dark passage, where a gas-light would have been a
+remarkable improvement, and by this ushered us into the
+k&rsquo;hawah.&nbsp; Here we lighted a fire, and after a hasty
+refreshment all lay down to sleep, nor awoke till the following
+forenoon.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2><a name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+259</span>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Palgrave&rsquo;s
+Travels&mdash;Eastern Arabia</span>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Our</span> stay at Hofhoof was very
+pleasant and interesting, not indeed through personal incidents
+and hair-breadth escapes&mdash;of which we had our fair portion
+at Ri&rsquo;ad and elsewhere&mdash;but in the information here
+acquired, and in the novel character of everything around us,
+whether nature, art, or man.&nbsp; Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa was very
+anxious that we should see as much as possible of the country,
+and procured us all means requisite for so doing, while the
+shelter of his roof, and the precautions which he adopted or
+suggested, obviated whatever dangers and inconveniences we had
+experienced in former stages of the journey. Besides, the general
+disposition of the inhabitants of Hasa is very different from
+that met with in Nedjed, and even in Shomer or Djowf, and much
+better adapted to make a stranger feel himself at home.&nbsp; A
+sea-coast people, looking mainly to foreign lands and the ocean
+for livelihood and commerce, accustomed to see among them not
+unfrequently men of dress, manners, and religion different from
+their own, many of them themselves travellers or voyagers to
+Basrah, Bagdad, Bahreyn, Oman, and some even farther, they are
+commonly free from that half-wondering, <a
+name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+260</span>half-suspicious feeling which the sight of a stranger
+occasions in the isolated, desert-girded centre.&nbsp; In short,
+experience, that best of masters, has gone far to unteach the
+lessons of ignorance, intolerance, and national aversion.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hofhoof, whose ample circuit contained during the last
+generation about thirty thousand inhabitants, now dwindled to
+twenty-three or twenty-four thousand, is divided into three
+quarters or districts.&nbsp; The general form of the town is that
+of a large oval.&nbsp; The public square, an oblong space of
+about three hundred yards in length by a fourth of the same in
+width, occupies the meeting point of these quarters; the
+K&ocirc;t lies on its northeast, the Rifey&rsquo;eeyah on the
+northwest and west, and the Na&rsquo;athar on the east and
+south.&nbsp; In this last quarter was our present home; moreover,
+it stood in the part farthest removed from the K&ocirc;t and its
+sinister influences, while it was also sufficiently distant from
+the overturbulent neighborhood of the Rifey&rsquo;eeyah, the
+centre of anti-Wahabee movements, and the name of which alone
+excited distrust and uneasiness in Nedjean minds.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The K&ocirc;t itself is a vast citadel, surrounded by a
+deep trench, with walls and towers of unusual height and
+thickness, earth-built, with an occasional intermixture of stone,
+the work of the old Carmathian rulers; it is nearly square, being
+about one-third of a mile in length by one-quarter in
+breadth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On the opposite side of the square, and consequently
+belonging to the Rifey&rsquo;eeyah, is the vaulted market-place,
+or &lsquo;Keysareeyah,&rsquo; a name by which constructions of
+this nature must henceforth be called up <a
+name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 261</span>to Mascat
+itself, though how this Latinism found its way across the
+peninsula to lands which seem to have had so little commerce with
+the Roman or Byzantine empires, I cannot readily
+conjecture.&nbsp; This Keysareeyah is in form a long
+barrel-vaulted arcade, with a portal at either end; the folding
+doors that should protect the entrances have here in Hofhoof been
+taken away, elsewhere they are always to be found.&nbsp; The
+sides are composed of shops, set apart in general for wares of
+cost, or at least what is here esteemed costly; thus, weapons,
+cloth embroidery, gold and silver ornament, and analogous
+articles, are the ordinary stock-in-hand in the
+Keysareeyah.&nbsp; Around it cluster several alleys, roofed with
+palm-leaves against the heat, and tolerably symmetrical; in the
+shops we may see the merchandise of Bahreyn, Oman, Persia, and
+India exposed for sale, mixed with the manufactured produce of
+the country; workshops, smithies, carpenters&rsquo; and
+shoemakers&rsquo; stalls, and the like, are here also.&nbsp; In
+the open square itself stand countless booths for the sale of
+dates, vegetables, wood, salted locusts, and small ware of many
+kinds.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Rifey&rsquo;eeyah, or noble quarter, covers a
+considerable extent, and is chiefly composed of tolerable, in
+some places of even handsome, dwellings.&nbsp; The comparative
+elegance of domestic architecture in Hofhoof is due to the use of
+the arch, which, after the long interval from Ma&rsquo;an to
+Hasa, now at last reappears, and gives to the constructions of
+this province a lightness and a variety unknown in the monotonous
+and heavy piles of Nedjed and Shomer.&nbsp; Another improvement
+is that the walls, whether of earth or <a
+name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 262</span>stone, or
+of both mixed, as is often the case, are here very generally
+coated with fine white plaster, much resembling the
+&lsquo;chunam&rsquo; of Southern India; ornament, too, is aimed
+at about the doorways and the ogee-headed windows, and is
+sometimes attained.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Na&rsquo;athar is the largest quarter; it forms,
+indeed, a good half of the town, and completes its oval.&nbsp; In
+it every description of dwelling is to be seen&mdash;for rich and
+poor, for high and low, palace or hovel.&nbsp; Here, too, but
+near the K&ocirc;t, has the pious policy of Feysul constructed
+the great mosque.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But perhaps my reader, after accompanying me thus far,
+may feel thirsty, for the heat, even in December, is almost
+oppressive, and the sky cloudless as though it were June or
+July.&nbsp; So let us turn aside into that grassy plantation,
+where half a dozen buffaloes are cooling their ugly hides in a
+pool, and drink a little from the source that supplies it.&nbsp;
+When behold! the water is warm, almost hot.&nbsp; Do not be
+surprised; all the fountain sources and wells of Hasa are so,
+more or less; in some one can hardly bear to plunge one&rsquo;s
+hand; others are less above the average temperature, while a
+decidedly sulphurous taste is now and then perceptible.&nbsp; In
+fact, from the extreme north of this province down to its
+southern-most frontier, this same sign of subterranean fire is
+everywhere to be found.&nbsp; The rocks, too, are here very
+frequently of tufa and basalt, another mark of igneous
+agency.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The products of Hasa are many and various; the monotony
+of Arab vegetation, its eternal palm and ithel, ithel and palm,
+are here varied by new foliage, <a name="page263"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 263</span>and growths unknown to Nedjed and
+Shomer.&nbsp; True, the date-palm still predominates, nay, here
+attains its greatest perfection.&nbsp; But the nabak, with its
+rounded leaves and little crab-apple fruit, a mere bush in
+Central Arabia, becomes in Hasa a stately tree; the papay, too,
+so well known in the more easterly peninsula, appears, though
+seldom, and stunted in growth, along with some other trees,
+common on the coast from Cutch to Bombay.&nbsp; Indigo is here
+cultivated, though not sufficiently for the demands of commerce;
+cotton is much more widely grown than in Yemamah; rice fields
+abound, and the sugar-cane is often planted, though not, I
+believe, for the extraction of the sugar.&nbsp; The peasants of
+Hasa sell the reed by retail bundles in the market-place, and the
+purchasers take it home to gnaw at leisure in their houses.&nbsp;
+Corn, maize, millet, vetches of every kind, radishes, onions,
+garlic, beans, in short, almost all legumina and cerealia, barley
+excepted (at least I neither saw nor heard of any), cover the
+plain, and under a better administration might be multiplied
+tenfold.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The climate of Hasa, as I have already implied, is very
+different from that of the uplands, and not equally favorable to
+health and physical activity.&nbsp; Hence, a doctor, like myself,
+if my readers will allow me the title, has here more work and
+better fees; this latter circumstance is also owing to the
+greater amount of ready money in circulation, and the higher
+value set on medical science by men whose intellects are much
+more cultivated than those of their Nedjean neighbors.&nbsp; In
+appearance, the inhabitants of Hasa are generally good-sized and
+<a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+264</span>well-proportioned, but somewhat sallow in the face, and
+of a less muscular development than is usual inland; their
+features, though regular, are less marked than those of the
+Nedjeans, and do not exhibit the same half-Jewish type.&nbsp; On
+the contrary, there is something in them that reminds a beholder
+of the Rajpoot or the Guzeratee.&nbsp; They are passionately fond
+of literature and poetry.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have already said that our great endeavor in Hasa was
+to observe unobserved, and thus to render our time as barren as
+might be in incidents and catastrophes.&nbsp; Not that we went
+into the opposite extreme of leading an absolutely retired and
+therefore uneventful life.&nbsp; Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa took care from
+the first to bring us into contact with the best and the most
+cultivated families of the town, nor had my medical profession
+anywhere a wider range for its exercise, or better success than
+in Hofhoof.&nbsp; Friendly invitations, now to dinner, now to
+supper, were of daily occurrence; and we sat at tables where
+fish, no longer mere salted shrimps, announced our vicinity to
+the coast; vermicelli, too, and other kinds of pastry, denoted
+the influence of Persian art on the kitchen.&nbsp; Smoking within
+doors was general; but the nargheelah often replaced, and that
+advantageously, the short Arab pipe; perfumes are no less here in
+use than in Nedjed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We had passed about a week in the town when
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa entered the side room where Barakat and I were
+enjoying a moment of quiet, and copying out &lsquo;Nabtee&rsquo;
+poetry, and shut the door behind him.&nbsp; He then announced to
+us, with a face and tone of <a name="page265"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 265</span>serious anxiety, that two of the
+principal Nedjean agents belonging to the K&ocirc;t had just come
+into the k&rsquo;hawah, under pretext of medical consultation,
+but in reality, said he, to identify the strangers.&nbsp; We put
+on our cloaks&mdash;a preliminary measure of decorum equivalent
+to face- and hand-washing in Europe&mdash;and presented ourselves
+before our inquisitors with an air of conscious innocence and
+scientific solemnity.&nbsp; Conversation ensued, and we talked so
+learnedly about bilious and sanguine complexions, cephalic veins,
+and Indian drugs, with such apposite citations from the Koran,
+and such loyal phrases for Feysul, that Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa was
+beside himself for joy; and the spies, after receiving some
+prescriptions of the bread-pill and aromatic-water formula, left
+the house no wiser than before.&nbsp; Our friends, too, and they
+were now many, well guessing what we might really be, partly from
+our own appearance and partly from the known character of our
+host (according to old Homer&rsquo;s true saying, <i>Heaven
+always leads like to like</i>), did each and all their best to
+throw sand into Wahabee eyes, and everything went on sociably and
+smoothly.&nbsp; A blessing on the medical profession!&nbsp; None
+other gives such excellent opportunities for securing everywhere
+confidence and friendship.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Before we leave Hasa I must add a few remarks to
+complete the sketch given of the province and of its
+inhabitants.&nbsp; Want of a suitable opportunity for inserting
+them before has thrown them together at this point of my
+narrative.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My fair readers will be pleased to learn that the veil
+and other restraints inflicted on the gentle sex <a
+name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 266</span>by
+Islamitic rigorism, not to say worse, are much less universal,
+and more easily dispensed with in Hasa; while in addition, the
+ladies of the land enjoy a remarkable share of those natural
+gifts which no institutions, and even no cosmetics, can confer;
+namely, beauty of face and elegance of form.&nbsp; Might I
+venture on the delicate and somewhat invidious task of
+constructing a &lsquo;beauty-scale&rsquo; for Arabia, and for
+Arabia alone, the Bedouin women would, on this kalometer, be
+represented by zero, or at most 1&deg;; a degree higher would
+represent the female sex of Nedjed; above them rank the women of
+Shomer, who are in their turn surmounted by those of Djowf.&nbsp;
+The fifth or sixth degree symbolizes the fair ones of Hasa; the
+seventh those of Katar; and lastly, by a sudden rise of ten
+degrees at least, the seventeenth or eighteenth would denote the
+pre-eminent beauties of Oman.&nbsp; Arab poets occasionally
+languish after the charmers of Hedjaz; I never saw anyone to
+charm me, but then I only skirted the province.&nbsp; All bear
+witness to the absence of female loveliness in Yemen; and I
+should much doubt whether the mulatto races and dusky complexions
+of Hadramaut have much to vaunt of.&nbsp; But in Hasa a decided
+improvement on this important point is agreeably evident to the
+traveller arriving from Nedjed, and he will be yet further
+delighted on finding his Calypsos much more conversible, and
+having much more, too, in their conversation than those he left
+behind him in Sedeyr and &rsquo;Aared.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;During our stay at Hofhoof, Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa left
+untried no arts of Arab rhetoric and persuasion to <a
+name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 267</span>determine
+me to visit Oman, assuring me again and again that whatever we
+had yet seen, even in his favorite Hasa, was nothing compared to
+what remained to see in that more remote country.&nbsp; My
+companion, tired of our long journey, and thinking the long
+distance already laid between him and his Syrian home quite
+sufficient in itself without further leagues tacked on to it, was
+very little disposed for a supplementary expedition.&nbsp;
+Englishmen, on the contrary, are rovers by descent and habit; my
+own mind was now fully made up to visit Oman at all risks,
+whether Barakat came with me or not.&nbsp; Meanwhile, we formed
+our plan for the next immediate stage of our route.&nbsp; My
+companion and I were to quit Hofhoof together, leaving
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa behind us for a week or two at Hasa, while we
+journeyed northward to Kateef, and thence took ship for the town
+of Menamah in Bahreyn.&nbsp; In this latter place
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa was to rejoin us.&nbsp; Our main reason for thus
+separating our movements in time and in direction, was to avoid
+the too glaring appearance of acting in concert while yet in a
+land under Wahabee government and full of Wahabee spies and
+reporters, especially after the suspicions thrown on us at
+Ri&rsquo;ad.&nbsp; The Oman arrangements were to be deferred till
+we should all meet again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Barakat and myself prepared for our departure; we
+purchased a few objects of local curiosity, got in our dues of
+medical attendance, paid and received the customary P. P. C.
+visits, and even tendered our respects to the negro governor
+Belal, where he sat at his palace door in the K&ocirc;t, holding
+a public <a name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+268</span>audience, and looking much like any other well-dressed
+black.&nbsp; No passport was required for setting out on the road
+to Kateef, which in the eyes of government forms only one and the
+same province with Hasa, though in many respects very different
+from it.&nbsp; The road is perfectly secure; plundering Bedouins
+or highway robbers are here out of the question.&nbsp; However,
+we stood in need of companions, not for escort, but as
+guides.&nbsp; Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa made inquiries in the town, and
+found three men who chanced to be just then setting out on their
+way for Kateef, who readily consented to join band with us for
+the road.&nbsp; Our Abyssinian hostess supplied us with a whole
+sack of provisions, and our Hofhoof associates found us in
+camels.&nbsp; Thus equipped and mounted, we took an almost
+touching leave of Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa&rsquo;s good-natured wife,
+kissed the baby, exchanged an <i>au revoir</i> with its father,
+and set out on the afternoon of December 19th, leaving behind us
+many pleasant acquaintances, from some of whom I received
+messages and letters while at Bahreyn.&nbsp; So far as
+inhabitants are concerned, to no town in Arabia should I return
+with equal confidence of finding a hearty greeting and a welcome
+reception, than to Hofhoof and its amiable and intelligent
+merchants.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We quitted the town by the northeastern gate of the
+Rifey-&rsquo;eeyah, where the friends, who, according to Arab
+custom, had accompanied us thus far in a sort of procession,
+wished us a prosperous journey, took a last adieu, and returned
+home.&nbsp; After some hours we bivouacked on a little hillock of
+clean sand, with the dark line of the Hofhoof woods on our <a
+name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 269</span>left, while
+at some distance in front a copious fountain poured out its
+rushing waters with a noise distinctly audible in the stillness
+of the night, and irrigated a garden worthy of Damascus or
+Antioch.&nbsp; The night air was temperate, neither cold like
+that of Nedjed, nor stifling like that of Southern India; the sky
+clear and starry.&nbsp; From our commanding position on the hill
+I could distinguish Soheyl or Canopus, now setting; and following
+him, not far above the horizon, the three upper stars of the
+Southern Cross, an old Indian acquaintance; two months later in
+Oman I had the view of the entire constellation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Next morning we traversed a large plain of light and
+sandy soil, intersected by occasional ridges of basalt and
+sandstone.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We journeyed on all day, meeting no Bedouins and few
+travellers.&nbsp; At evening we encamped in a shallow valley,
+near a cluster of brimming wells, some sweet, some brackish,
+where the traces of half-obliterated watercourses and the
+vestiges of crumbling house-walls indicated the former existence
+of a village, now also deserted.&nbsp; We passed a comfortable
+night under the shelter of palms and high brushwood, mixed with
+gigantic aloes and yuccas, and rose next morning early to our
+way.&nbsp; Our direction lay northeast.&nbsp; In the afternoon we
+caught our first glimpse of Djebel Mushahhar, a pyramidical peak
+some seven hundred feet high and about ten miles south of
+Kateef.&nbsp; But the sea, though I looked toward it and for it
+with an eagerness somewhat resembling that of the Ten Thousand on
+their approach to the <a name="page270"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 270</span>Euxine, remained shut out from view
+by a further continuation of the heights.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Next day we rose at dawn, and crossed the hills of
+Kateef by a long winding path, till after some hours of
+labyrinthine track we came in sight of the dark plantation-line
+that girdles Kateef itself landward.&nbsp; The sea lies
+immediately beyond; this we knew, but we could not obtain a
+glimpse of its waters through the verdant curtain stretched
+between.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About midday we descended the last slope, a steep
+sandstone cliff, which looks as though it had been the sea-limit
+of a former period.&nbsp; We now stood on the coast itself.&nbsp;
+Its level is as nearly as possible that of the Gulf beyond; a few
+feet of a higher tide than usual would cover it up to the
+cliffs.&nbsp; Hence it is a decidedly unhealthy land, though
+fertile and even populous; but the inhabitants are mostly weak in
+frame and sallow in complexion.&nbsp; The atmosphere was thick
+and oppressive, the heat intense, and the vegetation hung rich
+and heavy around; my companions talked about suffocation, and I
+remembered once more the Indian coast.&nbsp; Another hour of
+afternoon march brought us to Kateef itself, at its western
+portal; a high stone arch of elegant form, and flanked by walls
+and towers, but all dismantled and ruinous.&nbsp; Close by the
+two burial-grounds, one for the people of the land, the other for
+the Nedjean rulers and colony&mdash;divided even after death by
+mutual hatred and anathema.&nbsp; Folly, if you will, but folly
+not peculiar to the East.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The town itself is crowded, damp, and dirty, and has
+altogether a gloomy, what for want of a better <a
+name="page271"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 271</span>epithet I
+would call a <i>mouldy</i>, look; much business was going on in
+the market and streets, but the ill-favored and very un-Arab look
+of the shopkeepers and workmen confirms what history tells of the
+Persian colonization of this city.&nbsp; Indeed, the inhabitants
+of the entire district, but more especially of the capital, are a
+mongrel race, in which Persian blood predominates, mixed with
+that of Bassora, Bagdad, and the &rsquo;Irak.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We urged our starting dromedaries across the open
+square in front of the market-place, traversed the town in its
+width, which is scarce a quarter of its length (like other coast
+towns), till we emerged from the opposite gate, and then looked
+out with greedy eyes for the sea, now scarce ten minutes
+distant.&nbsp; In vain as yet, so low lies the land, and so thick
+cluster the trees.&nbsp; But after a turn or two we came
+alongside of the outer walls, belonging to the huge fortress of
+Karmoot, and immediately afterward the valley opening out showed
+us almost at our feet the dead shallow flats of the bay.&nbsp;
+How different from the bright waters of the Mediterranean, all
+glitter and life, where we had bidden them farewell eight months
+before at Gaza!&nbsp; Like a leaden sheet, half ooze, half sedge,
+the muddy sea lay in view, waveless, motionless; to our left the
+massive walls of the castle went down almost to the water&rsquo;s
+edge, and then turned to leave a narrow esplanade between its
+circuit and the Gulf.&nbsp; On this ledge were ranged a few rusty
+guns of large calibre, to show how the place was once guarded;
+and just in front of the main gate a crumbling outwork, which a
+single cannon-shot <a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+272</span>would level with the ground, displayed six pieces of
+honey-combed artillery, their mouths pointing seaward.&nbsp; Long
+stone benches without invited us to leave our camels crouching on
+the esplanade, while we seated ourselves and rested a little
+before requesting the governor to grant us a day&rsquo;s
+hospitality, and permission to embark for Bahreyn.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Barakat and I sat still to gaze, speculating on the
+difference between the two sides of Arabia.&nbsp; But our
+companions, like true Arabs, thought it high time for
+&lsquo;refreshment,&rsquo; and accordingly began their inquiries
+at the castle-gate where the governor might be, and whether he
+was to be spoken to.&nbsp; When, behold! the majesty of
+Feysul&rsquo;s vicegerent issuing in person from his palace to
+visit the new man-of-war.&nbsp; My abolitionist friends will be
+gratified to learn that this exalted dignitary is, no less than
+he of Hofhoof, a negro, brought up from a curly-headed imp to a
+woolly-headed black in Feysul&rsquo;s own palace, and now
+governor of the most important harbor owned by Nedjed on the
+Persian Gulf, and of the town once capital of that fierce dynasty
+which levelled the Kaabah with the dust, and filled Kateef with
+the plunder of Yemen and Syria.&nbsp; Farhat, to give him his
+proper name, common among those of his complexion, was a fine
+tall negro of about fifty years old, good-natured, chatty,
+hospitable, and furnished with perhaps a trifle more than the
+average amount of negro intellect.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa, who had friends and acquaintances
+everywhere, and whose kindly manner made him always a special
+favorite with negroes high or low, had furnished us with an
+introductory letter to <a name="page273"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 273</span>Farhat, intended to make matters
+smooth for our future route.&nbsp; But as matters went there was
+little need of caution.&nbsp; The fortunate coincidence of a
+strong north wind, just then blowing down the Gulf, gave a
+satisfactory reason for not embarking on board of a Bassora
+cruiser, while it rendered a voyage to Bahreyn, our real object,
+equally specious and easy.&nbsp; Besides, Farhat himself, who was
+a good, easy-going sort of man, had hardly opened
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa&rsquo;s note, than without more ado he bade us a
+hearty welcome, ordered our luggage to be brought within the
+castle precincts, and requested us to step in ourselves and take
+a cup of coffee, awaiting his return for further conversation
+after his daily visit of inspection to Feysul&rsquo;s abridged
+fleet.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The next day passed, partly in Farhat&rsquo;s
+k&rsquo;hawah, partly in strolling about the castle, town,
+gardens, and beach, making, meanwhile, random inquiries after
+boats and boatmen.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was noon when we fell in with a ship captain, ready
+to sail that very night, wind and tide permitting.&nbsp;
+Farhat&rsquo;s men had spoken with him, and he readily offered to
+take us on board.&nbsp; We then paid a visit to the custom-house
+officer to settle the embarkation dues for men and goods.&nbsp;
+This foreman of the Ma&rsquo;asher, whether in accordance with
+orders from Farhat, or of his own free will and inclination, I
+know not, proved wonderfully gracious, and declared that to take
+a farthing of duty from such useful servants of the public as
+doctors, would be &lsquo;sheyn w&rsquo;khata&rsquo;, &lsquo;shame
+and sin.&rsquo;&nbsp; Alas, that European custom house officials
+should be far removed from <a name="page274"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 274</span>such generous and patriotic
+sentiments!&nbsp; Lastly, of his own accord he furnished us with
+men to carry our baggage through knee-deep water and thigh-deep
+mud to the little cutter, where she lay some fifty yards from
+shore.&nbsp; Evening now came on, and Farhat sent for us to
+congratulate us, but with a polite regret on having found so
+speedy conveyance for our voyage.&nbsp; Meanwhile he let us
+understand how he was himself invited for the evening to supper
+with a rich merchant of the town, and that we were expected to
+join the party; nor need that make us anxious about our passage,
+since our ship captain was also invited, nor could the vessel
+possibly sail before the full tide at midnight.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;From our town supper we returned by torchlight to the
+castle; our baggage, no great burden, had been already taken down
+to the sea gate, where stood two of the captain&rsquo;s men
+waiting for us.&nbsp; In their company we descended to the beach,
+and then with garments tucked up to the waist waded to the
+vessel, not without difficulty, for the tide was rapidly coming
+in, and we had almost to swim for it.&nbsp; At last we reached
+the ship and scrambled up her side; most heartily glad was I to
+find myself at sea once more on the other side of
+Arabia.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After a slow voyage of three days Palgrave reached Bahreyn,
+the headquarters of the pearl fisheries, and established himself
+in the little town of Moharrek, to wait for the arrival of
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa before undertaking his projected exploration of
+Oman.&nbsp; He and his companion enjoyed a grateful feeling of
+rest and security in this seaport among the sailors, to <a
+name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>whom all
+varieties of foreigners were well known, and who, having no
+prejudices, felt no suspicion.</p>
+<p>On January 9, 1863, Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa arrived, and after much
+earnest consultation the following plan was adopted:
+Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa was to send twenty loads of the best Hasa dates,
+and a handsome mantle, as presents to the Sultan of Oman, with
+three additional mantles for the three chiefs whose territories
+intervened between Bahreyn and Muscat.&nbsp; Palgrave was to
+accompany these gifts, under his character of a skilled physician
+in quest of certain rare and mysterious herbs of Oman.&nbsp;
+Meanwhile, Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa and Barakat would take passage for
+Aboo-Shahr (Busheer), in Persia, where the former would be
+employed for three months in making up his next caravan of Mecca
+pilgrims.&nbsp; Here Palgrave was to rejoin them after his
+journey.</p>
+<p>In place of Barakat his companion was a curious individual
+named Yoosef, whom Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa had rescued from misery and
+maintained in a decent condition.&nbsp; He was a native of Hasa,
+half a jester and half a knave; witty, reckless, hare brained to
+the last degree, full of jocose or pathetic stories, of poetry,
+traditions, and fun of every description.&nbsp; When everything
+had been arranged the four parted company, Palgrave and his new
+companion sailing for the port of Bedaa&rsquo;, on the Arabian
+coast, where resided the first of the three chiefs whose
+protection it was necessary to secure.&nbsp; They reached there
+after a cruise of five or six days, finding the place very barren
+and desolate, with scarcely a tree or a garden; but, as the chief
+said to Palgrave, &ldquo;We are all, from <a
+name="page276"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 276</span>the highest
+to the lowest, the slaves of one master&mdash;Pearl.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+The bay contains the best pearl-fishery on the coast, and the
+town depends for its existence on the trade in these gems.</p>
+<p>The chief was intelligent and friendly, and appears to have
+interposed no obstacle to the proposed journey into the interior,
+but Palgrave decided to go on by sea to the town of Sharjah, on
+the northern side of the peninsula of Oman.&nbsp; Embarking again
+on February 6th, the vessel was driven by violent winds across to
+the Persian shore, and ten days elapsed before it was possible to
+reach Sharjah.&nbsp; Here, again, although their reception was
+hospitable, the travellers gave up their land journey and
+re-embarked in another vessel to pass around the peninsula,
+through the Straits of Ormuz, and land on the southern shore, in
+the territory of Muscat.</p>
+<p>In three days they reached the island of Ormuz, of which
+Palgrave says: &ldquo;I was not at all sorry to have an
+opportunity of visiting an island once so renowned for its
+commerce, and of which its Portuguese occupants used to say,
+&lsquo;that, were the world a golden ring Ormuz would be the
+diamond signet.&rsquo;&nbsp; The general appearance of Ormuz
+indicates an extinguished volcano, and such I believe it really
+is; the circumference consists of a wide oval wall, formed by
+steep crags, fire-worn and ragged; these enclose a central basin,
+where grow shrubs and grass; the basaltic slopes of the outer
+barrier run in many places clean down into the sea, amid
+splinter-like pinnacles and fantastic crags of many colors, like
+those which lava often assumes on cooling.&nbsp; Between <a
+name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 277</span>the west
+and north a long triangular promontory, low and level, advances
+to a considerable distance, and narrows into a neck of land,
+which is terminated by a few rocks and a strong fortress, the
+work of Portuguese builders, but worthy of taking rank among
+Roman ruins&mdash;so solid are the walls, so compact the masonry
+and well-selected brickwork, against which three long centuries
+of sea-storm have broken themselves in vain.&nbsp; The greater
+part of the promontory itself is covered with ruins.&nbsp; Here
+stood the once thriving town, now a confused extent of desolate
+heaps, amid which the vestiges of several fine dwellings, of
+baths, and of a large church may yet be clearly made out.&nbsp;
+Close by the fort cluster a hundred or more wretched
+earth-hovels, the abode of fishermen or shepherds, whose flocks
+pasture within the crater; one single shed, where dried dates,
+raisins, and tobacco are exposed for sale, is all that now
+remains of the trade of Ormuz.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After being detained three days at Ormuz by a storm, the
+vessel passed through the Strait, skirted the southern coast of
+the peninsula, and reached the harbor of Sohar on March 3d.&nbsp;
+Palgrave determined to set off with Yoosef the same evening on
+the land-journey of eight or nine days to Muscat; but he had
+already lost so much time by delays since leaving Bahreyn that he
+yielded to the persuasions of the captain of another vessel, who
+promised to take him to Muscat by sea in two days.&nbsp; He
+sailed on the 6th, weighed down with a vague presentiment of
+coming evil, which was soon to be justified.&nbsp; His wanderings
+in Arabia, and also in this world, very <a
+name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 278</span>nearly came
+to an end.&nbsp; The vessel slowly glided on for two days, and
+Muscat was almost in sight when a dead, ominous calm befell them
+near the Sowadah Islands&mdash;some low reefs of barren rocks,
+about three leagues from shore.&nbsp; It proved to be a calm,
+ominous indeed for Palgrave, as well as for the captain of the
+vessel and all on board.&nbsp; It was followed by a furious storm
+that ended in the wreck of the dhow, and the loss of several
+lives, together with the entire outfit of the expedition.&nbsp;
+Palgrave and the survivors of the crew and passengers, nine in
+number, barely escaped with their lives, and reached the shore
+utterly exhausted, with nothing but the shirts they wore.</p>
+<p>In sorry plight the traveller made his way along the coast to
+Muscat.&nbsp; He was obliged to give up the idea of exploring the
+interior of Oman, partly on account of the loss of the stores but
+chiefly because his identity as a European had been disclosed;
+and so in this disastrous manner ended the most important and
+interesting journey that had yet been made by any traveller in
+Arabia.</p>
+<h2><a name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+279</span>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+<p class="gutsumm"><span class="smcap">Lady Blunt&rsquo;s
+Pilgrimage to Nejd</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1878&ndash;79, sixteen years
+after Palgrave&rsquo;s journey, Lady Anne Blunt, with her husband
+and several native servants, accomplished a journey, which, in
+many respects was more remarkable than the exploits of any of
+their predecessors.&nbsp; Whereas Palgrave and others had
+travelled in disguise, believing it impossible to penetrate into
+the interior otherwise than as mussulmans, the Blunts made no
+pretences of the kind, but went as European travellers, desirous
+of seeing the country, and visiting its rulers.&nbsp; They
+traversed the whole breadth of the peninsula, from Beyrout on the
+Mediterranean coast, to Bagdad on the Tigris, crossing the Great
+Nefood, or central desert, and visiting Hail, Jebel Shammer, and
+other places in Nejd. <a name="citation279"></a><a
+href="#footnote279" class="citation">[279]</a></p>
+<p>On their return Lady Blunt published the remarkably
+interesting story of their adventures, under the title of
+&ldquo;A Pilgrimage to Nejd,&rdquo; a book which added greatly to
+our knowledge of the Arabian <a name="page280"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 280</span>interior, and to which the compiler
+of this chapter is largely indebted.</p>
+<p>The travellers entered upon their adventurous undertaking with
+the advantage of experiences gained on a previous journey among
+the Arab tribes of the Euphrates Valley, and a knowledge of the
+Arab tongue.&nbsp; Their native servants, who had accompanied
+them on their previous expedition, eagerly joined their service
+for the new venture; camels, horses, and all necessary supplies
+for the journey were purchased at Damascus, and on December 12th,
+1879, the start was made.</p>
+<p>Though unwilling to travel under false colors as to race or
+nationality, the English travellers found it convenient to adopt
+the Bedouin costume for the desert journey, to avoid attracting
+more notice than was necessary.&nbsp; Their first objective point
+was J&ocirc;f, an important oasis in the desert, four hundred
+miles away.&nbsp; Lady Blunt, describing the start from Damascus,
+says:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At first we skirted the city, passing the gate where
+St. Paul is said to have entered, and the place where he got over
+the wall, and then along the suburb of Ma&iuml;dan, which is the
+quarter occupied by Bedouins when they come to town, and where we
+had found the Tudmuri and our camels.&nbsp; Here we were to have
+met the Jerdeh, and we waited some time outside the Baw&acirc;bat
+Allah, or &lsquo;Gates of God,&rsquo; while Mohammed went in to
+make inquiries and take leave of his Tudmuri friends.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is in front of this gate that the pilgrims assemble
+on the day of their start for Mecca, and from it <a
+name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 281</span>the Haj
+road leads away in a nearly straight line southward.&nbsp; The
+Haj road is to be our route as far as Mez&aacute;rib, and is a
+broad, well-worn track, though of course not a road at all
+according to English ideas.&nbsp; It has, nevertheless, a sort of
+romantic interest, one cannot help feeling, going as it does so
+far and through such desolate lands, a track so many thousand
+travellers have followed never to return.&nbsp; I suppose in its
+long history a grave may have been dug for every yard of its
+course from Damascus to Medina, for, especially on the return
+journey, there are constantly deaths among the pilgrims from
+weariness and insufficient food.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A leisurely journey of a week brought the party to Salkhad, a
+Druse community at the edge of the desert, where Huseyn, the
+Sheykh of the Druses provided them with guides to the K&acirc;f
+oasis, a five days&rsquo; journey into the desert.&nbsp; On the
+way to K&acirc;f they passed areas of sand, white as snow, and
+encountered violent sand-storms, in one of which they lost a
+camel who seized his opportunity to escape back to
+Mez&aacute;rib.&nbsp; Beyond K&acirc;f they met with rather a
+thrilling adventure, which is thus graphically described:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Friday, January 3d.&mdash;We have had an adventure at
+last, and rather a disagreeable one; a severe lesson as to the
+danger of encamping near wells.&nbsp; We started early, but were
+delayed a whole hour at Jerawi taking water, and did not leave
+the wells till nearly eight o&rsquo;clock.&nbsp; Then we turned
+back nearly due east across the wady.&nbsp; The soil of pure
+white sand was heavy going, and we went slowly, crossing low
+undulations without other landmark than the <a
+name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 282</span>wells we
+had left behind us.&nbsp; Here and there rose little mounds,
+tufted with ghada.&nbsp; To one of these Wilfrid and I cantered
+on, leaving the camels behind us, and dismounting, tied our mares
+to the bushes, that we might enjoy a few minutes&rsquo; rest and
+eat our midday mouthful; the greyhounds meanwhile played about
+and chased each other in the sand.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We had finished, and were talking of I know not what,
+when the camels passed us.&nbsp; They were hardly a couple of
+hundred yards in front, when suddenly we heard a thud, thud,
+thud, on the sand, a sound of galloping.&nbsp; Wilfrid jumped to
+his feet, looked round, and called out: &lsquo;Get on your
+mare.&nbsp; This is a ghaz&uacute;!&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As I scrambled round the bush to my mare, I saw a troop
+of horsemen charging down at full gallop with their lances, not
+two hundred yards off.&nbsp; Wilfrid was up as he spoke, and so
+should I have been but for my sprained knee and the deep sand,
+both of which gave way as I was rising.&nbsp; I fell back.&nbsp;
+There was no time to think, and I had hardly struggled to my feet
+when the enemy was upon us, and I was knocked down by a
+spear.&nbsp; Then they all turned on Wilfrid, who had waited for
+me, some of them jumping down on foot to get hold of his
+mare&rsquo;s halter.&nbsp; He had my gun with him, which I had
+just before handed to him, but unloaded, his own gun and his
+sword being on his del&uacute;l (riding camel).&nbsp; He
+fortunately had on very thick clothes, two abbas one over the
+other, and English clothes underneath, so the lances did him no
+harm.&nbsp; At last his assailants managed to get his gun from
+him and broke it over <a name="page283"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 283</span>his head, hitting him three times
+and smashing the stock.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Resistance seemed to me useless, and I shouted to the
+nearest horseman, &lsquo;<i>Ana dah&iacute;lak</i>&rsquo; (I am
+under your protection), the usual form of surrender.&nbsp;
+Wilfrid hearing this, and thinking he had had enough of this
+unequal contest, one against twelve, threw himself off his
+mare.&nbsp; The <i>Khayal</i> (horsemen) having seized both the
+mares, paused, and as soon as they had gathered breath, began to
+ask us who we were and where we came from.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;English, and we have come from Damascus,&rsquo;
+we replied, &lsquo;and our camels are close by.&nbsp; Come with
+us and you shall hear about it.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our caravan, while all this had happened, and it only
+lasted about five minutes, had formed itself into a square, and
+the camels were kneeling down, as we could plainly see from where
+we were.&nbsp; I hardly expected the horsemen to do as we asked,
+but the man who seemed to be their leader at once let us walk on
+(a process causing me acute pain), and followed with the others
+to the caravan.&nbsp; We found Mohammed and the rest of our party
+entrenched behind the camels with their guns pointed, and as we
+approached, Mohammed stepped out and came forward.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Min entum?&rsquo; (Who are you?) was the first
+question.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Roala min Ibn Debaa.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Wallah?&rsquo; (Will you swear by God?)&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Wallah!&rsquo; (We swear).</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;And you?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Mohammed ibn
+Ar&ucirc;k of Tudmur.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Wallah?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Wallah!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;And these are Franjis <a name="page284"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 284</span>travelling with you?&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Wallah!&nbsp; Franjis, friends of Ibn Shaalan.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It was all right; we had fallen into the hands of
+friends.&nbsp; Ibn Shaalan, our host of last year, was bound to
+protect us, even so far away in the desert, and none of his
+people dared meddle with us, knowing this.&nbsp; Besides,
+Mohammed was a Tudmuri, and as such could not be molested by
+Roala, for Tudmur pays tribute to Ibn Shaalan, and the Tudmuris
+have a right to his protection.&nbsp; So as soon as the
+circumstances were made clear orders were given by the chief of
+the party to his followers to bring back our mares, and the gun,
+and everything which had been dropped in the scuffle.&nbsp; Even
+to Wilfrid&rsquo;s tobacco-bag, all was restored.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The robbers and the travellers fraternized after the affair
+was over, and the former were very much ashamed of themselves for
+having used their spears against a woman.&nbsp; Lady Blunt
+apologizes for them, however, as the Bedouin dress she wore for
+riding prevented them distinguishing her sex in the confusion of
+the sudden attack.</p>
+<p>Two days after the encounter in the desert the party arrived
+at J&ocirc;f, where they spent three days, and found the people
+very hospitable.&nbsp; Their chief servant and camel-driver,
+Mohammed, was an Arab, who had distant connections in this part
+of Arabia; and as tribal kinship, no matter how remote, is
+regarded as a matter of great importance, this relationship was
+of material aid in securing them the good-will of the
+inhabitants.&nbsp; The Blunts were less favorably impressed with
+J&ocirc;f than was Palgrave, <a name="page285"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 285</span>who, however, uses the term
+&ldquo;Djowf&rdquo; in a broader sense, as including a number of
+oases situated in &ldquo;a large oval depression of sixty or
+seventy miles long by ten or twelve broad, lying between the
+northern desert that separates it from Syria and the Euphrates,
+and the southern Nefood, or sandy waste, and interposed between
+it and the nearest mountains of the Central Arabian
+plateau.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Lady Blunt writes of it: &ldquo;J&ocirc;f is not at all what
+we expected.&nbsp; We thought we should find it a large
+cultivated district, and it turns out to be merely a small
+town.&nbsp; There is nothing at all outside the walls except a
+few square patches, half an acre or so each, green with young
+corn,&rdquo; etc.</p>
+<p>How true is it that no two travellers see things with the same
+eyes.&nbsp; Doubtless both these distinguished travellers are
+reasonably correct in their descriptions, but summed up their
+impressions from opposite stand-points in a topographical sense;
+a common enough mistake in Asia, where the name of a place often
+indicates, equally accurately, a large scope of country and the
+central spot in it.&nbsp; In Central Asia, for example, there is
+Merv, which is the name of a city, and also of the large fertile
+oasis in which it is situated; also Herat, meaning a broad area
+of oases, with a population of probably half a million people, in
+which the fortress-city Herat stands, no less than the city
+itself.</p>
+<p>Important political changes had taken place since
+Palgrave&rsquo;s visit.&nbsp; The rule of the Wahabees had been
+overthrown in J&ocirc;f, and the only representatives of staple
+authority found there were a Sheykh and <a
+name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 286</span>six
+soldiers, who represented the authority of Mohammed ibn Rashid,
+Emir of Jebel Shammar, with his seat of government at Hail.</p>
+<p>From J&ocirc;f the travellers proceeded toward Hail, crossing
+the dreaded Nefood, of which they give a very interesting, and
+far less gloomy, account than did Palgrave.&nbsp; They, however,
+crossed it in January, while Palgrave crossed it in midsummer; so
+that, in the case of the Nefood, as with J&ocirc;f, the
+apparently conflicting accounts are doubtless both fairly
+accurate, the one describing the desert in winter, the other in
+summer.&nbsp; On January 12th, the travellers found themselves on
+the edge of the desert.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At half-past three o&rsquo;clock we saw a red streak on
+the horizon before us, which rose and gathered as we approached
+it, stretching out east and west in an unbroken line.&nbsp; It
+might at first have been taken for an effect of mirage, but on
+coming nearer we found it broken into billows, and but for its
+red color not unlike a stormy sea seen from the shore, for it
+rose up, as the sea seems to rise, when the waves are high, above
+the level of the land.&nbsp; Somebody called out
+&lsquo;Nef&ucirc;d,&rsquo; and though for a while we were
+incredulous, we were soon convinced.&nbsp; What surprised us was
+its color, that of rhubarb and magnesia, nothing at all like what
+we had expected.&nbsp; Yet the Nef&ucirc;d it was, the great red
+desert of Central Arabia.&nbsp; In a few minutes we had cantered
+up to it, and our mares were standing with their feet in its
+first waves.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;January 13th.&mdash;We have been all day in the
+Nef&ucirc;d, which is interesting beyond our hopes, and charming
+into the bargain.&rdquo;&nbsp; After taking issue with <a
+name="page287"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 287</span>Mr.
+Palgrave, who, Lady Blunt thinks, overlooked its brighter side,
+the narrator continues her own observations thus:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The thing that strikes one first about the Nef&ucirc;d
+is its color.&nbsp; It is not white like the sand dunes we passed
+yesterday, nor yellow as the sand is in parts of the Egyptian
+desert, but a really bright red, almost crimson in the morning,
+when it is wet with dew.&nbsp; The sand is rather coarse, but
+absolutely pure, without admixture of any foreign substance,
+pebble, grit, or earth, and exactly the same in tint and texture
+everywhere.&nbsp; It is, however, a great mistake to suppose it
+barren.&nbsp; The Nef&ucirc;d, on the contrary, is better wooded
+and richer in pasture than any part of the desert we have passed
+since leaving Damascus.&nbsp; It is tufted all over with ghada
+bushes, and bushes of another kind called <i>yerta</i>, which at
+this time of the year, when there are no leaves, is exactly like
+a thickly matted vine.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There are, besides, several kinds of camel pasture,
+especially one new to us, called <i>adr</i>, on which they say
+sheep can feed for a month without wanting water, and more than
+one kind of grass.&nbsp; Both camels and mares are therefore
+pleased with the place, and we are delighted with the abundance
+of firewood for our camps.&nbsp; Wilfrid says that the
+Nef&ucirc;d has solved for him at last the mystery of
+horse-breeding in Central Arabia.&nbsp; In the hard desert there
+is nothing a horse can eat, but here there is plenty.&nbsp; The
+Nef&ucirc;d accounts for everything.&nbsp; Instead of being the
+terrible place it has been described by the few travellers who
+have seen it, it is in reality the home of the <a
+name="page288"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 288</span>Bedouins
+during a great part of the year.&nbsp; Its only want is water,
+for it contains but few wells; all along the edge it is thickly
+inhabited, and Radi tells us that in the spring, when the grass
+is green after rain, the Bedouins care nothing for water, as
+their camels are in milk, and they go for weeks without it,
+wandering far into the interior of the sand desert.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In the desert of sand the travellers found many curious
+hollows, which the native guide called fulj.&nbsp; Some of these
+holes were a quarter of a mile in diameter, and as much as 230
+feet deep.&nbsp; They were chiefly of horse-hoof shape.&nbsp;
+They took observations, and at one point on the desert found the
+elevation to be 3,300 feet above sea-level.&nbsp; After seven
+days in the Nef&ucirc;d, the last two of which tried the
+endurance of men and beasts, the party reached the oasis of
+Jobba, which is described as being one of the most curious, as
+also most beautiful, places in the world.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Its name Jobba, meaning a well, explains its position,
+for it lies in a hole or well in the Nef&ucirc;d; not indeed in a
+fulj, for the basin of Jobba is quite on another scale, and has
+nothing in common with the horse-hoof depressions I have hitherto
+described.&nbsp; It is, all the same, extremely singular, and
+quite as difficult to account for geologically as the
+fuljes.&nbsp; It is a great bare space in the ocean of sand, from
+four to five hundred feet below its average level, and about
+three miles wide; a hollow, in fact, not unlike that of
+J&ocirc;f, but with the Nef&ucirc;d round it instead of sandstone
+cliffs.&nbsp; That it has once been a lake is pretty evident, for
+there are distinct water marks on the rocks, which crop up out of
+the bed just above the <a name="page289"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 289</span>town; and, strange to say, there is
+a tradition still extant of there having been formerly water
+there.&nbsp; The wonder is how this space is kept clear of
+sand.&nbsp; What force is it that walls out the Nef&ucirc;d and
+prevents encroachments?&nbsp; As you look across the subbkha, or
+dry bed of the lake, the Nef&ucirc;d seems like a wall of water
+which must overwhelm it; and yet no sand shifts down into the
+hollow, and its limits are accurately maintained.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At length the Nef&ucirc;d was overcome and the travellers
+approached Hail, not without apprehensions as to the reception
+that might await them.&nbsp; Their guide from J&ocirc;f
+enlightened them in regard to many changes that had occurred
+since Palgrave&rsquo;s visit, changes that will be equally
+interesting to readers who have followed Palgrave&rsquo;s
+narrative in preceding chapters.</p>
+<p>Telal, then despotic ruler at Hail (Ha&rsquo;yel), had gone
+insane and committed suicide by stabbing himself with his own
+dagger four years after Palgrave&rsquo;s visit.&nbsp; He was
+succeeded by his brother Metaab, who, however, died suddenly
+after reigning three years; when a dispute arose between his
+brother Mohammed and Telal&rsquo;s oldest son, Bender, about the
+succession.&nbsp; Mohammed being away at the time, Bender, a
+youth of twenty, was proclaimed Emir.&nbsp; Mohammed returned,
+and in a violent quarrel with his nephew drew his dagger and
+stabbed him to death.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then Mohammed galloped back to the castle, and finding
+Ham&ucirc;d (son of Obeyd, uncle of Telal) there, got his help
+and took possession of the palace.&nbsp; He then seized the
+younger sons of Tell&aacute;l (Palgrave&rsquo;s <a
+name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 290</span>Telal),
+Bender&rsquo;s brothers, all but one child, Na&iuml;f, and Bedr,
+who was away from Hail, and had their heads cut off by his slaves
+in the court-yard of the castle.&nbsp; They say, however, that
+Ham&uacute;d protested against this.&nbsp; But Mohammed was
+reckless, or wished to strike terror, and not satisfied with what
+he had already done, went on destroying his relations.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He had some cousins, sons of Jabar, a younger brother
+of Abdallah and Obeyd; and these he sent for.&nbsp; They came in
+some alarm to the castle, each with his slave.&nbsp; They were
+all young men, beautiful to look at, and of the highest
+distinction; and their slaves had been brought up with them, as
+the custom is, more like brothers than servants.&nbsp; They were
+shown into the kahwah of the castle, and received with great
+formality, Mohammed&rsquo;s servants coming forward to invite
+them in.&nbsp; It is the custom at Hail, whenever a person pays a
+visit, that before sitting down he should hang up his sword on
+one of the wooden pegs fixed into the wall, and this the sons of
+Jabar did, and their slaves likewise.&nbsp; Then they sat down
+and waited and waited, but still no coffee was served to
+them.&nbsp; At last Mohammed appeared, surrounded by his guard,
+but there was no &lsquo;salaam aleykum,&rsquo; and instantly he
+gave orders that his cousins should be seized and bound.&nbsp;
+They made a rush for their swords, but were intercepted by the
+slaves of the castle and made prisoners.&nbsp; Mohammed then,
+with horrible barbarity, ordered their hands and their feet to be
+cut off, and the hands and feet of their slaves, and had them,
+still living, dragged out into the court-yard of the palace,
+where they lay till they died.</p>
+<p><a name="page291"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+291</span>&ldquo;These ghastly crimes, more ghastly than ever in
+a country where wilful bloodshed is so unusual, seem to have
+struck terror far and wide, and no one has since dared to raise a
+hand against Mohammed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The knowledge of these terrible doings naturally made the
+travellers feel that they were venturing into dangerous quarters
+as they rode up to the gates of Hail.&nbsp; The Emir, whose title
+was Mohammed-ibn-Rashid (Mohammed, son of Rashid), however,
+received them kindly; and it was discovered that, apart from the
+bloody work of the succession, he had turned out to be not a bad
+ruler.&nbsp; In any part of his dominions, it was understood that
+a person might travel unarmed, and with any amount of gold on
+him, without fear of molestation.&nbsp; Moreover, he seemed to
+have been deeply stricken with remorse for his past misdeeds,
+lived in constant fear of assassination, and was endeavoring to
+make what amends he could by lavishing honors and kindness on the
+youth Na&iuml;f, the only one of his nephews he had
+spared&mdash;for Bedr, too, had been executed.</p>
+<p>It all reads much like a tale from the &ldquo;Arabian
+Nights;&rdquo; and that Arabia is still the land of romance and
+poetry is confirmed by a curious bit of news learned of Obeyd,
+about whom it will be remembered Mr. Palgrave had also a good
+deal to say.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He (Obeyd) lived to a great age, and died only nine
+years ago (<i>i.e.</i> 1869).&nbsp; It is related of him that he
+left no property behind him, having given away everything during
+his lifetime&mdash;no property but his sword, his mare, and his
+young wife.&nbsp; These he left to his nephew
+Mohammed-ibn-Rashid, the reigning <a name="page292"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 292</span>Emir, with the request that his
+sword should remain undrawn, his mare unridden, and his wife
+unmarried forever after.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The travellers give an interesting account of the Emir&rsquo;s
+horses, the most famous stud in Nejd.</p>
+<p>Though interested, they were, on the whole, disappointed with
+the horses of Nejd as compared with those of Northern
+Arabia.&nbsp; &ldquo;In comparing what we see here with what we
+saw last year in the north, the first thing that strikes us is
+that these are ponies, the others horses.&nbsp; It is not so much
+the actual difference in height, though there must be quite three
+inches on an average, as the shape, which produces this
+impression.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The average height was found to be under fourteen hands; and
+though great care was taken to obtain and preserve pure strains
+of blood, in the matter of feeding and grooming, gross negligence
+seemed to be the rule, even in the royal stud.&nbsp; The stables
+were mere open yards, in which the animals stood, each tethered
+to a manger.&nbsp; No shelter was provided, but each horse was
+protected by a heavy rug.&nbsp; They wore no headstalls, being
+fastened solely with ropes or chains about the fetlocks.&nbsp; No
+regular exercise was given them, their food was almost
+exclusively dry barley, and their appearance generally was far
+different from what Europeans would naturally expect of the
+finest stable of horses in the &ldquo;horse peninsula.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The travellers also enlighten us, on the subject of horses, in
+other directions.&nbsp; Except in the north, horses were found to
+be exceedingly rare.&nbsp; It is <a name="page293"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 293</span>possible to travel vast distances
+without meeting a single horse, or even crossing a horse-track;
+on the whole journey across the Nef&ucirc;d, and on to the
+Euphrates, they scarcely saw a horse, apart from the stables of
+the rich and great in the cities.&nbsp; The horse is a luxury to
+be afforded only by people of wealth or position.&nbsp; Journeys
+and raids and wars are all made on camels; the Sheykhs who have
+horses, when going to war save them to mount at the moment of
+actual engagement with the enemy.&nbsp; It was considered a great
+boast by a Nejd tribe of Bedouins that they could mount one
+hundred horsemen; while the Muteyr tribe, reputed to be the
+greatest breeders of thoroughbred stock in Central Arabia, would
+be expected to muster not more than four hundred mares.</p>
+<p>Mohammed-ibn-Rashid recruited his stables by compelling the
+Sheykhs of tributary tribes to sell him their best animals, an
+improvement on some of his predecessors, who kept their studs up
+to the proper mark becoming Arab royalty by making raids against
+the tribes for the purpose of bringing in celebrated mares,
+waiving the matter of payment.</p>
+<p>In the spring the horses of the Emir&rsquo;s stables are
+distributed among the neighboring Bedouins to be pastured on the
+Nef&ucirc;d, which at that period affords excellent
+grazing.&nbsp; Had the visitors seen the herd after a month on
+the Nef&ucirc;d, they would likely have carried away a much more
+favorable impression.&nbsp; During the winter quartering the
+colts seemed to fare even worse than their dams and sires, from
+the following:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Besides the full-grown animals, Ibn Rashid&rsquo;s <a
+name="page294"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 294</span>yards
+contain thirty or forty foals and yearlings, beautiful little
+creatures, but terribly starved and miserable.&nbsp; Foals bred
+in the desert are poor enough, but those in town have a
+positively sickly appearance.&nbsp; Tied all day long by the
+foot, they seem to have quite lost heart, and show none of the
+playfulness of their age.&nbsp; Their tameness, like that of the
+&lsquo;fowl and the brute,&rsquo; is shocking to see.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The contrast between the actual treatment of these royal
+animals and the following Arab recipe for rearing a colt is
+sufficiently striking:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;During the first month of his life let him be content
+with his mother&rsquo;s milk; it will be sufficient for
+him.&nbsp; Then, during five months, add to this natural supply
+goats&rsquo; milk, as much as he will drink.&nbsp; For six months
+more give him the milk of camels, and besides a measure of wheat
+steeped in water for a quarter of an hour and served in a
+nose-bag.&nbsp; At a year old the colt will have done with milk;
+he must be fed on wheat and grass, the wheat dry from a nose-bag,
+the grass green, if there is any.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;At two years old he must work or he will be
+worthless.&nbsp; Feed him now, like a full-grown horse, on
+barley; but in summer let him also have gruel daily at
+mid-day.&nbsp; Make the gruel thus: Take a double-handful of
+flour and mix it in water well with your hands till the water
+seems like milk, then strain it, leaving the dregs of the flour,
+and give what is liquid to the colt to drink.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Be careful, from the hour he is born, to let him stand
+in the sun; shade hurts horses; but let him have water in plenty
+when the day is hot.&nbsp; The colt <a name="page295"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 295</span>must now be mounted and taken by his
+owner everywhere with him, so that he shall see everything and
+learn courage.&nbsp; He must be kept constantly in exercise, and
+never remain long at his manger.&nbsp; He should be taken on a
+journey, for the work will fortify his limbs.&nbsp; At three
+years old he should be trained to gallop; then, if he be true
+blood, he will not be left behind.&nbsp; Yalla!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Lady Blunt thinks this represents a traditional practice of
+rearing colts in Arabia since the days of the Prophet
+Mohammet.</p>
+<p>From Hail, the party joined the Haj, or caravan of Persian
+pilgrims, returning home from Mecca and Medina; and after
+eighty-four days&rsquo; travel from Damascus their Arabian
+journey came to an end at Bagdad.&nbsp; Their route from Hail
+took them far north of Palgrave&rsquo;s route, so that they did
+not visit Ri&rsquo;ad, the headquarters, in Palgrave&rsquo;s
+time, of the Wahabee ruler Feysul.&nbsp; Lady Blunt, however, in
+an appendix to her narrative enlightens us in regard to the end
+of Feysul, and the continued decline of the Wahabee regime after
+the visit of Palgrave.</p>
+<p>Three years after Palgrave&rsquo;s visit Feysul died, and the
+Wahabee state, which under him had regained much of its power and
+influence (which had been all but crushed by the Turks after the
+Crimean war) was again weakened by internal dissensions.&nbsp;
+Feysul left two sons, Abdallah and Saoud, who quarrelled and put
+themselves at the head of their respective adherents.&nbsp; Saoud
+proved himself the stronger party, and in 1871 Abdallah fled to
+Jebel Shammar <a name="page296"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+296</span>and sought the aid of Midhat Pasha, Turkish governor at
+Bagdad.</p>
+<p>The result was that a Turkish expedition of 5,000 regular
+troops occupied the seaboard territory of Hasa, and took
+possession of Hofhoof (mentioned by Palgrave); whilst Abdallah
+and his adherents, and a third rival, Abdallah-ibn-Turki,
+attacked Saoud at Ri&rsquo;ad.&nbsp; Saoud was defeated, and
+Abdallah essayed to govern at Ri&rsquo;ad; but in the following
+year he was again ejected by Saoud who reigned till 1874, when he
+died, not without suspicion of poison.</p>
+<p>Lady Blunt&rsquo;s account of affairs at the Wahabee capital
+ends with the information that Abdallah and a half-brother,
+Abderrahman, were in joint and amicable control, Abdallah as
+Emir, the latter as his chief minister.&nbsp; Hasa and the
+seaboard was held by the Turks, whose policy was the stirring up
+of strife and feudal enmity among the Arabs, with a view to
+weakening the power and authority of the Emir at Ri&rsquo;ad, and
+so making the country easy prey whenever opportunity arrives for
+its incorporation in the Ottoman dominions.&nbsp; The power and
+fanaticism of the once powerful Wahabee Empire, has become but
+little more than a name and a remembrance among the Bedouin
+tribes, who once paid tribute to its Emirs; and whatever was
+national in thought and respectable in inspiration in Central
+Arabia seemed to be grouping itself around the new dynasty of the
+Emir of Jebel Shammar, Mohammed-ibn-Rashid of Hail.</p>
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">THE
+END.</span></p>
+<h2>NOTES.</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote59"></a><a href="#citation59"
+class="footnote">[59]</a>&nbsp; The inscription, which is copied
+in Lieutenant Wellsted&rsquo;s work, appears to be in the
+Himyaritic character.&nbsp; If any translation of it has ever
+been made, the compiler is unable to say where it can be
+found.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote201"></a><a href="#citation201"
+class="footnote">[201]</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;The Na&rsquo;ib&rdquo;
+was a Persian official, despatched by the Persian pilgrims to lay
+before Feysul, the ruler of Nedjed, a statement of the extortions
+to which they had been compelled to submit at Bereydah.&nbsp; He
+was thus equally under Aboo-&rsquo;Eysa&rsquo;s charge, and his
+company was rather an advantage to Palgrave, since his mission
+was another cause of removing&mdash;or, at least,
+lessening&mdash;the prominence of the latter, after his arrival
+at Ri&rsquo;ad.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote279"></a><a href="#citation279"
+class="footnote">[279]</a>&nbsp; It is well to point out here
+that Palgrave and Lady Blunt spell the names of places quite
+differently, which makes it rather difficult at times to identify
+them as referring to places mutually visited.&nbsp; Thus,
+Blunt&rsquo;s &ldquo;Hail&rdquo; and Palgrave&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Ha&rsquo;yel&rdquo; are one; as are also
+&ldquo;J&ocirc;f&rdquo; and &ldquo;Djowf.&rdquo;&nbsp; Other
+differences are &ldquo;Nejd,&rdquo; &ldquo;Nejed,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Djebel Shomer,&rdquo; &ldquo;Jebel Shammer,&rdquo;
+etc.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAVELS IN ARABIA***</p>
+<pre>
+
+
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+</pre></body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #41960 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41960)