# Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London/Volume 34/Observations made in Central, Eastern, and Southern Arabia during a Journey through that Country in 1862 and 1863

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VIII.—Observations made in Central, Eastern, and Southern Arabia during a Journey through that Country in 1862 and 1863. By W. G. Palgrave, Esq.
Read, February 22, 1864.
A line of route which led me across the Arabian Peninsula from Gaza to Maskat, thus traversing the country in its greatest breadth, could not but afford special opportunities for observation both of the land and of its inhabitants. A few notes, the result of such observation, may not be unacceptable, while they contribute to fill up the blanks in our view of Arabia.
I am, indeed, aware that this very appreciation must be often imperfect, and on some points absolutely defective. This is mainly owing to the circumstances under which I undertook and carried out my investigations. For if, on one hand, my journey was conducted in a manner affording me ample leisure and great liberty for observation, whether personal or by means of inquiry from trustworthy sources; on the other hand, it was deficient in many conditions requisite for minute accuracy and absolute precision. Thus the medical disguise which I had assumed, for the greater facilitation of my project, succeeded indeed to the full in preventing or allaying native suspicion, and enabled me to visit undisturbed and at my ease many localities of special interest, and to stay in or near them so long as might be necessary for my purpose. It furnished me also with many convenient opportunities for asking questions and collecting knowledge about regions lying out of my immediate reach and off my path, without too much risk of thereby awaking the habitual distrust of the inhabitants, or displaying a dangerous appearance of over-curiosity. But this same disguise unavoidably deprived me of the means of taking with me any mathematical or geodesical instruments, indispensable to accurate observations, and no less of the freedom requisite for sketching or photographing, nay, often of even taking down on the spot notes however useful; while, at times, prudence rendered my interrogations and researches less precise and less frequent than I ​should have otherwise made them, for fear lest a marked appearance of inquisitiveness should belie the character of a native travelling-physician.
The districts which I myself visited in person were—1st, the Desert, as it lies from Ma’ān to the Djowf; my route was, however, somewhat different from Mr. Wallin’s, and passed, for the most part, to the south of his. 2nd. The Djowf itself and its neighbourhood. 3rd. The route from thence to Djebel Shomer, following precisely Wallin’s track, and next the town of Hā’yel, with a considerable part of the adjoining province. 4th. The route thence to the town of Bereydah in the Kaseem, and a large portion of that province also, with some of its principal towns, such as ’Oneyzah and others. 5th. The route from Bereydah to Sedeyr, and nearly the whole of the latter district. 6th. The province of ’Aared with its actual capital Er-Riad, residence of the Wahhabee monarch, as well as the now ruined town of Derey’eeyah, &c. 7th. Part of the provinces of Yemamah and Aflaj. 8th. The route thence, leading northward of the Hareek district to the town of Hofhouf, in the province of Hasa. 9th. A good part of that province, as well as Kateef and its neighbourhood. 10th. The islands of Bahreyn. 11th. Katar and the pearl coast. 12th. The town of Sharja, and the adjoining promontory up to Ras Mesandom, and thence southward through the Batinah as far as Sohar. 13th. The part of’Oman adjoining Samaïl and Maskat, Seeb, &c. &c.
What information I may incidentally give on other points of the country not comprehended within these limits, is principally the result of question and answer between myself, the inhabitants, and the Bedouins. I ought, indeed, to except the sea-coast of the Hedjaz and Yemen, with which navigation had previously rendered me conversant.
In the present narrative I shall first, for clearness sake, say a few words on the geographical outline and main features of the Arabian Peninsula, and more especially of the Desert, its character, and its limits; a main object of this being to fill up in some measure the deficiencies left on that point by the accounts of preceding travellers, such as Burckhardt, Wellsted, Wallin, &c.: accounts accurate indeed, but incomplete. I shall then give a more detailed description of Nejed and the central provinces of Arabia; and lastly of the eastern provinces and ’Oman.
A vast extent of desert, with some scattered Bedouins roam¬ ing over it, a few rocky and barren mountains, black tents, sandy plains, and an occasional palm-tree or camel to complete the scene,—such is a very common idea of Arabia as deduced from the narratives of travellers, and even to a great extent confirmed, or rather embodied, in the outlines of many maps. Yet ​such an idea, as applied to the greater part of the Peninsula, is far from correct. Desert does, indeed, occupy a certain portion of it; but that is just the very portion with which the greater number of European travellers are almost exclusively acquainted—I mean the outskirts. There are, indeed, certain patches of desert, of whose nature and extent I shall say more hereafter, even in the very centre; and again the outlying circle of desolation itself does, in a southerly direction, assume extraordinary breadth and depth, thus encroaching over a large space towards the interior, but these are rather exceptions than the general rule. The real character of Arabia is that of a large table-land, naturally fertile, and which is either cultivated or at least susceptible of cultivation; whose valleys are well watered, and whose steppes are far from arid,—a land full of towns and villages, of life and habitation; and next, encircling all this, a ring of desert, sometimes very narrow, not indeed exceeding 50 or 60 miles in breadth, but sometimes of considerable width, especially to the north and to the south; and, lastly, surrounding all, a chain of mountains, varying in character and elevation, but generally low, stony and barren, bordered by a line of coast often arid; though here again the Yemen as well as the shores of ’Oman and Hasa, present exceptions of remarkable fertility.
Again, the desert itself may be distinguished into two kinds: namely, desert which is such merely because no one at the present day occupies or cultivates it, and which would be accordingly better styled “deserted; ” and, secondly, desert in the full sense of the term—hopeless, irremediable sterility and desolation.
The former description of, desert, or rather of deserted land, prevails towards the northern and western frontiers, the latter on the eastern and southern.
And, to speak first of the desert that borders the north and west. Here a substratum of rock, generally granite, is overlaid by gravelly or sandy soil, presenting in a greater or lesser degree those conditions which allow a possibility of life and vegetation, but never wholly destitute of them. This degree will of course vary in proportion to the quantity of water to be found at the surface, or at least at no great distance from it. It is, however, an unfortunate but a most characteristic feature of Arabia, that, through the whole of its vast extent, no single flowing river worthy of the name is to be found. I am aware that some compassionate geographers supply a few, but I regret to say that they have been in this respect more liberal than Nature. Nay, very few running streams even are to be met with, unless it be in the lowlands near the eastern coast and among the mountains of ’Oman, as we shall afterwards see.
​The reason of this is evident. Mountains are the reservoirs of a country, and the nearer that country is to the Equatorial line, the loftier should be its mountains in order to afford a perennial supply of water. But Arabia, with the single exception of ’Oman, presents no mountains of sufficient elevation to answer that purpose. The range of hills near the coast is generally far too low— it varies, in fact, from about 500 to 1000 feet in height, but seldom surpasses it; and the centre is a mere steppe or plateau, whose table-lands barely attain 3000 feet above the sea-level, though they are decorated by the inhabitants with the title of mountains, for want of better.
Hence, whatever rain falls on these steppes, and rain does fall even heavily at times, especially in the winter and early spring, is soon absorbed in the crevasses of the loose soil, or in the sandy intersecting valleys, and thus collects underground, instead of above it. Near the sea-coast only, where the rim of the plateau breaks off abruptly, or gradually dips down, occasional running sources burst out, whose origin is to be sought for in the underground waters of the central lands. But as the coast itself is in general girt by a narrow mountain-chain close on the sea-shore, such rivulets very seldom reach the sea, much less form rivers worthy of finding a place in a geographer’s map.
Of the abundance of subterranean water in central Arabia, and of the means of irrigation there employed, I shall say more in the progress of this narrative.
The same causes occasion a similar and an even greater dearth of above-ground water in the desert itself. Its regions are considerably elevated above the sea-coast, being as it were backed up on all sides by the surrounding range already mentioned; but they are again lower than the central steppes; their average alti¬ tude varies, as far as I could judge from rough and half guesswork mensuration, from 500 to 1000 feet above the sea,—perhaps a little more. Being thus neither high enough to attract the passing clouds, nor low enough to give outlet to the confined underground waters, and presenting a very chinky and fissured soil, they naturally remain drier than either the central plateau or the coasts themselves.
However, this desert or deserted land has its waters too, only they are in general to be sought for at a considerable distance underground: I have here seen wells of above a hundred feet in depth, though at times the water comes nearer the surface, especially, as we should naturally expect, in the lower grounds of such tracts. At times a long line of wells marks out the course of a subterraneous stream. Thus for the whole length of Wadi Sirhan, from the Hauran in Syria to the Djowf, water is everywhere to be got at by digging for 10 or 15 feet in depth, and occasionally ​even less. But in other localities, such as Wadi Farook, on the opposite side of the peninsula, wells have been sunk to 100 feet and more without thereby obtaining a single drop.
No one who has traversed these regions can have failed to remark throughout them the great frequency of abandoned and half-choked wells, or to notice that almost all the deeper wells, in the excavation of which much skill and persevering labour must have been exercised, are of comparatively ancient date. These facts throw light on the former populousness of the country, and confirm the persuasion that what is now desert was, at least very often, not invariably so, nor needs be now, at least as far as its physical qualities are concerned.
Besides this, even where no wells exist, the moisture of this subterraneous reservoir, except where very great depth or a rocky and entirely impervious stratum prevents, slowly oozes up through the soil, and gives rise to a tolerable growth of grass, herbs, and shrubs, nay, even trees. Of herbs, Wallin has already mentioned the “samh” in his description of the desert in the neighbourhood of the Djowf, and the full and accurate description supplied by him of that herb and its uses, may dispense me from repetition. Again, the mesaa’, a shrubby bush, bearing small ovoid leaves, and a semi-acid fruit, much resembling our own redcurrant in size, colour, and taste, abounds throughout the same region. These plants are peculiar to the north-western desert. Southward we find the khurta, whose leaves serve in tanning; the thorny katad; the sidr, with its small and dryish berries; the nabak, a low and tangled shrub, thickly laden in bearing-time with a fruit not unlike a diminutive apple, and which I have met with in Northern India also—it is more abundant towards the south-eastern desert; the graceful nabaa’, and many other shrubs and plants, some possessed of narcotic or of medicinal properties, and bearing ample witness to the productive powers of the soil. In spring-time grass sprouts up everywhere between the pebbles, and its dry and yellow stalks may yet be seen waving in the autumn.
Such tracts form the greater part of the desert-ring to the north and west, and are to be found, though at rarer intervals, in the eastern part of the same circle, seldom in the southern. They are the customary resort of Bedouin tribes, whose indolence prevents them from profiting by the hidden resources of the soil, while its surface, without labour of culture, supplies the pastors and their droves with sufficient, though meagre, means of existence. Hence these wandering and brigandish herdsmen (for such is the real definition of the Bedouin Arab) swarm on the outskirts of the peninsula, and more especially on its northern and western frontiers. From this circumstance travellers, very few of whom cross the desert-belt towards the interior of the country, readily conclude that ​the land and its inhabitants are similar throughout to what they have themselves thus met with on the outskirts. And hence in a great measure have arisen exaggerated calculations of Bedouin force and number, and a somewhat depreciatory view of the whole peninsula itself.
But the Bedouins, like the tracts which they frequent, do, in fact, form little more than a sort of hollow circle surrounding a central region of a very different character both in itself and in its inhabitants. Accordingly, as we advance further on towards the inner provinces, cultivation soon re-appears, then increases, and at last becomes general, while the Bedouins, following an inverse gradation, rapidly diminish in number, and at last end by disappearing altogether, to the great advantage of these localities.
In some old-fashioned maps we find “Anthropophagi ” put down on the extreme limits of discovered regions, as thus affording ample apology for want of ulterior exploration. Somewhat in the same way, Bedouin Arabs, being little disposed to let travellers, especially Europeans, pass unscathed, have become, and remained, the self-constituted limits of discovery, and all that lies beyond them is in consequence set down as Bedouin also. But to return to our subject.
I have already stated that this deserted rather than desert land lies mainly on the north and west of Arabia, that is in the space which separates Syria from the high Arab lands or Nejed, and again down the Hejaz along the course of the well-known pilgrim-road, almost as far as the neighbourhood of Mecca. Of these latter regions many travellers have given, if not an ample, at least a sufficient description; and of the northern belt between Syria and the Djowf, with the Wadi Sirhan, Wallin’s relation supplies a correct and minute picture.
But when we approach the level of the Djowf we observe patches of white and glistering sand, at first of rare occurrence in the black and pebbly plain, but more frequent in proportion as we advance northwards, till at last below the Djowf they unite and form one continuous sandy region, while their whitish colour gives place to tints of yellow and orange-red. Here begin what, in the language of the country, are called the “Nefood,” literally “the passes,” because they must necessarily be traversed by those whose journey reaches further on towards the interior. Wallin, indeed, explains the term “Nefood” as synonymous with “lack,” or “want of means of subsistence.” The word might, it is true, bear such an explanation, but, in fact, it does not so here; the real signification, as it is thus used in the common language of the country, being the one I have given.
These “Nefood,” or sand-passes, consist of long and broad ​streaks—rivers one might almost call them—of loose and deep sand, generally heaped up in enormous ridges or waves, whose invariable direction is from north to south: little or no vegetation presents itself on the unstable surface.
Wallin, who was unable to push his journey on to the centre and the south, gives many ingenious conjectures about the origin, course, number, and extent of these vast sand-tracks, along with an accurate and detailed account of such portions as he was acquainted with. But the circumstances of his journey obliging him to stop short of the real origin of the “Nefood,” he could not sufficiently explain the phenomena about which he offers his interesting speculations.
But when we carry our investigations further southward, we become readily aware of the real character of this tract. The fact is, that these sandy rivers, the “Nefood,” are nothing else than inlets, branches one might say, of the great southern sand-desert, which to the south-west, south, and east, holds the place of the stonier northern desert already described, and thus completes the investing circle of Arabia. This is the “Dahna,” or “Fire-red,” as the Arabs call it; that immense mass of sand chiefly situated below lat. 23° and 22°, to the south of the Hareek and of Wadi Dowasir, whence it extends down to the Hadramaut and the neighbourhood of Aden itself. This desert throws out on the east and on the west two long arms, which run in a northerly direction till they meet the descending curve of the upper or stony desert, to which they leave barely more than one-third of the circle to complete round the central district, thus isolated from the frontiers and the coast-line. From these two main arms pus hout again several lesser branches, which constitute the “Nefood ” themselves, whose transverse lines penetrate far into the steppes of Middle Arabia, nay, in some places almost intersect them. But the subject merits a somewhat ampler detail, from the great light it throws on Arabian geography.
I have just said that the “Dahna,” or Great Southern Desert, gives out two main arms, which, passing to the east and west of the central plateau, isolate it from the coast-line, and ultimately join the stony desert, or deserted land, to the north.
Now, of these two branches, or arms, the easterly one pushing up from the “Dahna” behind ’Oman (or ’Aaman in its Arab pronunciation, but I shall adhere to that customarily adopted by Europeans in order to avoid confusion), and thence passing close in the rear of Katar, the maritime province situated between ’Oman and Hasa, enters between the Hareek and the southern extremity of Hasa, and then proceeds nearly due north, leaving Hasa to the east, and the Hareek, the Yemamah, the ’Aared, and, lastly, Sedeyr to its west. Its average breadth is about 80 miles, though in some points, ​in that for instance where I myself crossed it, it does not exceed 40, and its general character is identical with that of the “Nefood” already described, only it is yet more unstable and barren. On reaching about 28° N. lat., behind the little territory of Koueyt, on the Persian Gulf, its sands give place to firmer soil, and it is thus ultimately merged in the waste lands behind Zobeyr and Basrah.
The other, or westerly branch, originates behind the Yemen and Wadi Nejran, and crosses the southerly extremity of Wadi Dowasir, of which more hereafter; it then proceeds northwards, leaving Kelaat Bisha to the west, and the main body of Wadi Dowasir to the east. It subsequently turns somewhat eastward by north, and passing in front of the provinces of Aflaj and Woshem, crosses Kaseem towards its western extremity. It is in general much less wild and desolate than the eastern branch, and before it finally merges in soil and gravel in the neighbourhood of Teymah it has lost much of the horrors, as well as the name, of the “Dahna.”
This western arm of the desert gives off at certain intervals lateral branches, which form the “Nefood.”
The northernmost branch of the “Nefood” is that crossed by Wallin, and by myself, between the Djowf and Djebel Shomer. It originates below Teymah, near Kheybar, and follows a line east by north, thus separating between Djehel Shomer and Teymah, the pilgrim-route, &c., till, arrived at about 28° 30' N. lat., it turns eastwards, and runs in between the Djowf and Djebel Shomer, dividing them completely one from the other, until it ultimately loses itself in the stony tracts to the east of the Djowf, on the verge of the ordinary caravan-track from that province ot Meshid-Alee. Its average breadth is about 50 miles.
Secondly, when we descend southward towards Kaseem, we meet with a similar, but somewhat smaller, sand-stream, running out below Kheybar in an easterly direction, and thus passing between Djebel Salma on its north, and the province of Kaseem to the south. This second “Nefood” terminates in the plains of upper Kaseem without entirely traversing them.
Thirdly, and yet more to the south, occurs another inlet of the same kind as the two former; its course is towards the north-east, above, and parallel with, the low range of mountains which line the pilgrim-road leading from Mecca to Nejed. It passes below Kaseem, and divides it from the Woshem, after which it takes a northerly direction, and borders the province of Sedeyr, following the western skirt of Djebel Toweyk and the adjoining prolongation of Wadi Haneefah (localities of which I will speak more fully in the course of these notes), till it finally joins in with and merges in the rocky desert east of Djebel Shomer.
​Such are, briefly, the outlines of the three principal “Nefood,” or “passes,” of Central Arabia. All originate, as we have seen, in the main western arm of the “Dahna,” which they quit at a right angle, or nearly so. All pass between north and east towards the great inland plateau, which they almost, yet never totally, traverse; and all offer the same main features, though varying in length and width, as we have just shown.
The eastern branch of the “Dahna,” hemmed closely in on either side by two high ranges, namely, “Toweyk” to the west, and the Hasa sea-range on the east, gives off few lateral inlets of any consequence. One such, however, originates from the broad mass of desert behind Hareek, and thence runs in a northerly direction between that province and the Yemamah, till it terminates in Wadi Soley’, eastward of Riad. In this “Nefood” perished, about forty years ago, the Egyptian Basha Hoseyn, with a considerable portion of his army, sent in an evil hour against Turkee, father of Feysul, and chief of the Wahhabees. The treachery of Nejdean guides succeeded in entangling Hoseyn, with the main body of his troops, among these sand-hills, where the Egyptians perished to a man of fatigue and thirst, though the waters of Hootah were close by had they but known how to reach them. For many years after articles of dress and arms belonging to the wretched victims of this oft-repeated perfidy were sold at a low price in the markets of Nejed.
A scene of scarcely less horror occurred within the last ten years in the “Nefood” to the north of the Nejdean pilgrim-track. Here the victims were a troop of Persian pilgrims, on their overland way to Mecca. They had halted at the town of Bereydah, in Kaseem, where the Nejdean chief Mohanna then governed, as he still does, in the name of Feysul. The cupidity of Mohanna was excited by the riches and the copious baggage of his Persian guests, and after detaining them a considerable time at Bereydah under various pretexts, he at last persuaded them to leave behind them, in his own safeguard, the greater portion of their heavy baggage, for fear, said he, lest enemies should meet and plunder them on the way between Kaseem and Mecca, whither they were bound. He next gave them for guide his own eldest son, a youth worthy in every respect of such a father. (I may remark, in a passing way, that I have been honoured by the personal acquaintance of both.) This traitor led them astray off the beaten track into the waterless labyrinths of the “Nefood,” and there absconded and left them to die of thirst and heat. Almost all perished; a few only, more fortunate, found their way out of the sandy maze, and reappeared, worn out with privation and suffering, at Bereydah. There Mohanna met them with an absolute denial of baggage or anything else belonging either to them or to their ​luckless companions, and the doubly-betrayed survivors had to beg their long way back to Meshid-Alee and Persia as best they might.
These incidents may give an idea of the nature and perils of the Arabian “Nefood.” The prodigious depth of their sandy stratum, often not less than many hundred feet, so far as I could ascertain by comparative observations, renders water, of course, out of the question for the most part; and this, along with the extreme heat of such tracts, the want of pasture, the total absence of anything like shade or shelter, and the labour of wading now up, now down, through the mountain-waves of loose and scorching sand, render their passage no easy and even no very safe matter, especially in the hot summer months.
These dreary characteristics are not, however, without occasional and favourable exceptions. Now and then, in the very midst of the sandy ocean, its waves recede on either side, and leave a sort of conical hollow of great depth (I have seen some of fully 400, or even 500 feet, in perpendicular depression), at the base of which appears a substratum, sometimes of granite, sometimes of calcareous rock, between the clefts of which, or in the wells excavated by Arab labour, water is generally to be found. Such spots, being the only places of rest and supply, determine the direction of the traveller’s course in these regions; but few—only those, in fact, whom long experience has rendered familiar with their position— know where to look for them; the more so because nothing indicates their proximity, even at a very moderate distance: and hence arises the absolute necessity of experienced and faithful guides for traversing the “Nefood.”
At other times a bold peak of black rock pierces through the sand, and breaks the weary monotony of the view. Such are the two isolated rocks rising in the “Nefood” about half-way between the Djowf and Djebel Shomer, and named ’Aalam Es-Sa’ad. We passed between them when on our way southward from the Djowf, and were much struck by their symmetrical and pyramidal form. In my further course I met with a similar peak in the “Nefood” adjoining the province of Woshern.
The symmetrical undulations of the sand have found in their parallelism with the axis of the earth a tolerably plausible explanation, derived from the inequality of the rotatory movement of the globe when communicated through the hard rocky base to the loose and sliding mass of sand above. As these regions are comparatively near the Equator, the rapidity of diurnal rotation is greater, and the phenomena consequent on it are, of course, more prominent here than in corresponding localities further north. The gigantic and regular furrows of the “Nefood” are very distinct from the capricious ridges seen elsewhere, and arising from the action ​of the winds, which wrinkle the surface of the sand in every direction, till the whole desert presents the likeness of a fiery ocean after some months of a steady monsoon, suddenly ruffled by a brisk gale.
Such is the lightness of the sand, especially southward, that a camel’s track is often effaced almost as soon as imprinted, though the poor animals have been sinking up almost to the knees in their laborious way. Sand-storms, much resembling the dust-storms of Northern India, are not uncommon here; but, as for the stories of moving columns of sand, and whole caravans thus suddenly whelmed in an arenaceous grave, all the Bedouins whom I met laughed at them downright, and declared them to be mere travellers’ tales. Certainly in a pretty long experience of the desert, exactly in the hottest summer months and over so much of its extent, I saw nothing of the kind.
Mirage, with all its capricious freaks, is never wanting. Once, and once only, we fell right in with the deadly simoum, and had more than enough leisure for observing its strange phenomena. But I must reserve their description for another occasion.
Of the Bedouin tribes which frequent these deserts, and their accompanying “Nefood,” I may be here excused from giving a detailed account; the subject is very long, and not entirely new. Their catalogue is, briefly, as follows:—The Scherarat (very savage beings), the Howeytat, Benoo Atiyeh, and the marauding Bisher, to the north; besides occasional visitors of the Syro-Arabic tribes, such as the Roo’alah, Teiyyahah, Sakr, Woold-Alee, &c. &c. Further east by south we meet with the numerous clan of Shomer, the Montefik, the Mesaleekh, and the dreaded Benoo-Lam; down the west, southwards, the Ma’az, Harb, an ancient and a very troublesome tribe, and Kahtan; while in the more central regions I found the Sebaa’ (different from those of the same denomination in Syria), Meteyr (a wealthy tribe), ’Oteybah, and the inhospitable Dowasir, or Aal-Amār; lastly, in the east itself, the ’Ajman, Benoo Khalid, a wide-spread clan, and Benoo Hajar. These tribes are of varying number and strength, but their total aggregate does not exceed 400,000 souls; such, at least, is the conclusion which we arrived at on summing them up in cyphers, after counting them separately, tribe by tribe. There exist among them interminable subdivisions and varieties of name and kindred; but all, or almost all, belong to the main clans here mentioned. Enough of this for the present; in Central Arabia a more interesting and a newer field awaits us.
However, before I finally quit the desert for the steppes and villages of the inhabited land, it will be well to add a few words about the great Southern Arabian desert, the “Dahna ” itself. It reaches from Katar and ’Oman on the east, to the Yemen and ​Wadi Nejran on the west; the provinces of Hasa, of Hareek, of Aflaj, and the Wadi Dowasir, bound it to the north, and Hadramaut to the south; such are the limits of this broad base of the desert ring.
Its general type—at least so far as my own experience enables me to speak—is an exaggeration of the “Nefood” already described, and enormous tracts of its waste sands are in consequence never visited or traversed even by the most vagabond Bedouins. However, there exist in it occasional “oases,” little islets of a more tractable character, amid the depths of this desolate sand-sea, especially where the under stratum of limestone finds its way to the surface; while water rises through its clefts, and dwarf palms, or bushes of the dishevelled Ghada, familiar to Arab poetry, spring up around. Many such spots are said to occur on a line drawn south-east by east from ’Oman towards the Yemen, they become more frequent on approaching the limits of Hadramaut. Here, also, so I was told (for my own personal acquaintance with the Dahna is limited to its northern and eastern spaces), rocky peaks interrupt the sand from time to time; while a low calcareous range is stated by the Arabs to lie north-west of ’Oman ; it bears the name of “Akhāf.”
For some of these details respecting the “Dahna ” I am indebted to two intelligent Bedouins, the one belonging to the tribe named Menaseer, the other to Aal-Morrah, who had both of them traversed the Dahna in its greatest width, rather in consequence of chance circumstances than from any fixed purpose of doing so. They described the oases mentioned above as being inhabited by a few scattered negro and Abyssinian tribes; but far the greater extent of that region was, according to them, alike uninhabited and uninhabitable. The Menaseer Bedouin told me that he had taken nearly three months to cross the desert or khala’ from the frontiers of ’Oman to those of Yemen; but his line of journey was probably somewhat tortuous; and hence this circumstance affords no very exact idea regarding the real and geographical width of the “Dahna.”
The two tribes here alluded to—namely, the Menaseer and Aal-Morrah—frequent the eastern and northern frontiers of this region; while its westerly limits are the resort of Kahtan and other tribes of the Yemen. As for the inhabitants of the southern verge, they are mainly blacks; of negro, or, at least, of African origin.
But these tribes are of comparatively scanty number, and very miserable in condition, as might be well expected from the nature of the country they inhabit. The Menaseer alone, because the nearest to ’Oman, partake in some degree of the advantages of that fertile province. But the Aal-Morrah Bedouins are of a ​remarkably savage type, and their language, though not differing enough from the ordinary Arabic of the peninsula to merit the title of a distinct dialect, yet offers several peculiarities which puzzle the inhabitants of ’Oman and Nejed when they come in contact with these barbarians. These Bedouins are smaller in stature, and duskier in hue, than those of the north; some are even, as I have said before, entirely black, but that, again, is owing to a difference of race.
Enough of the desert. Let us now turn to a portion of Arabia less accurately known, I mean the Central Districts. I will first describe briefly their general conformation and features, and afterwards proceed to such details as the subject may require, or space permit.
The great table-land of Arabia, called by most writers, whether Arab or European, Nejed, does not, as some have asserted, commence with the Djowf, which is a hollow; whereas the Arab word “Nejed” denotes, on the contrary, “high-lands.” The Djowf is a long valley in the midst of the Stony Desert, situated at the southern extremity of Wadi Sirhan, and at an equal distance south-east and south-west from Damascus and Bagdad. Between it and Djebel Shomer lie the Nefood just described. Its average depth below the surrounding level is from 200 to 300 feet. It contains, besides the town of Djowf, itself a coalition of eight townlets into one, the large village of Sekakah, those of Djoon, Dorrah, and seven others. The total population is estimated at about twenty-eight thousand souls. This valley abounds in springs of water; it is fertile, and thickly planted with palm-groves and gardens. We remained here about twenty days, and then crossed the Nefood to Djebel Shomer. Here begin the first northerly limits of Nejed proper, assigned by the rise of the Shomer Mountains, whose long and craggy granite chain crosses more than half the peninsula in a direction of north-east by east, beginning in the neighbourhood of the upper Hejaz, and merging ultimately in the desert towards Coufa, now Meshid Alee. These mountains, or, to give them an exacter name, rocks, for they are hardly more, rise abruptly in steep and fantastic barrenness from the plain, and form the first bulwark of Nejed. Their greatest altitude does not exceed 1200 feet above the plain. Many of their topographical peculiarities, and even some of the towns and villages scattered amongst them, have been described by Wallin, but much would remain to say, did our limits here permit. The title of Shomer is applied in a political sense to that entire region of Northern Arabia which includes the Djowf, Teymah, Kheybar, Djebel Shomer, Salma, arid Upper Kaseem. All this, with the adjoining desert from Meshid’ Alee on the east to the great Hajj or Pilgrim-route on the west, is subject to Telal Ebn-Rashid, who resides in his capital Hā’yel ​This town, whose greatness is of recent date, comprises above twenty thousand inhabitants; the palace, mosque, and marketplace have all been built within the last twenty-five years. It is a thriving city, and carries on an active commerce with Meshid’Alee and Medinah. It is the principal horse and camel mart of Arabia for the north. The country around is rocky, but not unfertile. The villages of Djebel Shomer itself are estimated at about forty; the principal ones are those of Kenah, Lakeetah. Mogah, Kefar, and Adwah. The total population subject to Telal Ebn-Rashid amount to above half-a-million: about one-third of these are Bedouin. The inhabitants of Djebel Shomer pass for the finest race of men, and their language for the purest spoken in Arabia.
I remained in Hā’yel and its neighbourhood about a month and a half, and then continued my journey southwards. After passing the last ranges of Djebel Shomer or Aja, and traversing a wide valley near 20 miles in breadth, we reached Djebel Salma, a long granite chain parallel in its direction to Djebel Shomer, but of less extent and height, among whose wild peaks lies buried Hatim-et-Tai, a native of this district, the oft-cited model or exaggeration of Arab hospitality and generosity. To Djebel Salma, or “the Mountain of Salma,” succeeds a large table-land, full 80 miles in width; its greatest length is from west to north-east. This is the upper division of Kaseem. It is in general a tolerably fertile plain; and where its numerous valleys, all of which lie parallel to each other from west to east, are irrigated and cultivated, in the neighbourhood of the many villages which bestud them, the produce of the soil is sufficient for the support of a considerable population.
In fact, green gardens, watered from perennial wells, where melons, cucumbers, maize, leguminous plants, peaches, apricots, and other fruits abound; large plantations of date-trees clustering with copious produce; ithel-trees, for timber (the ithel is a species of larch-like tamarisk, very common in Arabia, and which is not unfrequent in Nubia also; its foliage, like that of the rest of the family, is not perennial; its fruit, a small cone, much like that of the cypress; its wood light and tough, and smelling of turpentine), and other varied vegetation, attest a fertile, or at least a not unproductive land. The total number of villages here is between 20 and 30; some, for instance, Kefa, contain about 2500 inhabitants.
This district was lately acquired from the Wahhabite government by Telal Ebn-Bashid, Prince of Djebel Schomer.
Between the valleys are strips of higher land, covered with aromatic herbs and varied pasture. The morning breeze, freshened by the elevation of the region, rustles through long ​grass and tangled shrubs; and the traveller, if versed in Arab poetry, readily understands and appreciates the lavish praises bestowed on Nejed, with its cool air and abundant pastures, by poets, natives themselves of the barren Hejaz or the scorching Tehama. It was in the month of September that I traversed this district, and a more pleasant ride could hardly be imagined. In these regions the vigorous government of Telal Ebn-Easchid keeps Bedouins and all similar marauders in due subjection, and the traveller has here the satisfaction, so rare in the East, of going on his way without fear of being plundered or assassinated by day or night. I wish that one could say as much for the countries under Ottoman rule.
We crossed this plain in a direction of south-east by east for about 80 miles. I say “about” 80, for I had no means of measuring the distance thus traversed except by reckoning the average extent of ground gone over per hour at an ordinary camel’s pace, which varies from 4 to 5 miles, more or less. The same observation applies, of course, to all other distances mentioned in this narrative.
But after 80 miles, or a little more, south of Djebel Salma, the whole level changes, and takes a sudden dip of about 300 feet; while an immense plain, that of Kaseem proper, opens at once on the view. Villages and gardens, towers and palm-groves, thickly strewn over an even surface as far as the utmost horizon; it is a noble and a very pleasant prospect. This new district, or lower Kaseem, takes its first origin eastward of the great pilgrim-road in the Hejaz immediately behind the desert arm already mentioned; and thence extends in an easterly direction across the central region, till at length the high lands of Djebel Toweyk, and the province of Sedeyr, assign its farthest limits. Southward lies a branch of desert—the “Nefood” where perished the unlucky Persians, guests of Mohanna—and a low series of mountains given off from Djebel Toweyk itself in a westerly line, so as to pass northward of the pilgrim-track from central Nejed to Mecca, bound the valley.
I may here remark, once for all, that Central Arabia affords four distinct outlets or beaten tracks towards the western coast, all of which traverse the desert ring, but at its thinner points. The first of these is the route from Hā’yel and Djebel Shomer to Medinah, and thence to Mecca; it opens into the Hejaz at Kheybar. The second, from ’Oneyzah and Kaseem, direct to Medinah; its junction point with the western region is Henakeeyah. The third, from Er-Riad, Derey’eeyah, and Shakrah, in Central Nejed, direct to Mecca, whose territory it enters at the station of Meghasil: this is the pilgrim-track. The fourth, and southernmost, is from the Yemamah and Aflaj, by Wadi Dowasir, to ​Wadi Nejran and the Yemen; its opening point is at Kela’at Bisha, whence also goes off a north-westerlv track to Mecca.
The northernmost route, followed by Wallin and myself, from Ma’ān to the Djouf, is too unfrequented to merit the name of a road or caravan-track. There exists, besides, a line of communication direct from Damascus to the Djouf, but it is rarely used by travellers.
Eastward we find lines of communication between the centre and the borders. The first, and most circuitous, is from the Djowf to Meshid-Alee; but, as I have before stated, the Djowf scarcely belongs to Central Arabia. The second, from Hā’yel and Djebel Shomer to Zobeyr and Basrah, or, by a northerly branch-road, to Meshid-Alee. This is tolerably frequented. The third, from Kaseem to Zobeer, passing by Zulphah, where also a southerly route, traversing central Nejed to Riad, falls in with it. The fourth, and last (of which I shall have to say more in this journey), passes due east from Er-Riad and the heart of Nejed, to the town of Hofhouf, in Hasa, and thence to Kateef. Its exit from Nejed is at the waters of Oweysit.
Of these four tracks three are circuitous, and by their northerly direction avoid the sandy “Nefood,” but they are long and dreary. The fourth crosses the “Dahna,” and is the only junction-route, though after a long circuit through Katar, between Nejed and the regions of Oman, otherwise entirely cut off from communication with Central Arabia by the intervening “Dahna.” But it is time for our narrative to return to Kaseem.
It is the most fertile and most thickly-peopled province of Central Arabia, and, as such, is often mentioned in Ante-Islamitic history. Hence poured forth in early times the countless bands of Nejdean warriors, Bikr, Thaghleb, Sheyban, Dahel, and other kindred clans, who, under their common leader, Koleyb Waïl, shook off the yoke of the Yemanite kings about 120 years before the Mahometan era, and gave independence to Central Arabia, till in their turn subdued by the warriors of the Hejaz, the companions and disciples of the Prophet.
In fact, the appearance of the principal towns in this district, such as Bereydah, ’Eyoon, Rass, Oneyzah, Sariyah, and others, their strong and bastioned fortifications, their spacious castles, their wide-extended gardens and plantations, the high watch-towers overlooking the plain, and the vestiges of yet more ancient stoneworks, much resembling in form, and even in dimensions, Stonehenge or Carnac, and of which I myself met one near Rass, confirm what written history and oral tradition tell us of numerous population and considerable opulence, of vigorous dynasties and central power here subsisting, till Mahometanism appeared to usher in the decline and general decay of the Arabian peninsula.
​What between towns and villages, Kaseem offers about 60 principal localities, besides lesser hamlets or groups of huts clustering round gardens and palm-groves scattered here and there over the plain.
Its natural resources are mainly due to the great abundance of water, though here as elsewhere subterraneous, in this province. Throughout the valley of Kaseem, a well of 3, 4, or at most of 10 feet deep, and easily excavated in the light soil (for there is little rock in these low-lands) affords an abundant supply of excellent water, little diminished even during the prolonged drought of the summer season. In winter the wells overflow their brim and often form pools of considerable extent, little lakes in fact; I saw the traces of many such during this part of my journey.
There is here a remarkable rise in the mean temperature of the atmosphere, and the difference of climate between the low southerly flats of Kaseem, and the brisk high ground of Shomer and Salma, is even more than one might have anticipated. This, along with a more copious supply of moisture, gives rise to a much more abundant and to even a somewhat different kind of vegetation. Dates are here cheap and very good, yielding in flavour to none except those of Hasa. The different fruit-trees before mentioned abound here, and corn, millet, maize, lentils, and other vegetables, are extensively cultivated. But in addition to these esculent products, cotton of a very tolerable quality, much resembling that grown in Indian Guzerat, here makes its appearance, and its copiousness asserts a warmer climate than northern Arabia can boast.
The inhabitants are a fine and tall race of men, their braided locks falling on either side of a handsome and open countenance, give them a somewhat rakish appearance. Their complexion is a light olive, but grey eyes are yet, though seldom, to be met with; their hair is invariably black. As their dress resembles that of the other Nejdean provinces, I reserve its description for a little further on.
Of their religious and political condition, the narrow limits of this very cursory narrative forbid my speaking at present, and I accordingly leave that subject—a very interesting one—for an ampler account of this journey.
As Kaseem is mainly low land, comparatively speaking, its inhabitants often draw a distinction between it and the Upper Nejed or “high-lands,” which I must next describe.
After about a month passed at Bereydah and in Kaseem, we turned eastward, crosssed the Nefood which divides that province from Sedeyr, passed the large and commercial village of Zulphah, and found ourselves in face of the great uplands of Arabia, the heights of Djebel Toweyk.
​Every one who casts a glance over the map of Arabia, must have remarked the name of Djebel Toweyk (sometimes, though improperly, designated by Djebel-Aared), placed now here now there alongside of certain mountain-chains of a somewhat arbitrary appearance, and delineated as not far from the centre of the peninsula. This same Djebel Toweyk is in fact a vast calcareous plateau, and the so-called mountain-chains are, for the most part, mere indications of its limiting margin; higher indeed than the neighbouring plains, and thus offering a mountainous appearance, but not succeeded by valleys or mountains on the other side; it borders only a pretty uniform steppe, whose utmost verge is at no great distance from the eastern coast, or which gradually merges in the southern desert.
The general form of this plateau is a broad crescent. Its north-easterly limb constitutes the province of Sedeyr; its centre forms the Aared and Yemamah, while the Aflaj, Woshem, and a long and elevated offshoot extending to the south-west complete the other limb. The provinces of Hareek and Wadi Dowasir are off-lying appendages on its convex margin, while Kaseem lies in its concave hollow. The space occupied by the cresent itself, or Djebel Toweyk, is Nejed el-’Aala, or Upper Nejed; its appendages, with Kaseem, are sometimes decorated with the common title of Nejed, but in a political or ethnographical rather than in a geodicean sense. A yet wider application of the name includes Djebel Shomer, and even, though only in the mouth of strangers, the Djowf.
The general elevation of Toweyk above the surrounding plains, is about 1500 to 1800 feet, but may occasionally exceed 2000. Its highest point is Djebel ’Atālah, or the “Barren Mountain,” near the juncture of the provinces of Sedeyr and Aared, near Wadi Haneefah, about lat. 25° N. Of these localities I will give a more particular description further on.
This plateau is intersected by many tortuous valleys, penetrating it now and then to a great distance. Of these the most remarkable, and which merits a more special notice, is Wadi Haneefah.
This valley in its westerly origin coincides with the Nejdean pilgrim-route, which follows it for about a fourth of its length as far as the southern limit of Woshem, and even within the limits of that province as far as the town of Shakrah. Here it divides, so as to assume the form of the letter Y; and one branch runs northerly between an arm of desert (the “Nefood” already mentioned further back) and the heights of Sedeyr, till it finally opens out on the north-eastern space below, and somewhat to the east of Djebel Shomer.
The other branch, on leaving Schakrah, penetrates immediately ​into the mass of Djebel Toweyk itself, and passes through the centre of the province Aared, where it assumes its topographical name of Wadi Haneefah, as far as Derey’eeyah, now a heap of ruins.
At the distance of about a league before it reaches Derey’eeyah, another and a smaller side-branch quits the main valley, and leads straight to the actual capital Er-Riad. Here it reunites with the principal channel of Wadi Haneefah, and then pursues an easterly direction, till 10 or 12 miles further on it joins Wadi Soley’, with which it is henceforth confounded.
Another and very large ramification is given off at Malka, not far to the west of Derey’eeyah; it bears the common name of Wadi Haneefah, and conducts to the wide-scattered ruins of ’Eyanah; then runs east by north till it rejoins Wadi Soley’ higher up, namely behind the further steppes of Djebel Toweyk in the province of Sedeyr.
Lastly, this same valley, at the town of Riad, sends out a south-westerly branch towards Aflaj, and thus ultimately affords an imperfect communication with Wadi Dowasir, and the southern regions.
Such are the ramifications and course of Wadi Haneefah, or “the Valley of Orthodoxy”), formerly known by the name of Wadi Moseylemah or “Valley of Moseylemah” from the famous Nejdean pseudo-prophet, cotemporary and rival of Mahomet; and of whom many even now say in Nejed, that “he and Mahomet were equally prophets, only the latter had the better luck.” Of his influence in Central Arabia, of his Coran, and of the traces he has left, in spite of Mahometanism and Wahhabeeism, up to the present day, I can, for the reasons already assigned, say nothing here. I return to the Central Plateau.
Whether rising in steppes or furrowed by valleys, the general altitude of this entire region is considerably above that of the rest of the peninsula in whatever direction (’Oman alone excepted); and this is implied by the common Arab phrase of “Talaat-Nejed” “going up to Nejed,” as well as by the inverse expression “Anhader Hejaz,” &c., “going down to the Hejaz to Hasa,” &c.
Wallin, if I remember right, seems to believe the contrary, and brings forward in favour of his theory the popular term “Nezel Nejed,” which he renders by “going down to Nejed,” and which would thus imply the altitude of Nejed to be inferior to that of Djebel Shomer, or other points of north-western Arabia where that traveller took his observations.
But this is a misunderstanding, occasioned by want of intimacy with the Arab language. “Nezel” does indeed mean “descend,” but when applied to a journey, it does not relate to the height or ​depression of the localities, but to the act of “descending” (we should say “alighting”) from one’s camel or horse on arriving at the place in question. One may thus say “nezel” or “descended,” when describing one’s visit to a town, e. g. at the very top of a mountain. In a word its force is circumstantial, not topographical, at least in Arabia. The true word for “descending” in the latter sense, of which it is here in question, is “anhader,” or “hader,” and that is never applied to “Nejed,” about which on the other hand they constantly say “talaa,” literally “he went up,” in a true and topographical sense. These terms may indeed be occasionally confounded in Syria or Egypt, where Wallin had, I suppose, learnt the language, but are never so in Arabia Proper.
I have said that the high land, or Toweyk itself, is generally of a calcareous character, though at times intermixed with granite; ferruginous sandstone and quartz also are occasionally to be met with—I found many indications of iron-ore in great quantity on its easterly limits, near Wadi Soley’; and, if I am not mistaken, of copper-ore also. The higher surface of the plateau is somewhat arid, and its vegetation, though enough to afford a sufficient pasture for the countless herds of camels and sheep-droves that graze throughout its extent, is not abundant or varied.
The few trees here met with are generally either the wide-spreading and thorny Talh, the branching Markh, and the light foliage and yellow flowers of the graceful Sidr. This is on the high grounds of the plateau, for the valleys present a very different vegetation. Sometimes a second steppe, more arid than the first, overtops it by 500 or 600 feet. The air is cool, almost bracing, and very dry.
Such are the heights of Nejed, mere pasture-land, and less fertile than healthy. But in every direction they are traversed by a network of valleys, full of life and culture. Sometimes in their abrupt and trench-like form they resemble the “nullas” of the Deccan; frequently open and broad, they attain a width of a league and more from bank to bank. Their white and precipitous sides give the appearance of being artificially cut out in the thickness of the plateau, though they are often broken by the furrows of winter-torrents pouring down over their ledges, and piling up irregular masses of rock and limestone in the valley below. It is to the sinuous lines of these hollow passes that the excavated steppe owes its labyrinthine appearance, and hence perhaps its appellation of Djebel Toweyk, i. e. “the mountain of the little convolution” or “entanglement.”
We may here notice that the diminutive nominal form, as “Toweyk” for “Towk,” “Loheym” for “Lahm,” “Roweys” for “Ras,” &c., &c., is very frequently, indeed almost affectedly, eni​ployed in Nejed; and rather implies a certain familiarity, affection, and the like, than real smallness of dimension. Such is the case with Toweyk in particular.
The ground-soil of these valleys is generally of light earth, intermixed with sand, gravel, limestone, granite pebbles, quartz, &c., washed down from the adjoining heights by the rains of winter. Indeed at that season the hollows are often transformed into mere torrent-beds; and the earth-built houses erected in their cavities are frequently ruined and washed away. Of this I have seen numerous instances at Zulphah, Rowdah, and at Er-Riad itself. But these torrents are of very brief duration; in three or four days the water subsides, then the pools it has left behind soon dry up, and the moisture remains for the rest of the year hidden at a few feet below the ground level. Water under such conditions, abounds in almost all the valleys of Nejed, and hence the frequency of populous centres and cultivation throughout its provinces. But the gardens and villages, the fields and groves, are invariably situated in the depth of the valleys, and thus remain hidden from the view of the traveller until he comes close upon them. Sedeyr, an extensive highland province, contains above thirty towns or villages, some of them like Djelajil and Horeymelah, are of very ancient date. Woshem is even more populous; its centre is the commercial town of Shakrah. The ’Aared, a small but important province, and the very heart, so to speak, of Nejed, contains only fifteen; but among these are Er-Riad, the capital, Derey’eeyah, Manfoohah, and others of considerable importance. Aflaj possesses an equal number, but of less numerical and political value. The most fertile, as well as the most thickly peopled district here, is Yemamah, frequently named also the “Kharj,” or “income,” from the large amount of its annual tribute to the central government. Its valleys are remarkably broad and numerous, and its waters abundant; hence its principal towns, such as Selemeeyah, Halwa, &c., are distinguished not only by the number of their inhabitants, but also by the great extent of their adjoining palm-groves, visible afar off like green carpets thrown here and there on a yellow or whitish ground.
Nejdean towns in general,—for my actual limits do not permit their separate description one by one,—offer an assemblage of one or two-storied houses, constructed of large unbaked bricks, almost rivalling stone in hardness and durability. They are in all cases surrounded by earth fortifications, consisting of walls about 20 feet in height, with somewhat loftier towers and bastions, and three or four outer gates, well flanked by towers, and not un- frequently closed by large folding doors of timber, for Instance at Mejmaa, the head-town of Sedeyr, Riad in the Aared, &c., ​a deep trench surrounds part or the whole of the outworks. Often too, indeed in all places of any importance, there exists within the walls a central castle or fortress, whose walls rise from 40 to 60 feet in height, or somewhat more, and are of an enormous thickness, not unfrequently augmented by a glacis. The portal is generally small and narrow and placed on one side, deep sunk between protecting bastions; the windows are also small; a trench is sometimes added from without. Here resides the chief or local governor; earth-seats in the open space before the walls denote the situation no less than the primitive character of his highness’s customary audiences or leveés.
The streets present, as is generally the case in the East, but little arrangement or symmetry; they are sometimes broad, oftener narrow, never regular. But in every town or even village is to be found the central market-place, always close by the castle, and, in Nejed at least, on one side a large low mosque for the Wahhabee form of worship. This latter edifice is of never-failing occurrence since the establishment of the fanatical Ebn-Saood dynasty. Shops, or rather warehouses, are common enough in these towns; they form the greater part of the market-place and occupy its neighbourhood; a small number of artisans, chiefly in metal or in leather, here ply their trades. Among shopkeepers, butchers, cloth-sellers, and grocers, thrive better than any, and are more often to be met with.
Without the walls, rarely within, lie the gardens, the constant accompaniment of a Nejdean town, and a main source of sustenance to its inhabitants. They are thickly planted with palm-trees; and other fruit-trees are seldom or never wanting. Beyond the gardens are situated whatever fields of corn or of leguminous plants the irrigation from the neighbouring wells may suffice to maintain; for without a constant and artificial supply of water, no agricultural produce is to be obtained in Central Arabia. Date-trees are also watered almost daily, other fruit-trees less, the ithel not at all.
The wells are numerous and of moderate depth; indeed I do not remember having seen any in Nejed where water was not to be had at about 12 or 15 feet only below the surface; even less depth is required on the southern limits of Aared and in Yemamah. This presents a striking contrast to Djebel Shomer, where water often lies at 60 feet underground, and more. The better supply of moisture, in these regions is owing partly to their comparative proximity to the Persian Gulf, and its abundant rains, and partly to the greater elevation of the neighbouring Toweyk plateau and its steppes, much higher than the ragged peaks of the rocks of Shomer.
​The wells are worked by buckets (leathern, of course) attached to ropes which pass over pullies placed in a sort of gallows above the well, and drawn by camels, or asses, rarely by oxen. Indeed in Djebel Shomer, Kaseem, Sedeyr, and Woshem, this latter species of animal is entirely, or almost entirely unknown; but it reappears in Aared and Yemamah, and increases in frequency in proportion as we approach the Hasa and ’Oman. These kine are generally red in colour, small of stature, and have on their back, over the shoulders, a characteristic hump, much like their Eastern brethren, the Brahminee bulls.
I say nothing here of the camel-breed; its copiousness may be imagined in this land of camels. They are in fact to Nejed, for all sorts of work and luxury too, much what horses and kine taken together are for England, at least before the multiplication of railroads had lightened their employments.
The horses of Nejed also hardly belong to my present subject; and I must accordingly reserve a fuller history of them for subsequent publication, yet I cannot here dismiss these beautiful creatures without a few words. They are incomparably the best, the standard breed of Arabia, indeed of the whole world. Light in limb, small in stature, their average height being about 14 hands, seldom more, full in the back, haunches, and chest, their tail set off at a graceful arch, the dorsal bone slightly depressed, so as to give the animal a somewhat saddle-backed appearance, though that is also due in part to the remarkable fulness of their hind-quarters, their muzzle delicately taper, their ear small and pointed, their eye large and full of life, their shoulder at a lovely slope, unlike the heavy Persian or Cape breed, their legs all bone and sinew, and slender as bars of iron, the hoof small and neat; in a word, they present the most perfect model, the “beau-ideal” of equine perfection.
They are never used for hard labour of any sort, not even for travelling, at least to any distance. War and parade are all their business. Nor are they ever sold; they change masters only by heritage, gift, or capture; and no price is in consequence assigned for them. Hence it follows that they very seldom leave their native Nejed. Such horses have indeed been occasionally sent as presents to the Sultan, to the Shah of Persia, to the Egyptian Government, and more often to the neighbouring and international Arab states. But the animals thus parted with are of course stallions, and not, the best of them either; as for the mares they are not to be had even thus. However the Arabs of Shomer and the other neigh¬ bouring clans, whether Bedouins or others, not unfrequently manage to get their mares crossed from this breed, and then sell the foals under the name of Nejdee horses at Meshid Alee, Bagdad, or Syria. Hence arise many so-called Nejdee horses, ​occasionally met with even in European stables; good beasts, but not of the pure race.
Nor must I at present give, though I should much desire, a detailed account of the past history or present condition of the Wahhabee government, often called “Nejdean” the Arabs, in allusion to the provinces of its centre and birth-place. Enough to say that Feysul, Ebn-Turkee, Ebn-Abd-Allah, Ebn-Saood, the seventh in regular succession of these rulers, now extends his dominion over the whole of the lower Kaseem, the districts of Soleyyel, Wadi Dowasir, Aflaj, Woshem, Aared, Sedeyr, Yemamah, Hareek, Hasa, and Kateef; the islands of Bahreyn also, though not strictly speaking subject, yet pay him an annual tribute. His empire, accordingly, as a glance at the map will show, stretches in a broad belt across the centre of Arabia from the very limits of the Meccan territory, Kelaat-Bisha, and Wadi Nejran, up to the shores of the Persian Gulf. Its limits are assigned northward by the independent kingdom of Telal Ebn-Rashid and the territory of Koweyt, on the south-east by the kingdom of ’Oman, due east the Persian Gulf, south the desert; and to the west Djebel Aseer, the Meccan limits, and the pilgrim-route as far back as Medinah. It is the strongest and most closely organised, though not the richest or most populous (for ’Oman surpasses it in either of these respects) kingdom in Arabia at the present day; and though it has never fully recovered from the blow inflicted by Ibrahim Basha and the Egyptian occupation, it is yet very formidable to its Arab neighbours, and even an object of much suspicion and uneasiness to the Osmalee at Mecca.
South-west of Djebel Toweyk, beginning at the province of Aflaj, and terminating near Kelaat-Bischa, runs a long and broad valley, known by the name of Wadi Dowasir. Its inhabitants are numerous, but poor, half savage; and an inhospitality unusual in Arabia renders them of singularly ill repute. They are the most bigoted among the bigoted Wahhabites. Their villages are small, and dotted at short intervals down the sandy valley, their houses for the most part mere palm-leaf huts, thus affording an indication of the increased heat of the climate, corroborated by the dusky complexion of the people themselves. This valley opens out at its south-western extremity into Wadi Nejran, and thus affords a sort of high road, the only one indeed, from Nejed to the interior of the Yemen, passing behind Djebel Aseer and the sea-coast range. Such was the information given me by many trustworthy informants of those regions. I myself did not visit it in person, though I was near its upper end in the Aflaj; indeed as the murder of a tobacco-smoker (or “drinker of the shameful,” in their cant-phrase) is throughout the Wadi Dowasir looked on as a highly meritorious action, I should have been in a somewhat ​dangerous predicament; in the other Wahhabee provinces a little more toleration can be had, at least in the case of a stranger like myself, for the persecuted Nicotian plant.
The inhabitants of Nejed in general, but more especially those of the upper highland provinces, or Nejed-el-’Aala, are a remarkably fine and intelligent race of men, of a tolerably fair complexion, though with dark eyes and hair, sinewy limbs, full stature (the average from 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10, or even upwards), their features are oval and regular, their deportment stately. Corpulence is rare among them; the old tyrant Feysul is perhaps stouter than any of his subjects, but this may be considered in keeping with his position. Their endurance of fatigue, their patient courage, their daring in war, the prudent reserve of their conversation, are well known, proverbial indeed throughout the East; and to these qualities in fact they mainly owe the authority which they exercise, too often in an arbitrary fashion, over their neighbours. Their generosity and hospitality have been often much celebrated, and deservedly so. Nor is it an exaggeration to say that in no part of the world, of Asia at least, does a stranger meet with a kinder, a more liberal, or even a politer reception than in Upper Nejed.
But these good qualities are counterbalanced by a great recklessness of bloodshed in war, by treachery in peace, by envy and hatred prevalent among them to an almost incredible degree at all times, and finally at the present day by a fanaticism exceeding that of the cotemporaries of Mahomet himself. Immorality, in the common acceptation of the term, is no characteristic of the Arab race; and the odious vices which disgrace their Persian neighbours are little known among them, or, if detected, are severely punished. Under the Wahhabite system morals seem, however, to have generally grown laxer than formerly; and fanatical bigotry tends to usurp the place of responsible feeling.
Dress is very uniform throughout Nejed. The cotton handkerchief, now black, now white, now in red and yellow stripes, or Kafeeyah, on the head supplies the place of the turban, here in ill repute; two long white shirts, of cotton or home-spun wool, often embroidered here and there with red and blue, and of which one at least is furnished with a breast-pocket destined for a small Coran, and lastly a long and very slender plaited leather girdle, going round the body five or six times, sometimes more, and worn not over but under the shirts, next to the skin, complete the ordinary and in-doors attire. On going out of doors, the Nejdean, if he be in tolerable circumstances, will put on a third and somewhat cleaner shirt over those worn at home, and throw over his shoulders a black cloak of woven wool or of camel’s hair (in this latter case the colour is reddish brown) embroidered with red about the neck ​and breast; then put on his open sandals of country make, and lastly, take in hand a thin wand or staff, generally of the Sidr, or of the yellow wood of the Nebaa, whence in old times bows were manufactured; and thus equipped issue on the street.
Few comparatively wear the ’Akkal or head-band round the Kafeeyah; and when they do, it is of varying form and colour, sometimes white, sometimes black, or striped alternately white and black, or lastly of a reddish brown; the ’Akkals of this last colour are generally very long, going three or four times round the head, and of loose texture, they are preferred by men of rank and distinction. The poor not unfrequently substitute for the ’Akkal a mere end of rope. But those who are in any way invested with a religious or a lettered character, such as an Imam or clerk, a Khateeb or preacher, a Kadee, a Meddey’ee or “zelator,” a Metowwaa’ or instructor (literally “one who enforces obedience to God”) must nowise wear it, as this sort of head-dress is supposed to have too profane and worldly a cut. In compensation, hand-staffs of these classes are uncommonly long.
We may add that the shirts, though always cut out and sewn in the country, are often of European or American cloth, brought from Bagdad, Damascus, or Mecca, nay, even from India, through the seaports of Hasa and ’Oman. But in Aared and Yemamah this article of dress is not unfrequently manufactured of country-spun wool, or even of native Arab cotton. This latter material is white in Nejed, but a reddish variety abounds and is much employed in ’Oman. The shirts themselves are long, reaching from the neck to the ankles of the wearer, and not slit up at the sides, but very large and easy. The sleeves are often of an exaggerated width and length, and have to be continually tucked up. They end in a point, and, when stretched out, look like gigantic wings.
The climate is, as might readily be supposed from the latitude, generally hot during the daytime, and the sky almost cloudless. Yet the breeze is rarely otherwise than cool, especially on the table-land itself, and the nights are almost always so. In winter the cold, even in the Aared, is very sensible, and every one is glad to have his wood-fire lighted regularly morning and evening throughout the winter months. Coal is indeed to be found in Sedeyr and in Southern Toweyk, hut the inhabitants are ignorant of its use. Rain falls, occasionally of course, from November to February, or even March, and is sometimes heavy; I have seen it preceded by a thunder-storm, but electric phenomena are somewhat uncommon here. Between March and November the weather is uniformly clear and dry.
Riad, the actual capital of Nejed and of the Wahhahee empire, is a fortified town, containing rather less than 30,000 inhabitants, and surrounded by the fertile gardens which give it its ​name. Here we remained about fifty days, guests at the court of the old king Feysul Ebn Sa’ood and his son ’Abd-Allah, as physicians in the town.
The total number of provinces belonging to the Wahhabee empire is eleven, namely, Sedeyr, ’Aared, Washem, Aflaj, Yemanah (these five constitute Nejed-el-’Aala, or Upper Nejed), besides Kaseem on the west, Wadi Dowasir, Wadi Soleyyel, and Hareek to the south, and Hasa and Kateef on the east. The entire population is about 1,700,000, the military force about 60,000. The government is an absolute monarchy; but its weight is shared by a Prime Minister (Mahboob, son of a Georgian slave-woman), a Minister for Foreign Affairs (Abd-el-’Azeez, a Nejdean), the Kadee ’Abd-el-Lateef, great grandson of the first Wahhabee, and a council of twenty-two Meddey’eeyah, or “zelators.” Agriculture, pasture, and war are the main occupations of Nejed. Commerce was once so, but it has much gone down under the Wahhabee system; nor is there any considerable manufacture, except what belongs to shoe or sandal makers and blacksmiths.
Quitting Aared and Yemamah, to follow the Wadi Soley, we cross the furthermost highlands of Djebel Toweyk eastward; fill our water-skins for four days’ provision at the wells of Oweysit, on its extreme verge, and then traverse the arm of the “Dahna,” or great desert, that immediately succeeds it. Here we toil for about 80 miles, till on its eastern margin we reach the desolate and waterless labyrinths of Wadi Farook, where our guides, though well accustomed to the country, nearly lost their way. About 15 miles more, and we reach the first coast-range of Hasa, and descend the wild and abrupt passes of Ghar and Ghoweyr, to the sea-coast level, a little south of the town of Hofhouf, capital of the province.
Here we find ourselves at once in another climate, and in an entirely new region. From the limits of the Djowf to the furthest boundaries of Nejed and Djebel Toweyk, we have met with no running stream (except a very small one of no importance between Djeldjil and Roweydah, in Sedeyr), no above-ground watercourse; wells and buckets supply the land as best they may. But here the waters gush out on the face of the earth in numerous rivulets, or, where yet confined in wells, stand brimming at the margin. One large fountain, about six miles north of the town of Mebarraz, furnishes from its deep and circular basin no less than seven streams, each one sufficient to turn a good-sized mill, and hence its name of Omm Sebaa, or “Mother of the Seven.” The central basin measures about 60 feet in breadth. Other similar springs, especially in the neighbourhood of Hofhoof and Kelabeeyah, overflow large tracts of ground, rendering them complete marshes: and further on the waters of Wab extend far towards the sea, though they do not actually reach it.
​One peculiarity of these sources throughout the Hasa is, that they are all hot, some to such a degree as to pain the hand if suddenly immersed in them, others of a more moderate warmth, but all of them are considerably above the ordinary and atmospheric temperature. The country is indeed said to be seldom visited by earthquakes of any importance, but in a minor degree they are not uncommon; and one mentioned to me as having occurred within the memory of man was described as having been rather serious, enough to cause clefts and fissures in the walls and houses of Hofhoof, of which I myself was witness. So far as Arab inaccuracy in dates permitted me to ascertain, it seems to have been coincident in epoch with the great earthquake which in 1836 caused so much destruction throughout Syria and Palestine. Nor is the fact surprising, since the province of Hasa forms the southern extremity of a continuous valley, reaching in a north-westerly direction up to Djezirat-Omar above Mosool, and even to Diarbekir, while its basin extends from the Anti-Lebanon and the mountains of Adjeloun in Palestine, to the frontiers of Persia, and comprises a district well known for past and present indications of subterraneous volcanic agency. This is the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, opening out from the mountains of Armenia and Curdistan down to the Persian Gulf, on whose shores and in whose hollow lies the province of Hasa.
Among the hot sources of this region one requires special mention. It is the sulphurous spring named ’Eyn-Nejem, or “Fountain of the Star,” south-east of Hofhouf, and once the resort of numerous invalids, especially of those afflicted by cutaneous disease or leprosy (common enough here); cures of paralysis are also recorded, but I suspect these last to have been rather synchronous than in the order of cause and effect. But within the last five years, the old Wahhabite autocrat, Faisul, caused the source to be entirely choked up with stones, and the little cupola which surmounted it to be destroyed; because, said he, the inhabitants of Hasa placed their confidence rather in the healing properties of the water than in God alone.
Vegetation is of course very abundant here, and assumes a semitropical character. Cotton, rice, and indigo are grown in this province, but in small quantities; it would be easy to extend their cultivation. A main source of revenue is the date-tree, which in these lands attains its ne plus ultra of abundant and excellent fruit. No dates throughout Arabia equal or even come near to those of Hasa, especially the species surnamed the Khalas (i. e. “quintessence); they are cultivated principally in the southern districts, and form an important article of exportation.
Much manufacture is also carried on, both in weaving and in metal-work, in gold, silver, copper, brass, and even in iron where melting is not required. The skill of the inhabitants in weaving ​and embroidering cloaks and other garments is really admirable, and their taste judicious; silk, wool, and gold-thread, are the materials principally employed. The merchants of the province carry on a considerable trade with Bahreyn, Persia, and India, especially with the ports of Kurrachee and Bombay. Most of the Arab horses sold at the latter localities are brought thither from Hasa. The principal imports in return are rice and cloth, besides arms, glass-ware, and the like.
The general aspect of the land is sandy; the soil is light, and often intermixed with powdered limestone and mica. Yet it is highly fertile, and the landscape is much greener than in the central provinces. Dwarf-palms, trees of the acacia genus, or the crab-apple-bearing Nabak, spring up everywhere without any assistance of culture, even where water does not find its way to the upper surface. The country is for the most part level, though some sand-hills and limestone-ranges are scattered about it; these latter are low, and fantastically cavernous. The whole plain slopes gradually seawards, but before finding the level of the Persian Gulf it has to take a yet further dip of a hundred feet or more. The coast itself abounds in anchorage, but the water is generally too shallow to admit ships of large burden in the creeks, which serve as harbours for the fishing-smacks of the Arabs.
Inland a long white range of craggy hills bounds the province, and separates it from the sandy waste of the Dahna. A similar, and, so to speak, exceptional, range of bold outline, though of moderate elevation, lies near the sea along Kateef. Northwards the hills dwindle down, and at last disappear, while a barren tract of firmer soil succeeds them, and forms the upper extremity of Hasa towards Koneyt, thus separating the more fertile portions of the province from the neighbourhood of Zobeyr and Basrah.
Southward also the hills disappear for a while, and there the province, if we except a very narrow strip connecting it with Katar and the immediate sea-coast, merges in the Dahna. There is only one pass to Nejed across Djebel Toweyk: it is that by which I came; and it is one too many for the inhabitants.
The inhabited towns and villages are here numerous, and the ruined ones yet more so. Hofhouf covers an extent of ground which might well enclose 40,000 inhabitants; yet it contains at the present day only about 23,000. The same may be said of many other towns still in part remaining; of Djoon, Mebarraz, and Hedeeyyah: Kateef itself is two-thirds in ruins. Everywhere I met with the marks of decayed opulence and prosperity.
The palace of the old Carmathian chiefs at Kateef, in a richly-decorated half-Persian, half-Arab style of architecture, yet standing after more than eight centuries, though in a sadly dilapidated con​dition, would merit a much ampler description than 1 can here afford to give. The enormous quadrangular fort of Hofhouf, forming itself a very considerable quarter of the town, with its massive towers, about sixteen on each side, its keep, its deep surrounding trench, and its well-guarded portals, is a most imposing monument, and a reminiscence of bye-gone days of strength and power.
Pasture-lands are here of far less frequent occurrence than in the Nejed, and cultivation occupies a much larger proportion of the soil. Hence sheep are fewer, and meat dearer. But a very good breed of asses, much resembling those of Egypt, abounds here; their ordinary colour is white or gray. This same asinine race extends down along the coast to ’Oman, where they are even more plentiful, and supply a constant export to the island of Mauritius and elsewhere. Oxen are also often to be met with, and I saw a few buffaloes in the marsh-lands near Hofhouf. However the choice animals of Hasa are its dromedaries, which are only inferior to those of ’Oman. Light in colour, graceful (so far as such a creature can be) in form, easy, most easy, in pace, and wonderfully docile, with hair almost as fine and soft as a cat’s, they are as good specimens of that species as one could wish to see. But, like all the camel race, they never acknowledge the smallest attachment to their master or rider, and if once turned fairly loose, will never take their way home again; their docility is, in fact, of a merely passive kind, and not arising from any sort of sympathy or gratitude, such as is at times found in the horse or elephant.
The people of the land are of quieter and more industrial and commercial propensities than the dwellers of Nejed. Good poets and learned men, at least in Arab lore, are not uncommon here, and they are all “in battles much delighting,” but in verse, and when seated in the shade, pleasure-parties, songs, and much dissipation, often diversify their life, otherwise a busy one; in intelligence they are no less superior to the Nejdeans than they are inferior to them in military qualities and in physical force. Accordingly they submit without resistance to the Wahhabite tyranny, though hating it bitterly, and not without cause, since it has ruined them. Besides they are nowise indifferent to the pleasure of wearing gold and silk, and smoking tobacco—both abominations in the eyes of the Wahhabites, who put them down wherever they can. Unable to venture on open opposition, the people of Hasa bear it all as they may, and wait for better times.
Of their religious tenets—a most curious and complicated question—I say nothing here, for fear of being led too far by the historical research or philosophical explanation requisite in a serious examen of this point. But those who consider the close neighbourhood and intimate connexion between this coast and Persia, and who remember the origin of the Batiniens and Carmathians in ​these very districts, may conjecture much not far from the truth. And if we add the imperfectly suppressed Sabæan belief and practices, in a land so far removed from the great centres of Mahometan action, it will appear how tangled a skein is given to unravel here, and yet more in ’Oman. That task I accordingly reserve for another and fuller description of Eastern Arabia.
The climate of Hasa is far warmer than that of Nejed; house fires, even in January, are out of the question, and cloaks are only worn in the winter season. Indeed, one could sleep in the open air almost all the year through. But the air is moist, and health is at a lower standard here than in central Arabia, especially in the marshy low grounds about Kateef, where intermittent fevers, with all their train of organic evil, are remarkably prevalent.
We have yet to consider the islands of Bahreyn and the provinces of Katar and ’Oman.
From the port of Kateef I crossed in a small Arab smack to the sea-port town of Menamah, situated on the north side of the island Bahreyn, and opposite to the corresponding roadstead and island of Moharrek. The sea-arm between Kateef and Menamah is extremely shallow; at low water navigation is hardly possible; and at high tide the ripple barely reaches the summits of the palm-branches planted here and there in the ooze, in form of a quadrangular enclosure, for the purpose of capturing the fish whose ill fortune may bring them within the leafy walls.
The strait between Menamah and Moharrek is narrow, being less than two miles across, and so shallow that at ebb-tide a man can easily wade from one island to the other. Menamah is a large sea-port town, containing about 25,000 inhabitants, or rather more, with several extensive market-places, a noble castle on the sea-edge, for the Vice Governor, Alee Ebn Khalifah (the Governor in Chief, Mohammed Ebn Khalifah, resides at the town of Mo¬ harrek; he is dependant on the Sultan of ’Oman), and several large and handsome houses two or three stories high, but now for the most part falling into decay; Wahhabee invasion and bigotry having much injured the commerce and prosperity of Bahreyn.
The island itself is about 70 miles in length, and nearly half as many in breadth. It is in general very flat and low, a mere shoal hardly 20 feet above the sea-level, especially towards the north and west. To the east, however, it boasts a range of mountains, or rather hills, whose highest peak hardly appears to exceed eight or nine hundred feet, though the flatness of the intervening level renders it very conspicuous. The soil is in most places fertile, but not in dates, which are mainly imported hither from Kateef. In compensation, rice and potherbs, and some fruits, especially very fine citrons, are grown here. Water abounds throughout the island, but it is often brackish.
​The main support of the inhabitants is from a twofold source—commerce and fishery. The former is (or rather was, for it declines daily), of great activity and an extended circle; an uninterrupted stream of trade flowing between Bahreyn and the coasts of ’Oman, of Persia, of Sinde, of India, besides Kateef, Abou-Shahr, Koweyt, and Basrah. Even at the present time, when this activity is much slackened, large sailing-ships, some constructed in the island itself, others at Linja, on the Persian coast, others at Koweyt or in India, are continually coming in and going out of the harbour; bales of goods landed or embarked, sailors, custom-house officers, porters, merchants, crowd the quay: it is a busy scene. The various branches of the market-place are thronged by Persians, Nejdeans, Omanites, Mogols, Sindians, Indians, negroes, till the narrow alleys are well-nigh choked up. There are here alone more shops and artisans in cloth and metal than in all the towns of Upper Nejed put together, and they would be much more numerous yet were they better encouraged.
Coffee-houses, prohibited in the Nejed by Wahhabee scrupulosity, here abound, and are filled by merchants, sea-captains, and all who desire a rendezvous for business or the news of the day. The mosques are, though for other reasons also, proportionately neglected. Drums and fifes, singing-bands, and noisy marriage processions, go about in the day and break the silence of night, to the delight of the “Baharineh” (as the inhabitants of the island are styled) and the great indignation of the Wahhabee stranger, somewhat out of his element here.
Meanwhile a large proportion of the population is employed in the pearl-fishery. Hundreds and hundreds of boats from the sea-coast towns and hamlets ply the shallow waters around the island, from April to November, and meet with great success. On these boats the local government levies a sort of poll-tax, besides a fixed duty on the pearly harvest, and of the sum thus collected a rated quota is transmitted to ’Oman. The principal market for pearls is at Bagdad and among the Jews of that city, who enjoy an almost exclusive monopoly of the trade.
Fish of all kinds abounds off the coast, and constitutes the chief article of food in the island: Mackarel, flounders, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, and the rest, are here incredibly cheap. I found the average prices in the fish-market at about one-twentieth of those at Beyrouth. On the other hand, mutton and beef are dear and bad. Camels’ flesh, so common an article of consumption in Nejed, is here almost unknown, and no great loss either.
The climate is remarkably mild, never cold, and seldom oppressively hot; its prevailing feature is great dampness. It is in consequence not very healthy; indeed, few places afforded me a better field for medical practice during my journey than ​Bahreyn. The physical type of the inhabitants is widely different from that of central Arabia, though somewhat resembling that of Hasa; they are for the most part small, slender, and not of a muscular appearance; somewhat, indeed, bordering on the Indian race. Their origin is an exceedingly mixed one; they own some Arab blood, more Omanite, and yet more Persian. Who were the first tenants of the island we shall see further on. They have, however, in spite of their hybrid character, a very peculiar and distinctive cast of features, and an intelligent, though hardly an animated look. Many Hindoos are settled here as merchants and traders, and amass large fortunes; they observe the same customs and manner of life as in their own country, and never intermarry with the “Baharineh.” Arabs of pure race, and Persians are also to be met with as inhabitants of the towns, but alliance soon renders them undistinguishable from the predominant population. A small colony of Jews also lived not long since at the Menamah, but the arbitrary despotism of Mohammed Ebn Khalifah has driven them away.
The Wahhabee monarch has for some years past exacted a yearly tribute of about 1800l. from the island. This affords him an opportunity of sending hither from time to time his servants or slaves, and of exercising by their means a baleful influence. In fact, the actual government has, mainly in consequence of direct or indirect Nejdean interference, been rendered so oppressive, that thousands of the inhabitants, without exaggeration, have recently abandoned their native island, to seek some freer and more tolerant station. Maltese (though from a different cause) are not more common on the sea-ports of the Levant, than “Baharineh” on the entire coast-line of the Persian Gulf The little island of Ges, lower down this sea, the harbours of Linja and Bander-Abbas, those of Bedaa, Dowha, and Wokrah, in Katar, and Scharja, Fajirah, Sohar,'Seeb, Matrah, and Maskat, in ’Oman, are literally peopled with natives of Bahreyn, settled there within the last few years only. Wherever they come they soon distinguish themselves among the surrounding masses by a marked superiority in commercial and industrial skill, which reflects little credit on the authors of their expatriation.
The island of Moharrek is much smaller than that of Bahreyn, but the main sea-port, homonymous with the island, is little inferior to Menamah itself in extent and population. The Arab element in Moharrek somewhat predominates over the Persian; and commerce is here less active than in Bahreyn. The island itself is throughout low and level, but its sandy soil is much drier than that of the sister shoal, and its climate is considered to be more healthy. A square-built fortress of tolerable strength commands the eastern entrance of the channel between the two islands, ​but it is now much neglected, and only serves as a sort of stable for the horses and dromedaries of Mohammed Ebn Khalifah. A similar but much larger fort—a castle, indeed—exists, though entirely dismantled, on the main land of Bahreyn to the east of Menamah.
The number of villages on the two islands taken together is about eighty in all; some of them which I visited are of considerable dimensions, although the houses are for the most mere palm-branch sheds, such alone being required by the mildness of the climate: at intervals, however, large dwellings of brick and stone, and whose appearance is not inelegant, are interspersed among the huts of the poor.
Let us now cross over to the adjoining lands of Katar. This province embraces almost all the peninsula denominated in many maps as Bahran—an appellation, by the by, which I never heard used by the inhabitants—as well as the greater part of what is commonly called the Pearl Coast. It is dependent on ’Oman, through the medium of its numerous local chiefs, the principal of whom, Mohammed Ebn-Thanee by name, a fine old man, and famed for great prudence and gentleness of disposition, resides in the seaport town of Bedaa. But he has no direct powder over the other chiefs, such as the respective governors of Wokrah, Zabarah, Soor, &c. Mohammed Ebn Khalifah, of Bahreyn, exercises a sort of general influence throughout the district.
Its prevailing character towards the mainland is extreme barrenness; there are hardly any gardens or cultivated fields; water is scarce, and the wells deep; their supply barely suffices for domestic use, much less for irrigation. It is, in fact, merely a narrow strip of meagre pasture-land among the low hills which rise close to the coast, and thence stretch back for some distance towards the interior. Numerous villages, however, above forty in total number, stud the coast; but their maintenance comes from the sea, not the land. The population subsists almost exclusively by the pearl-fishery, here, perhaps, the most productive known on any point of the globe. Its season is from the end of March to about the middle of November, But the continuance of frequent and protracted diving gives rise to much disease among the inhabitants, and they are physically as well as morally, for the most of them, but a sorry race.
All along the inland hills, the diminished continuation of the Hasa coast-range, are placed from distance to distance round watch-towers; they serve also as forts and places of refuge for the Katar pastors when attacked, which is frequently the case, by their troublesome neighbours, Benoo Yass and Menaseer, or the restless Bedouins of Aal-Morrah. The entrance to these towers is pierced in the wall at about 12 feet above the ground, and can only be ​reached by a rope hanging from it, which is afterwards drawn in again by those who have clambered into the interior in case of siege. Beyond these hills extends a little pasture-land, where the Bedouins already mentioned graze their camels, and behind this the immense and hopeless sand-waves of the Dahna as far as Yemen.
The air is dry, and colder than the climate of Bahreyn, though further south. The adjoining sea is very shallow; the people of the coast call it “Bahr-el-Benat,” i.e. “the girls’ sea,” in derision of its calm and pool-like appearance. Indeed the flux and reflux of the tide, here once only in twenty-four hours, while at Bahreyn it is regularly once in every twelve, seems alone to preserve its shallows from utter stagnation. It is foully muddy, and produces abundance of fish, besides the pearl-oysters. Its winters are full of zoophytes, and highly luminous at night; indeed so is the whole extent of the Persian Gulf, even where at its deepest. This phenomenon is ascribed by the Arabs to the glare of hell-fire, situated, as they will have it, immediately under the sea-bed, which in pursuance of this theory must be transparent, probably of glass. But on that point the Arabs (Nejdeans, of course) could not give me any positive information. Innumerable islands (I have heard forty enumerated one after another) stud the bay, but few of them possess springs of fresh water, though some—for instance, the isles of Faroor, Halool, and Aboo-Moosa—are of considerable size and mountainous. On this last I was obliged to pass two days, owing to a storm, and had thus ample time to explore it “from the centre all round to the sea.” It is evidently volcanic, contains a central peak of considerable elevation, and owns a scanty source of brackish water.
Between Katar and the nearest limits of the province of Sharja, namely, the village of Aboo-Debee, the desert comes right down to the sea for a length of near 100 miles. The marauding and assassinating Bedouins of Beni-Yass, formerly pirates too, though now repressed at sea by the British flag, occupy this unfertile spot. The only village here of any consequence—a small town, indeed—is Soor: like the others, it subsists by the pearl-fishery.
From Aboo-Debee, the whole coast, with its inland provinces, on Ras-el-Hadd, and even round it to the south-west as far as Dofar, bears generally the exclusive title of ’Oman: this denomination is, however, rather political than geographical, and denotes that the supreme authority of the Omanite Sultan, Thoweynee Ebn-Sa’eed, is through this extent more immediately and fully exercised than in Bahreyn and Katar; though Khaled Ebn-Sakar, the local chief of Sharja, has of late years established his almost independent and arbitrary rule over the greater part of the Cape ​of Ras Mesandom, namely, the three provinces of Sharja, Roo’s-elDjebal, and Kalhat, which compose it.
The narrative of Captain Wellsted gives a tolerable idea of much of Oman; but it is not a complete one, for that enterprising traveller visited the kingdom at the time when the Wahhabee armies were harassing its Northern and Western provinces; and besides ill-health abridged his researches, already much narrowed in their sphere by his avowed European character: for though the excessive jealousy against foreign and especially against European travellers prevailing throughout Nejed is much mitigated in ’Oman, there yet remains even here enough of such a feeling to render the natives very unwilling to let foreigners see the best of their land or the wealthiest of their towns, for fear lest cupidity should thus be over-excited and occasion given to encroachment or other disagreeable results.
Nor was I myself able to examine in person the interior regions so fully and extensively as I should have much desired. Of this the main reason was, that a long-protracted journey and the endurance of much hardship of every kind, had so far weakened my health and undermined my strength, that I felt at last hardly able to bear up from day to day. In fact, the ultimate resolution of the matter was in a typhoid fever. However, I managed to pass nearly two months in this angle of Arabia before my final break-down, and in addition to what this period of time gave me opportunity of visiting in person, an easy intercourse with the unsuspecting inhabitants gained me much and valuable information on many other points. I will now accordingly specify some of the more remarkable features of this land and people, so far as I then became acquainted with them, and thus conclude the present narrative.
’Oman, to take this denomination in its widest territorial application, is a development of the coast-range which girds Arabia; and nowhere else does the mountain-chain attain equal height or breadth. The main back-bone of this region is the ridge named Djebel Akhdar, or “the Green Mountain,” whose highest peaks rise inland behind Barka and Maskat at a distance of about 60 miles from the coast, while its bold summits extend in an uninterrupted line north-west by north to Cape Mesandom, and south¬ east down to the neighbourhood of Ras-el-Hadd. Its average distance from the sea is about 40 miles; but it approaches much nearer at Ras Mesandom, in which it finally merges, while towards the Batinah and Djaïlan it recedes far inland.
This central chain gives off several others, which afford the skeleton plan, so to speak, of the whole region. Thus, near its northern extremity, it furnishes a series of hills named Djebel ’Okdah, and ​leading south-west to the town of Bereymah, now a sort of Nejdean colony, where they attain a considerable elevation. They then turn south-east and run in a line parallel to Djebel Akhdar, but at a considerable distance from it: this range assigns the limits of the Dahirah, or inland province. Another chain of mountains, at their first outset mere barren rocks, but soon rising to a great height, originates at the coast near Barka, and follows the sea-line close to the very shore down to Soor; meantime it communicates with Djebel Akhdar by transverse ranges occurring between Barka and Maskat: these form the boundary of the Batinah. Beyond Soor these same hills form a vast loop running round the inner line of the Ras-el-Hadd promontory, till it at last meets the Dahirah to the rear of Djebel Akhdar.
These mountains, especially the coast-range, and the Djebel Akhdar itself, are mainly basalt and granite, with mica, quartz, and spar intermixed. But to the south and east chalk and limestone begin to predominate, and the low hills that follow the coast from Ras-el-Hadd downwards towards Dofar were described to me as being principally of that formation, though some are, if I have rightly understood, basaltic also.
Beyond and behind the Dahirah lies the desert already described. From the heights behind Sharja I could distinguish no break in its reddish waste; but, if my Bedouin informants be correct, there occurs, at a certain distance from the Dahirah, a long low range of white (i. e. limestone) rocks and sand-hills, called by them the Akhaf, and forming a sort of outwork to the ’Oman range. These same hills are mentioned also in a well-known Arab work, the ‘Hamasah’ of Abou-Temmam. Possibly Wadi Djebrin, put down in some maps, though no one in this country could tell me anything about it, may be a valley among or coincident with these same Akhaf.
Such is the general outline of ’Oman—an outline mostly filled up, by fertile and cultivated lands: those lying between the sea and Djebel Akhdar, namely the province of Batinah, are especially rich in produce, except where the rocky coast-line interferes. The vegetation of the Batinah is almost Indian; the cocoa-nut mixes with the date-palms and overtops them—the mango-tree spreads its broad deep shade—the betel-tree and papay adorn the gardens long tropical climbers stretch from bough to bough—and under all runs a meandering network of rivulets, supplied from the inland mountains, or welling up through the level soil, to give a degree of life and verdure such as no other part of Arabia can show. It is, indeed, the garden of the Peninsula. Numerous villages and some considerable towns adorn this province: I will speak of them separately a little further on.
Djebel Akhdar also, with its continuation in Belad Benoo-​Abee-Alee, and Djailan, encloses many fertile valleys, full of rich vegetation and considerable produce. The villages, clustering house above house on its sides, reminded me of the more populous districts of Lebanon above Beyrouth in Syria; and vines, whose wine is said to be good (but I did not taste it) abound on the slopes. Running streams of water are here frequent, but none reach the sea except as winter-torrents. Here, and in the Batinah, I met with the pipul or aalei tree of India. Date-palms are common and vigorous; but their produce is inferior to that of Hasa. The sugarcane, coffee, indigo, and cotton, both white and red, thrive here: this last is very abundant; the coffee is much inferior to that of Yemen, and resembles rather the Indian variety. Bees abound in the mountain, and furnish excellent honey of a whitish colour.
The mountains themselves are sometimes bare—more often wooded, at least partially so; hence their appellation of “green.” The inhabitants are a very peculiar race, and offer somewhat of an Abyssinian type; they profess themselves of the old Cahtanite stock, established in Southern Arabia many centuries prior to the Ismaelite Arabs, and believe that their ancestors emigrated hither from the Yemen at a very early period. Some, however, lay claim to belong to certain Yemanitic or Nejdean tribes of a later date; such are the Fezarah in the Batinah. They are ruled by local chiefs, all of whom, however, owe allegiance to the common monarch of ’Oman; but the government is much more restricted and constitutional, while less mechanical and centralised, than that of Nejed. The most powerful and the most ancient family is that of the Yaaribah, who are said to be descended in direct line from Yaareb, son of Cahtan: they were formerly the rulers of the whole of ’Oman till supplanted by the family of Sa’eed, who attained the sovereign power about 140 years ago, and still possess it. The Ghafaree and Djelundee are other powerful families of chieftains; they inhabit mostly the south-east of the province.
Maskat being the seaport most frequented by Europeans, is also the best known, and I may well be excused from adding here my description to that of so many preceding travellers. But though a town of great importance, it is not after all the real capital of the kingdom, nor the authentic and offcial residence of the sovereign. Three towns are acknowledged in ’Oman as holding that rank, namely, Sohar, Nezwah, and Bahholah. Of these the last is said by all such as have visited it, which want of time and illness prevented my doing, to be much the largest and the most ornamental in the kingdom. A very intelligent native of Hasa, by name Ebn Khamees, who had remained some time resident at Bahholah, described it to me as surrounded by a triple wall of remarkable height and strength, with a spacious and vaulted marketplace or “keysareeyah,” as they here call it, in the centre; the ​houses are, by his account, of three stories high, the streets large and regular, the buildings of stone. He mentioned the approach to it, by a wooded mountain-gorge, as very beautiful; and finally, gave an estimate of the number of dwellings in the town, which would make the inhabitants near 30,000.
Sohar, where I passed many days, is allowed by every one here to be much inferior to Bahholah in every way, and yet possesses much of that ornament and strength which popular report attributes to the latter, and its actual population appeared to me, although it has much diminished of late years, certainly above 20,000. Hence we may conclude that the above account of Bahholah, confessedly its superior, is not much exaggerated; and certainly the great amount of gold and silver workmanship, of the most delicate quality, which I have seen brought from Bahholah for sale in the towns of the Batinah, at Matrah, Maskat, and elsewhere, implies a thriving market and a wealthy town. Nezwah is, at least, equal in size to Sohar, but less dilapidated. It is a frequent summer residence of the king, or sultan (as he is here called), Thoweynee: a considerable manufacture of sweetmeats, by no means despicable, is here carried on.
In no other part of Arabia did I meet with stronger marks of advanced and long-established civilization than in ’Oman. Large stone-built houses, three and even four stories high, with ample and variously carved vestibules, vaulted passages, painted wails, and copious furniture for every use; hospitality and courteous welcome, outdoing even that of Nejed; politeness in conversation, cleanliness and ornament in dress, and much else of the same nature. I will touch on a few points, which may help to give a tolerable and distinctive idea of this people.
The dress of the Omanites is very different from that already described as worn in Nejed. Here, instead of the long Arab shirt, a broad band of cloth, reaching from the waist to the knees, and very generally bordered with silk, is worn round the loins; over this is put on a long gown of red cotton, often embroidered with blue silk, and above all a light gold-embroidered cloak of camel’s hair, or of light wool. The head is covered with a large turban, not unfrequently of Indian make, and sandals, much more elegant and stronger in make than those of Nejed, are here indispensable, owing to the dampness of the soil. Every free man—and slaves, too, if belonging to wealthy masters—wears at his embroidered leathern girdle a short and crooked dagger, whose hilt is often made from the hoof of the giraffe, and richly ornamented, no less than the sheath, with gold and silver filigree. I have seen both hilt and sheath of gold (gilding is unknown here), oftener of silver: this weapon serves, however, not unfrequently for decoration, but for use also. A large sash, generally white, is girt round the waist, ​over the belt and dagger, around whose handle it forms a kind of sword-knot. Crooked wands are here the fashion instead of straight, and a good one of yellow Nebaa wood is much prized. Smoking is more general here than even in Syria. I should have mentioned before that tobacco is one of the main growths of the country: it is good and cheap, but somewhat strong. Coffee-houses abound; and the form of pipe there prevalent, and in the private dwelling-houses, is the Persian, or Nargheelah. I wonder how Niebuhr, a writer in general of the utmost accuracy, can have stated in his Notes on this part of Arabia that smoking is here ill looked upon. Possibly his informant belonged to the Wahhabite sect, and gave his own sentiments as a standard for those of the country.
Gaiety and fondness for social amusement, industry and commercial activity, are characteristic of the Omanite race: they are mild, good-humoured, and cheerful. The women of this province are of remarkable and far-famed beauty; few Asiatic regions can in fact afford their equals, whether in form or face: their stature, too, is taller and far more graceful than is common elsewhere in Arabia, nor is the veil common among them. When attacked, the inhabitants of ’Oman fight bravely, as their wars with the invading Wahhabees, and even occasional skirmishes also with Indian troops, have attested; but they are too fond of mercantile, mechanical, or agricultural pursuits to be much given to war, though in bravery they excel the people of Hasa. Their country has considerably suffered for many years, and still does, from repeated Wahhabee attack or interference, and nowhere is the Nejdean so cordially hated as here.
The Dahirah, a province which outlies Djebel Akhdar to the south-west, is more barren than the rest of the kingdom; its inhabitants have a half-savage appearance: they mostly go armed with short spears or javelins, besides the never-failing dagger at the girdle, and are evidently poorer and less civilized than the inhabitants of the Batinah. But the wildest population by far are the denizens of Ro’os-el-Djebal, i. e. of the Cape Mesandom itself; their mountaineer dialect can hardly be understood even by their immediate neighbours—to a stranger it is totally unintelligible.
I may here remark, that throughout ’Oman the prevailing form of the Arabic language differs in some respects from that spoken in Nejed, where the lowest of the people employ the identical dialect of the Coran without any deviation, and with all its inflexions, desincnces, and other niceties, which have been sometimes supposed to exist only in the ingenuity of grammarians, but which characterize, in fact, the living and spoken language of Central Arabia.
While in ’Oman, I was often reminded with surprise of the phrases and expressions of old Ante-Islamitic poets, and heard many words elsewhere obsolete here current and in common use ​among the natives of the region, while they puzzle Nejdean visitors. Again, the grammatical desinences are less scrupulously observed here than in Central Arabia, though the inflexions are invariably correct. It is the old Yemanite Arabic, simpler, and more ancient, than the dialect of the Hejaz and of the Nejed.
Poets and poetry abound, even more than in Hasa; but the form of versification admits of a remarkable variety. For while some authors compose according to the laws of rhyme and metre generally admitted among Arab poets, and rigidly adhered to even at the present day in Syria, Bagdad, Egypt, &c., others follow a metre in which accent takes the place of quantity, and the rhymes are not successive but alternate, much like our own double-ballad verse. In each particular piece the length of the lines is, of course, the same, but it varies from poem to poem. This kind of composition they entitle “Nabt” or “Nabtee” i. e. “Nabathœan,” in contradistinction to the other and more prevalent form, named by them “Schiār-el-Arab” or “Arab poetry.”
I did not find either the versification or the title of “Nabt” till on approaching ’Oman; but in this part of Arabia it is by far the most prevalent. No one could tell me anything precise about its date of introduction, its origin, or whence it derived its name.
Another peculiarity of this region is the great prevalence of the negro population. This is mainly the result of long-continued slave-trade with the eastern coasts of Africa; for of the numerous dusky bands thus yearly imported into ’Oman, at least one-half remain fixed within its limits, and of these a very large number obtain their freedom—usually the case on the death of their master—by some testamentary arrangement, or even at an earlier period. They then settle in the country, marry, acquire lands, and form at the present day about one-third of the entire population. Nor is the condition of those who remain slaves much inferior to that of their emancipated brethren; for so mild is slavery here—a mere name, in fact—and so little does the negro meet from the Arab population around with that contempt and ill-usage, or those restrictions and inabilities which their sable brethren, even after emancipation, sometimes meet elsewhere, that they have here little or no reason to regret their native soil, nor do they indeed ever, unless by some very rare exception, avail themselves of the continual and easy opportunities offered them of returning thither. On the contrary, it is next to impossible to persuade them to quit ’Oman. They live sometimes intermingled with the white population, sometimes gathered together in separate villages: intermarriage between emancipated negroes and Omanites is not very common, nor yet altogether rare. In the south-eastern part of the kingdom and below Ras-el-Hadd they form, I was told, a numerical majority; but as government, whether local or general, ​is strictly hereditary throughout ’Oman, the blacks have no share in it.
The Himyarite population, which connects ’Oman with Hadramaut on the southern coast, appears to be an old Abyssinian colony, distinct alike from the Arabs on the one hand, and from the negroes on the other.
The climate of ’Oman is very hot, fully equal to that of Bombay and the adjoining Concan. I have myself seen ripe apricots for sale in the market of Maskat by the end of March, and grapes ripen towards the latter part of April. In the summer months all who can quit the burning coast hasten to the upland slopes of Djebel Akhdar, where an abundant vegetation, with increased altitude, affords a cooler temperature as well as a healthier air. Captain Welsted speaks of snow falling in winter-time, of course on the higher peaks of the mountain. He must, I think, mean hail, for such was described to me by the inhabitants as there occurring, though I myself did not witness it; but as I have known it to fall on Djebel Toweyk in Nejed at a much less considerable elevation, I see no reason why it should not be even more frequent on Djebel Akhdar, whose height is 6000 feet at least above the sea-level. But the people here were ignorant of the very name of snow (thelej), and when I described it to them, unanimously affirmed that they had never seen such a phenomenon. The words for “hail” are indifferently “barad” and “djeleed,” and with these they were acquainted. Certainly in February, when I first came in sight of the Akhdar, no snow was visible on its summit, though the winter had been unusually cold and stormy.
The Bedouin population throughout ’Oman is very small: none exist in the Batinah, Kalhat, or Ro’os-el-Djebel, and but few in Djebel Akhdar. Bather more are to be met with in Belad Soor, Belad-Abee-’Alee, and the Djailan; the greatest number, comparatively speaking—for in itself it is far from considerable—wander about the Dahirah. But in ’Oman, owing to the great warmth of the climate, the fixed population, especially the negroes, not unfrequently take up their abode under slight huts of palm branches, or even in tents, instead of houses. Again, all these inhabitants, whether townsmen or villagers, white or black, when out of doors and accoutred for a journey or a war-expedition, look to a European eye exactly like Bedouins, and are in consequence set down as such; and this is, it seems, one very common source of the error by which the greater portion of the Arab population are so frequently represented as Bedouins. Add to this that as the clannish system and spirit is universal in Arabia, and appellations such as “Benoo-Abee-’Alee,” “Benoo-Temeem,” “Benoo-Fezarah,” &c., very common throughout the country, Europeans are apt to forget that all “tribes” or clans are not ​necessarily Bedouins—far from it; and that “Benoo,” or “sons of,” is quite as applicable to a town or village population as to Kenites.
A remarkable number of Hindous and “Lootian,” i.e. “natives of Loodianah,” are settled in all the seaport towns of ’Oman. A few Parsees and some Jews inhabit Maskat and Matrah. Toleration is here the word, and religious belief or practices are neither asked about nor interfered with. This affords a strong contrast to Wahhabee bigotry; indeed the general features of ’Oman, whether physical or moral, are extremely opposite to those of Nejed. Europeans alone are here looked upon with some degree of suspicion, nor perhaps without reason.
Pearl-diving ceases from Ras-Mesandom eastwards, and the sea, here deep and often stormy, furnishes less variety of fish than the “Bahr-el-Benat.” Enormous shoals of sprats and a kind of mackarel do, however, frequent the coast. Amber is not unfrequent: it is a government monopoly.
Of the inland produce I have already spoken. Dromedaries, the finest known, and asses, resembling those already described in Hasa, abound, and are frequently matter of export trade. I was told that the giraffe is to be found in the oases of the inner provinces; but I doubt whether my informant was not mistaken. Among the agricultural products the sweet-potato, identical with that of India, deserves to be mentioned. Coffee, sugar-cane, and red cotton are favourite articles of cultivation.
’Oman, considered as a kingdom, consists of twelve provinces and two dependencies, exclusive of Socotra, Zanzibar, and the East African Coast. These are:—1. Katar, from Ajeyr to Wokrah, capital Bedaa’, with the coast of Benoo-Yass; capital Soor. 2. Sharja, from Aboo-Debee to Ra’s-el-Kheymah. 3. Ro'os-el-Djebal; capital Leymah. 4. Kalhat; capital Debee. These three provinces are under the immediate government of Khaled-Ebn-Sakar. 5. The Persian coast, from Ras Bostanah to Djask, with the islands of Kishm, Larej, Ormuz, &c.; capital Linja. 6. The Batinah, from Fakan to Barka; capital Sohar. 7. The Dahirah, from Bereymah to Djebreen; capital Bereymah. 8. Djebel Akhdar, from Kata’-el-Loha to Semed; capitals Nezwah and Bahholah. 9. Belad Maskat, from Barka to Ra’s-Heyran ; capital Maskat. 10. Belad Soor, from Ra’s-Heyran to Ra’s-el-Hadd; capital Soor. 11. Djaïlan. 12. The coast from Ra’s-el-Hadd to Dofar.
The dependencies are the two islands, Bahreyn and Moharrek. The total population amounts to two millions and rather more; the military force is between fifty and sixty thousand. I remained in this country above two months, most of which I passed at ​Sharja, Sohar, Matrah, Maskat, and their neighbourhood. But during the last week of March, 1863, when re-embarking at Matrah for Aboo-Shahr, on the Persian Gulf, I was attacked by a malignant fever, and only owed my recovery and ultimate return to Bagdad about the end of April to the kind attentions and generous care of Captain Selby of the Indian navy.