fertility of the oases and of the civility of the townsmen; and like other travellers in Nejd he speaks with enthusiasm of its bright, exhilarating climate. At Riad, Fēsal, who had been in power since the Egyptian retirement, was still reigning; and the religious tyranny of Wahhābism prevailed, in marked contrast to the liberal régime of Talal in Jebel Shammar. Still, Palgrave and his companions, though known as Christians, spent nearly two months in the capital without molestation, making short excursions in the neighbourhood, the most important of which was to El Kharfa in Aflaj, the most southerly district of Nejd. Leaving Riad, they passed through Yemama, and across a strip of sandy desert to El Hasa where Palgrave found himself in more congenial surroundings. Finally, a voyage to the Oman coast and a brief stay there brought his adventures in Arabia to a successful ending.
Charles Doughty, the next Englishman to visit northern Arabia, though he covered little new ground, saw more of the desert life, and has described it more minutely and faithfully than any other explorer. Travelling down from Damascus in 1875 with the Haj caravan, he stopped at El Doughty.Hajr, one of the pilgrim stations, with the intention of awaiting the return of the caravan and in the meantime of exploring the rock-cut tombs of Medain Salih and El Ala. Having successfully completed his investigations and sent copies of inscriptions and drawings of the tombs to Renan in Paris, he determined to push on farther into the desert. Under the protection of a sheikh of the Fukara Bedouin he wandered over the whole of the borderland between Hejaz and Nejd. Visiting Tema, where among other ancient remains he discovered the famous inscribed stone, afterwards acquired by Huber for the Louvre. Next summer he went on to Hail and thence back to Khaibar, where the negro governor and townsmen, less tolerant than his former Bedouin hosts, ill-treated him and even threatened his life. Returning to Hail in the absence of the amir, he was expelled by the governor; he succeeded, however, in finding protection at Aneza, where he spent several months, and eventually after many hardships and perils found his way to the coast at Jidda.
Three years later Mr Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt made their expedition to J. Shammar. In their previous travels in Syria they had gained the confidence and friendship of a young sheikh whose family, though long settled at Tadmur, came originally from Nejd, and who was anxious to renew the connexion with his kinsmen by seeking a bride among them. In his company the Blunts set out from Damascus, and travelled across the Syrian desert by the Wadi Sirhan to Jauf. Here the sheikh found some of his relations and the matrimonial alliance was soon arranged; but though the object of the journey had been attained, the Blunts were anxious to visit Hail and make the acquaintance of the amir Ibn Rashid, of whose might and generosity they daily heard from their hosts in Jauf. The long stretch of waterless desert between Jauf and J. Shammar was crossed without difficulty, and the party was welcomed by the amir and hospitably entertained for a month, after which they travelled northwards in company with the Persian pilgrim caravan returning to Kerbela and Bagdad.
In 1883 the French traveller, C. Huber, accompanied by the archaeologist, J. Euting, followed the same route from Damascus to Hail. The narrative of the last named forms a valuable supplement to that published by the Blunts, and together with Doughty’s, furnishes as complete a picture Huber.as could be wished for of the social and political life of J. Shammar, and of the general nature of the country. Huber’s journal, published after his death from his original notes, contains a mass of topographical and archaeological detail of the greatest scientific value: his routes and observations form, in fact, the first and only scientific data for the construction of the map of northern Arabia. To archaeology also his services were of equal importance, for, besides copying numerous inscriptions in the district between Hail and Tema, he succeeded in gaining possession of the since famous Tema stone, which ranks with the Moabite stone among the most valuable of Semitic inscriptions. From Hail Huber followed nearly in Doughty’s track to Aneza and thence across central Nejd to Mecca and Jidda, where he despatched his notes and copies of inscriptions. A month later, in July 1884, he was murdered by his guides a few marches north of Jidda, on his way back to Hail.
One other traveller visited Hail during the lifetime of the amir Mahommed—Baron E. Nolde—who arrived there in 1893, not long after the amir had by his victory over the combined forces of Riad and Kasim brought the whole of Nejd under his dominion. Nolde crossed the Nafud to Haiyania by a more direct track than that from Shakik to Jubba. The amir was away from his capital settling the affairs of his newly acquired territory; Nolde therefore, after a short halt at Hail, journeyed on to Ibn Rashid’s camp somewhere in the neighbourhood of Shakra. Here he was on new ground, but unfortunately he gives little or no description of his route thither, or of his journey northwards by the Persian pilgrim road, already traversed by Huber in 1881. His narrative thus, while containing much of general interest on the climate and on the animal life of northern Arabia, its horses and camels in particular, adds little to those of his predecessors as regards topographical detail.
If the journeys detailed above be traced on the map they will be found to cover the northern half of the peninsula above the line Mecca-Hofuf, with a network of routes, which, though sometimes separated by wide intervals, are still close enough to ensure that no important General results of exploration.geographical feature can have been overlooked, especially in a country whose general character varies so little over wide areas. In the southern half, on the other hand, except in Nejran and Jauf, no European traveller has penetrated 100 m. in a direct line from the coast. The vast extent of the Dahna, or great southern desert, covering perhaps 250,000 sq. m., accounts for about a third of this area, but some of the most favoured districts in Arabia—Asir and northern Yemen—remain unexplored, and the hydrography of the Dawasir basin offers some interesting problems, while a great field remains for the archaeologist in the seat of the old Sabaean kingdom from Jauf to the Hadramut valley.
Topographical Details.—Beginning from the north-west, the Sinai peninsula belongs to Egypt, though geographically part of Arabia. It is bounded on the E. by a line drawn from Ar Rafa, a few miles E. of El Arish on the Mediterranean, to the head of the Gulf of Akaba; and on the W. by the Suez Canal; Sinai Peninsula.its length from El Arish to its most southern point is 240 m., and its breadth from Suez to Akaba is nearly 160 m. The greater part drains to the Mediterranean, from which the land rises gradually to the summit of the Tih plateau. The deep depression of Wadi Feran separates the Tih from the higher mass of Sinai (q.v.), in which J. Katherine attains a height of 8500 ft.; except in W. Feran there is little cultivable land, the greater part consisting of bare, rocky hills and sandy valleys, sparsely covered with tamarisk and acacia bushes. The Egyptian pilgrim road crosses the peninsula from Suez to Akaba, passing the post of An Nakhl, with a reservoir and a little cultivation, about half way; a steep descent leads down from the edge of the Tih plateau to Akaba.
The rest of the northern borderland is covered by the Syrian desert, extending from the borders of Palestine to the edge of the Euphrates valley. This tract, known as the Hamad, is a gravelly plain unbroken by any considerable range of hills or any continuous watercourse except the Wadi Hauran, Syrian desert.which in rainy seasons forms a succession of pools from J. Hauran to the Euphrates. Its general slope is to the north-east from the volcanic plateau of the Harra south of J. Hauran to the edge of the Euphrates valley. The Wadi Sirhan, a broad depression some 500 ft. below the average level of the Hamad, crosses it from north-east to south-west between Hauran and Jauf; it has a nearly uniform height above sea-level of 1850 ft., and appears to be the bed of an inland sea rather than a true watercourse. Water is found in it a few feet below the surface, and a little cultivation is carried on at the small oases of Kaf and Ithri, whence salt produced in the neighbouring salt lakes is exported. The W. Sirhan is continuous with the depression known as the Jauf, situated on the northern edge of the Nefud or Nafud, and the halfway station between Damascus and Hail; and it is possible that this depression continues eastward towards the Euphrates along a line a little north of the thirtieth parallel, where wells and pasturages are known to exist. Jauf is a small town consisting, at the time of the Blunts’ visit in 1879, of not more than 500 houses. The town with its gardens, surrounded by a mud wall, covers a space of 2 m. in length by half a mile in width; the basin in which it lies is barely 3 m. across, and except for the palm gardens and a few patches of corn, it is a dead flat of
