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 Trinity College; and he had translated (1865) Moore's ‘Paradise and the Peri’ into Persian verse. He was a member of the French Société Asiatique and of the Royal Asiatic Society. On the strength of his publications and the testimony of many orientalists, native and European, Palmer was elected to a fellowship at St. John's College on 5 Nov. 1867, after an examination by Professor E. B. Cowell, who expressed his ‘delight and surprise’ at his ‘masterly’ translations and ‘exhaustless vocabulary’ (, Life, pp. 48, 49).

The fellowship left Palmer at ease to pursue his studies. His ardent desire was now to visit the East. He had already (1867) sought for the post of oriental secretary to the British legation in Persia, and his candidature was supported by high testimonials, especially from India; but such an appointment was not in accordance with the traditions of the foreign office, and Palmer, to his keen regret, never saw Persia. Another opportunity of eastern travel, however, presented itself in 1869, when he was selected to accompany Captain (now Sir) Charles Wilson, R.E., Captain Henry Spencer Palmer [q. v.] the Rev. F. Holland, and others, in their survey of Sinai, under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund. His principal duty was to collect from the Bedouin the correct names of places, and thus establish the accurate nomenclature of the Sinai peninsula. He thus came for the first time into personal relations with Arabs, learnt to speak their dialects, and obtained an insight into their modes of thought and life. Moreover, the air of the desert greatly invigorated his health, which had suffered by excessive application and confinement at Cambridge (, Life, p. 70). In the summer of 1869 he returned to England, only to leave again on 16 Dec. for another expedition. This time he and Charles Francis Tyrwhitt Drake [q. v.] went alone, on foot, without escort or dragoman, and walked the six hundred miles from Sinai to Jerusalem, identifying sites and searching vainly for inscriptions. They explored for the first time the Desert of the Wanderings (Tih), and many unknown parts of Edom and Moab, and accomplished a quantity of useful geographical work. In this daring adventure Palmer made many friends among the Arab sheykhs, among whom he went by the name of ‘Abdallah Effendi; and numerous stories are related of his presence of mind in moments of danger and difficulty, and of his extraordinary influence over the Bedouin, for which, perhaps, his early experiences among the Romany had formed a sort of initiation. The adventurous travellers went on to the Lebanon and to Damascus, where they met Captain Richard Burton, who was then consul there, and with whom Palmer struck up a friendship. The return home was made in the autumn of 1870 by way of Constantinople and Vienna, where he formed the acquaintance of another famous orientalist, Arminius Vambéry. A popular account of these two expeditions was written by Palmer in ‘The Desert of the Exodus: Journeys on foot in the Wilderness of the Forty Years' Wanderings’ (2 vols. 1871, well illustrated with maps and engravings); and his Syrian observations of the Nuseyrîya and other societies led to an article in the ‘British Quarterly Review’ (1873) on ‘the Secret Sects of Syria;’ while the scientific results of the second expedition were detailed in a report to the Palestine Exploration Fund, published in its journal in 1871, and afterwards (1881) included in the volume of ‘Special Papers relating to the Survey of Western Palestine.’ Among other matters dealt with was the debated site of the Holy Sepulchre, and of course Palmer was easily able to prove that the ‘Dome of the Rock’ was built in 691 by the Caliph ‘Abd-el-Melik, and was not, as Fergusson had maintained, erected by Constantine the Great. Although he never again took part in the expeditions of the Palestine Fund, he devoted much time and interest to the work of the society. In 1881 he transliterated and edited the ‘Arabic and English Name-lists of the Survey of Western Palestine,’ and assisted in editing the ‘Memoirs’ of the survey (1881–1883); and in connection with his Palestine studies, he wrote, in collaboration with Mr. Walter Besant, a short history of ‘Jerusalem, the City of Herod and of Saladin’ (1871; new edit. 1888).

Palmer now resumed his residence at Cambridge, where, for the most part, he studied and wrote and lectured for the next ten years. His enthusiasm for university work received a severe check at the outset by his rejection as a candidate for the Adams professorship of Arabic, in 1871, in favour of William Wright [q. v.] In the same year, however, the lord almoner's professorship became vacant, and Palmer was appointed by the then lord almoner, the Hon. and Very Rev. Gerald Wellesley, dean of Windsor. The post was worth only 40l. 10s. a year, but it enabled him to retain his fellowship though married; and on the day after his appointment, 11 Nov. 1871, he married Laura Davis, to whom he had been engaged for several years. In 1873, in consequence of the creation of the triposes of oriental languages,