Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/326

116 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