Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/329

Rh 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