Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/334

124 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