Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/335

Rh grass and tangled shrubs; and the traveller, if versed in Arab poetry, readily understands and appreciates the lavish praises bestowed on Nejed, with its cool air and abundant pastures, by poets, natives themselves of the barren Hejaz or the scorching Tehama. It was in the month of September that I traversed this district, and a more pleasant ride could hardly be imagined. In these regions the vigorous government of Telal Ebn-Easchid keeps Bedouins and all similar marauders in due subjection, and the traveller has here the satisfaction, so rare in the East, of going on his way without fear of being plundered or assassinated by day or night. I wish that one could say as much for the countries under Ottoman rule.

We crossed this plain in a direction of south-east by east for about 80 miles. I say “about” 80, for I had no means of measuring the distance thus traversed except by reckoning the average extent of ground gone over per hour at an ordinary camel’s pace, which varies from 4 to 5 miles, more or less. The same observation applies, of course, to all other distances mentioned in this narrative.

But after 80 miles, or a little more, south of Djebel Salma, the whole level changes, and takes a sudden dip of about 300 feet; while an immense plain, that of Kaseem proper, opens at once on the view. Villages and gardens, towers and palm-groves, thickly strewn over an even surface as far as the utmost horizon; it is a noble and a very pleasant prospect. This new district, or lower Kaseem, takes its first origin eastward of the great pilgrim-road in the Hejaz immediately behind the desert arm already mentioned; and thence extends in an easterly direction across the central region, till at length the high lands of Djebel Toweyk, and the province of Sedeyr, assign its farthest limits. Southward lies a branch of desert—the “Nefood” where perished the unlucky Persians, guests of Mohanna—and a low series of mountains given off from Djebel Toweyk itself in a westerly line, so as to pass northward of the pilgrim-track from central Nejed to Mecca, bound the valley.

I may here remark, once for all, that Central Arabia affords four distinct outlets or beaten tracks towards the western coast, all of which traverse the desert ring, but at its thinner points. The first of these is the route from Hā’yel and Djebel Shomer to Medinah, and thence to Mecca; it opens into the Hejaz at Kheybar. The second, from ’Oneyzah and Kaseem, direct to Medinah; its junction point with the western region is Henakeeyah. The third, from Er-Riad, Derey’eeyah, and Shakrah, in Central Nejed, direct to Mecca, whose territory it enters at the station of Meghasil: this is the pilgrim-track. The fourth, and southernmost, is from the Yemamah and Aflaj, by Wadi Dowasir, to