Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/336

126 Wadi Nejran and the Yemen; its opening point is at Kela’at Bisha, whence also goes off a north-westerlv track to Mecca.

The northernmost route, followed by Wallin and myself, from Ma’ān to the Djouf, is too unfrequented to merit the name of a road or caravan-track. There exists, besides, a line of communication direct from Damascus to the Djouf, but it is rarely used by travellers.

Eastward we find lines of communication between the centre and the borders. The first, and most circuitous, is from the Djowf to Meshid-Alee; but, as I have before stated, the Djowf scarcely belongs to Central Arabia. The second, from Hā’yel and Djebel Shomer to Zobeyr and Basrah, or, by a northerly branch-road, to Meshid-Alee. This is tolerably frequented. The third, from Kaseem to Zobeer, passing by Zulphah, where also a southerly route, traversing central Nejed to Riad, falls in with it. The fourth, and last (of which I shall have to say more in this journey), passes due east from Er-Riad and the heart of Nejed, to the town of Hofhouf, in Hasa, and thence to Kateef. Its exit from Nejed is at the waters of Oweysit.

Of these four tracks three are circuitous, and by their northerly direction avoid the sandy “Nefood,” but they are long and dreary. The fourth crosses the “Dahna,” and is the only junction-route, though after a long circuit through Katar, between Nejed and the regions of Oman, otherwise entirely cut off from communication with Central Arabia by the intervening “Dahna.” But it is time for our narrative to return to Kaseem.

It is the most fertile and most thickly-peopled province of Central Arabia, and, as such, is often mentioned in Ante-Islamitic history. Hence poured forth in early times the countless bands of Nejdean warriors, Bikr, Thaghleb, Sheyban, Dahel, and other kindred clans, who, under their common leader, Koleyb Waïl, shook off the yoke of the Yemanite kings about 120 years before the Mahometan era, and gave independence to Central Arabia, till in their turn subdued by the warriors of the Hejaz, the companions and disciples of the Prophet.

In fact, the appearance of the principal towns in this district, such as Bereydah, ’Eyoon, Rass, Oneyzah, Sariyah, and others, their strong and bastioned fortifications, their spacious castles, their wide-extended gardens and plantations, the high watch-towers overlooking the plain, and the vestiges of yet more ancient stoneworks, much resembling in form, and even in dimensions, Stonehenge or Carnac, and of which I myself met one near Rass, confirm what written history and oral tradition tell us of numerous population and considerable opulence, of vigorous dynasties and central power here subsisting, till Mahometanism appeared to usher in the decline and general decay of the Arabian peninsula.