Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/337

Rh What between towns and villages, Kaseem offers about 60 principal localities, besides lesser hamlets or groups of huts clustering round gardens and palm-groves scattered here and there over the plain.

Its natural resources are mainly due to the great abundance of water, though here as elsewhere subterraneous, in this province. Throughout the valley of Kaseem, a well of 3, 4, or at most of 10 feet deep, and easily excavated in the light soil (for there is little rock in these low-lands) affords an abundant supply of excellent water, little diminished even during the prolonged drought of the summer season. In winter the wells overflow their brim and often form pools of considerable extent, little lakes in fact; I saw the traces of many such during this part of my journey.

There is here a remarkable rise in the mean temperature of the atmosphere, and the difference of climate between the low southerly flats of Kaseem, and the brisk high ground of Shomer and Salma, is even more than one might have anticipated. This, along with a more copious supply of moisture, gives rise to a much more abundant and to even a somewhat different kind of vegetation. Dates are here cheap and very good, yielding in flavour to none except those of Hasa. The different fruit-trees before mentioned abound here, and corn, millet, maize, lentils, and other vegetables, are extensively cultivated. But in addition to these esculent products, cotton of a very tolerable quality, much resembling that grown in Indian Guzerat, here makes its appearance, and its copiousness asserts a warmer climate than northern Arabia can boast.

The inhabitants are a fine and tall race of men, their braided locks falling on either side of a handsome and open countenance, give them a somewhat rakish appearance. Their complexion is a light olive, but grey eyes are yet, though seldom, to be met with; their hair is invariably black. As their dress resembles that of the other Nejdean provinces, I reserve its description for a little further on.

Of their religious and political condition, the narrow limits of this very cursory narrative forbid my speaking at present, and I accordingly leave that subject—a very interesting one—for an ampler account of this journey.

As Kaseem is mainly low land, comparatively speaking, its inhabitants often draw a distinction between it and the Upper Nejed or “high-lands,” which I must next describe.

After about a month passed at Bereydah and in Kaseem, we turned eastward, crosssedcrossed [sic] the Nefood which divides that province from Sedeyr, passed the large and commercial village of Zulphah, and found ourselves in face of the great uplands of Arabia, the heights of Djebel Toweyk.