ARABIA important towns. Then recrossing the continent and traversing the elevated steppe which is the wandering ground of the great Beduin tribe, Ateyba, he finally reached Jidda, exhausted by the hardships and vicissitudes of his journey. It is worthy of note that he travelled openly as a Christian and an Englishman, and that he survived to write a standard work on Arabia; whilst Huber, who traversed much the same country in 188384, paid the penalty of the venture with his life. In 1878-79 Mr Wilfrid Blunt, accompanied by his intrepid wife, Lady Anne Blunt, travelled from Syria south-east to Jebel Shammar, skirting the great Wadi Sirhan depression to Jof, and thence crossing the Nefud. He thus followed a route approximately parallel to that of Doughty, at a distance of about 80 miles from it. On his return journey from Nejd he joined the bands of Persian pilgrims returning from Mecca, travelling nearly due north to Kerbela and Baghdad, passing through the country of the Daffir Beduins, so that between these two travellers we have a fairly connected account of the physiography of all Northern Arabia, differing in some important details from the earlier descriptions of Palgrave (Arabia, Ency. Brit. ii. 235-265). Mr Bent, who was also accompanied by his wife, visited the Bahrein islands, on the east coast of Arabia, in 1888, and added much to our knowledge of this cradle of the Phoenician race. In 1893-94 he made an adventurous journey into the main valley of Hadramut, and later again visited the Southern Arabian coast, starting from Muskat, but was not successful in penetrating into the interior of the continent. Colonel S. B. Miles explored Oman and visited Dhofar, on the southern coasts of Arabia, in 1884. Yemen was traversed as late as 1892 by W. B. Harris, who travelled in disguise from Aden to Sanaa, the capital, where he was imprisoned by the Turkish authorities, and whence he was deported under an escort to Hodeida. In such circumstances he was not able to add much to the scientific information gained by previous travellers; but he gave an excellent descriptive account of the wonderful fertility and beauty of Arabia Felix. Stimulated by a journey of the French botanist Defiers in 1888, Dr Schweinfurth made a botanical exploration of Yemen in the winter of 1888-89, and Herr Eduard Glaser, about the same time, visited Mareb, the capital of the old Sabaean empire, and brought home with him numerous manuscripts. To the researches of these travellers in Northern, Central, Southern, and Western Arabia, we may add such matters of historical interest affecting Arabia as have been brought to light by the labours of the officers of the Indian Survey working in Baluchistan and Makran. They undoubtedly open up a new chanter in Arabian commercial (if not military) history. From Doughty we learn that the geology of Arabia is of truly Arabian simplicity. A central core of Plutonic rocks is overlaid Physio- fiy sandstones, and these again by limestones, somegraphy times accompanied with flints. This is a similar formation to that which appears again between the Dead Sea and Jerusalem, and probably underlies all Palestine. The “ nefuds, ” or deep sandy deserts, are composed of material derived from the sandstones. The occurrence of volcanic rocks upon plateaux throughout Central Arabia was previously unrecorded,
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but there appears to be a doubt whether the volcanic cones on the surface of the lava-flows of the “harrats” can geologically be connected with these flows. In the north-west the platform of sandstone which flanks the pilgrim route to Mecca from Damascus for about 150 miles, with its western edge approximately parallel to the Red Sea coast at a distance of about 100 miles, and which terminates southwards near El Hajr, is not the true watershed between the sand-plains of Teyma and the sea ; for the drainage strikes across it from eastwards, and is possibly antecedent to the formation of the plateau. The surface of this great “harrat,” or upland, which crowns the mountainous highlands of the coast, and is flanked on the east by a long extended depression, has been embedded by stream after stream of basaltic lava, and is studded with numerous extinct volcanoes. The highest of these volcanoes is estimated to be as much as 1000 feet above the plateau level. Between Shammar and Khaybar, striking south-west across the continent, the central districts consist of an upland space of lavafields and extinct volcanoes (called “ hilli-hillian ” by the Arabs) rising to about 6000 feet above sea-level, forming another “harrat” known as the Harrat Khaybar. This was ascertained to be the
true water-parting of this part of the country ; the waters flowing eastwards to the Wadi e’ Rumma (which would be an affluent of the Euphrates if it were a perennial stream instead of a dry trough flushed once in a generation) and westwards to the Wadi el Humth (previously unknown) which has its mouth on the Red Sea coast. Blunt describes the harrats or upland plains, closely adjoining the frontiers of Syria and Arabia to the south of Damascus, as a vast expanse of boulder-strewn desert, “a bleak and gloomy region across which it is difficult to travel with camels on account of the narrowness and intricacy of the paths which wind in and out amongst the boulders.” From this region of black stones, extending south-eastwards for upwards of 300 miles to Jof, is the great depression of the Wadi Sirhan (probably an ancient arm of the sea) which is estimated to be less than 2000 feet above sea-level, and is flanked to the eastward by the vast gravelly plain of El Hamad on a higher level of 500 feet. Jof is a walled town of about 500 houses, which stands on the northern edge of the Nefud or red sand-plain of the interior. This plain extends for 200 miles to the foot of the Jebel Shammar, beneath which lies Hail, which Blunt places at the foot of the northern slopes to the S. I. —65
