aste to Shibam, from which he
travelled by the W. bin Ali and W. Adim back to Mukalla. J. Theodore
Bent and his wife followed in the same track a few months later with a
well-equipped party including a surveyor, Imam Sharif, lent by the
Indian government, who made a very valuable survey of the country passed
through. Both parties visited many sites where Himyaritic remains and
inscriptions were found, but the hostile attitude of the natives, more
particularly of the Seyyids, the religious hierarchy of Hadramut,
prevented any adequate examination, and much of archaeological interest
undoubtedly remains for future travellers to discover.

Exploration in Oman.

In Oman, where the conditions are more favourable, explorers have
penetrated only a short distance from the coast. Niebuhr did not go
inland from Muscat; the operations by a British Indian force on the
Pirate coast in 1810 gave no opportunities for visiting the interior,
and it was not till 1835 that J.R. Wellsted, who had already tried to
penetrate into Hadramut from the south, landed at Muscat with the idea
of reaching it from the north-east. Sailing thence to Sur near Ras el
Had, he travelled southward through the country of the Bani bu Ali to
the borders of the desert, then turning north-west up the Wadi Betha
through a fertile, well-watered country, running up to the southern
slopes of J. Akhdar, inhabited by a friendly people who seem to have
welcomed him everywhere, he visited Ibra, Semed and Nizwa at the
southern foot of the mountains. Owing to the disturbed state of the
country, due to the presence of raiding parties from Nejd, Wellsted was
unable to carry out his original intention of exploring the country to
the west, and after an excursion along the Batina coast to Sohar he
returned to India.

In 1876 Colonel S.B. Miles, who had already done much to advance
geographical interests in south Arabia, continued Wellsted's work in
Oman; starting from Sohar on the Batina coast he crossed the dividing
range into the Dhahira, and reached Birema, one of its principal oases.
His investigations show that the Dhahira contains many settlements, with
an industrious agricultural population, and that the unexplored tract
extending 250 m. west to the peninsula of El Katr is a desolate gravelly
steppe, shelving gradually down to the salt marshes which border the
shores of the gulf.

Exploration in Hejaz.

Leaving southern Arabia, we now come to the centre and