ter another fruitless attempt to treat with
Ibrahim, sailed for India. If the political results of the mission were
_nil_, the value to geographical science was immense; for though no
geographer himself, Sadlier's route across Arabia made it possible for
the first time to locate the principal places in something like their
proper relative positions; incidentally, too, it showed the
practicability of a considerable body of regular troops crossing the
deserts of Nejd even in the months of July and August.

Sadlier's route had left Jebel Shammar to one side; his successor, G.A.
Wallin, was to make that the objective of his journey. Commissioned by
Mehemet Ali to inform him about the situation in Nejd brought about by
the rising power of Abdallah Ibn Rashid, Wallin left Cairo in April
1845, and crossing the pilgrim road at Ma'an, pushed on across the
Syrian desert to the Wadi Sirhan and the Jauf oasis, where he halted
during the hot summer months. From the wells of Shakik he crossed the
waterless Nafud in four days to Jubba, and after a halt there in the
nomad camps, he moved on to Hail, already a thriving town, and the
capital of the Shammar state whose limits included all northern Arabia
from Kasim to the Syrian border. After a stay in Hail, where he had
every opportunity of observing the character of the country and its
inhabitants, and the hospitality and patriarchal, if sometimes stern,
justice of its chief, he travelled on to Medina and Mecca, and returned
thence to Cairo to report to his patron. Early in 1848 he again returned
to Arabia, avoiding the long desert journey by landing at Muwela, thence
striking inland to Tebuk on the pilgrim road, and re-entering Shammar
territory at the oasis of Tema, he again visited Hail; and after
spending a month there travelled northwards to Kerbela and Bagdad.

Palgrave's journey to Nejd.

The effects of the Egyptian invasion had passed away, and central Arabia
had settled down again under its native rulers when W.G. Palgrave made
his adventurous journey through Nejd, and published the remarkable
narrative which has taken its place as the classic of Arabian
exploration. Like Burton he was once an officer in the Indian army, but
for some time before his journey he had been connected with the Jesuit
mission in Syria. By training and temperament he was better qualified to
appreciate and describe the social life of the people than their
physical surroundings, and if the results