of his great journey are
disappointing to the geographer, his account of the society of the oasis
towns, and of the remarkable men who were then ruling in Hail and Riad,
must always possess an absorbing interest as a portrait of Arab life in
its freest development.

Following Wallin's route across the desert by Ma'an and Jauf, Palgrave
and his companion, a Syrian Christian, reached Hail in July 1862; here
they were hospitably entertained by the amir Talal, nephew of the
founder of the Ibn Rashid dynasty, and after some stay passed on with
his countenance through Kasim to southern Nejd. Palgrave says little of
the desert part of the journey or of its Bedouin inhabitants, but much
of the fertility of the oases and of the civility of the townsmen; and
like other travellers in Nejd he speaks with enthusiasm of its bright,
exhilarating climate. At Riad, Fesal, who had been in power since the
Egyptian retirement, was still reigning; and the religious tyranny of
Wahhabism prevailed, in marked contrast to the liberal regime of Talal
in Jebel Shammar. Still, Palgrave and his companions, though known as
Christians, spent nearly two months in the capital without molestation,
making short excursions in the neighbourhood, the most important of
which was to El Kharfa in Aflaj, the most southerly district of Nejd.
Leaving Riad, they passed through Yemama, and across a strip of sandy
desert to El Hasa where Palgrave found himself in more congenial
surroundings. Finally, a voyage to the Oman coast and a brief stay there
brought his adventures in Arabia to a successful ending.

Doughty.

Charles Doughty, the next Englishman to visit northern Arabia, though he
covered little new ground, saw more of the desert life, and has
described it more minutely and faithfully than any other explorer.
Travelling down from Damascus in 1875 with the Haj caravan, he stopped
at El Hajr, one of the pilgrim stations, with the intention of awaiting
the return of the caravan and in the meantime of exploring the rock-cut
tombs of Medain Salih and El Ala. Having successfully completed his
investigations and sent copies of inscriptions and drawings of the tombs
to Renan in Paris, he determined to push on farther into the desert.
Under the protection of a sheikh of the Fukara Bedouin he wandered over
the whole of the borderland between Hejaz and Nejd. Visiting Tema, where
among other ancient remains he discovered the famous inscribed stone,
afterwards acqu