ARABIA, a peninsula in the south-west of Asia, lying between 34° 30′ and 12° 45′ N., and 32° 30′ and 60° E., is bounded W. by the Red Sea, S. by the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, and E. by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. Its northern or land boundary is more difficult to define; most authorities, however, agree in taking it from El Arish on the Mediterranean, along the southern border of Palestine, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Akaba, then bending northwards along the Syrian border nearly to Tadmur, thence eastwards to the edge of the Euphrates valley near Anah, and thence south-east to the mouth of the Shat el Arab at the head of the Persian Gulf,— the boundary so defined includes the northern desert, which belongs geographically to Arabia rather than to Syria; while on the same grounds lower Mesopotamia and Irak, although occupied by an Arab population, are excluded.

In shape, the peninsula forms a rough trapezium, with its greatest length from north-west to south-east. The length of its western side from Port Said to Aden is 1500 m.; its base from the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb (or Bab al Mandab) to Ras el Had is 1300 m., its northern side from Port Said to the Euphrates 600 m.; its total area approximately 1,200.000 sq. m.

GEOGRAPHY

General Features.-In general terms Arabia may be described as a plateau sloping gently from south-west to north-east, and attaining its greatest elevation in the extreme south-west. The western escarpment of the plateau rises steeply from the Red Sea littoral to a height of from 4000 to 8000 ft., leaving a narrow belt of lowland rarely exceeding 30 m. in width between the shore and the foot-hills. On the north-east and east the plateau shelves gradually to the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf; only in the extreme cast is this general easterly slope arrested by the lofty range of Jebel Akhdar, which from Ras Musandan to Ras el Had borders the coast of Oman.

Its chief characteristic is the bareness and aridity of its surface; one-third of the whole desert, and of the remainder only a small proportion is suited to settled life, owing to its scanty water-supply and uncertain rainfall. Its mountains are insufficient in elevation and extent to attract their full share of the monsoon rains, which fall so abundantly on the Abyssinian highlands on the other side of the Red Sea; for this reason Arabia has neither lakes nor forests to control the water-supply and prevent its too rapid dissipation, and the rivers are mere torrent beds sweeping down occasionally in heavy floods, but otherwise dry.

The country falls naturally into three main divisions, a northern, a central and a southern; the first includes the area between the Midian coast on the west and the head of the Persian Gulf on the cast, a desert tract throughout, stony in the north, sandy in the south, but furnishing at certain seasons excellent pasturage; its population is almost entirely nomad and pastoral. The central zone includes Hejaz (or Hijaz), Nejd and El Hasa; much of it is a dry, stony or sandy steppe, with few wells or watering-places, and only occupied by nomad tribes; but the great wadis which intersect it contain many fertile stretches of alluvial soil, where cultivation is possible and which support a considerable settled population, with several large towns and numerous villages.

The third or southern division contains the highland plateaus of Asir and Yemen in the west, and J. Akhdar in the east, which with a temperate climate, due to their great elevation and their proximity to the sea, deserve, if any part of Arabia does, the name of Arabia Felix-the population is settled and agricultural, and the soil, wherever the rainfall is sufficient, is productive. The Batina coast of Oman, irrigated by the mountain streams of J. Akhdar, is perhaps the most fertile district in the peninsula; Hadramut, too, contains many large and prosperous villages, and the torrents from the Yemen highlands fertilize several oases in the Tehama (or Tihama) or lowlands of the western and southern coast. These favourable conditions of soil and climate, however, extend only a comparatively short distance into the interior, by far the larger part of which is covered by

the great southern desert, the Dahna, or Ruba el Khali, empty as its name implies, and uninhabitable.

Exploration. Before entering on a detailed description of the several provinces of Arabia, our sources of information will be briefly indicated. Except in the neighbourhood of Aden, no regular surveys exist, and professional work is limited to the marine surveys of the Indian government and the admiralty, which, while laying down the coast line with fair accuracy, give little or no topographical information inland. For the mapping of the whole vast interior, except in rare cases, no data exist beyond the itineraries of explorers, travelling as a rule under conditions which precluded the use of even the simplest surveying instruments. These journeys, naturally following the most frequented routes, often cover the same ground, while immense tracts, owing to their difficulty of access, remain unvisited by any European. The region most thoroughly explored is Yemen, in the southwest corner of the peninsula, where the labours of a succession of travellers from Niebuhr in 1761 to E. Glaser and R. Manzoni in 1887 have led to a fairly complete knowledge of all that part of the province west of the capital Sana; while in 1902-1904 the operations of the Anglo-Turkish boundary commission permitted the execution of a systematic topographical survey of the British protectorate from the Red Sea to the Wadi Bana, 30 m. east of Aden. North of Yemen up to the Hejaz border the only authority is that of E. F. Jomard's map, published in 1839, based on the information given by the French officers employed with Ibrahim Pasha's army in Asir from 1824 to 1827, and of J. Halévy in Nejran. On the south coast expeditions have penetrated but a short distance, the most notable exceptions being those of L. Hirsch and J. T. Bent in 1887 to the Hadramut valley. S. B. Miles, J. R. Wellsted, and S. M. Zwemer have explored Oman in the extreme cast; but the interior south of a line drawn from Taif to El Katr on the Persian Gulf is still virgin ground. In northern Arabia the Syrian desert and the great Nafud (Nefud) have been crossed by several travellers, though a large arca remains unexplored in the north-east between Kasim and the gulf. In the centre, the journeys of W. Palgrave, C. Doughty, W. Blunt and C. Huber have done much to elucidate the main physical features of the country. Lastly, in the northwest the Sinai peninsula has been thoroughly explored, and the list of travellers who have visited the Holy Cities and traversed the main pilgrim routes through Hejaz is a fairly long one, though, owing to the difficulties peculiar to that region, the hydrography of southern Hejaz is still incompletely known.

Modern Explora

tion in Yemen.

The story of modern exploration begins with the despatch of C. Niebuhr's mission by the Danish government in 1761. After a year spent in Egypt and the Sinai peninsula the party reached Jidda towards the end of 1762, and after a short stay sailed on to Lohaia in the north of Yemen, the exploration of which formed the principal object of the expedition; thence, travelling through the Tehama or lowlands, Niebuhr and his companions visited the towns of Bet el Fakih, Zubed and Mokha, then the great port for the coffee trade of Yemen. Continuing eastward they crossed the mountainous region and reached the highlands of Yemen at Uden, a small town and the centre of a district celebrated for its coffee. Thence proceeding eastwards to higher altitudes where coffee plantations give way to fields of wheat and barley, they reached the town of Jibla situated among a group of mountains exceeding 10,000 ft. above sea-level; and turning southwards to Taiz descended again to the Tehama via Hes and Zubed to Mokha. The mission, reduced in numbers by the death of its archaeologist, von Haven, again visited Taiz in June 1763, where after some delay permission was obtained to visit Sana, the capital of the province and the residence of the ruling sovereign or imam. The route lay by Jibla, passing the foot of the lofty Jebel Sorak, where, in spite of illness, Forskal, the botanist of the party, was able to make a last excursion; a few days later he died at Yarim. The mission continued its march, passing Dhamar, the seat of a university of the Zedi sect, then frequented by 500 students. Thence four marches, generally over a stony plateau dominated by bare, sterile mountains, brought them to

Sana, where they received a cordial welcome from the imam, | el Mahdi Abbas.

The aspect of the city must have been nearly the same as at present; Niebuhr describes the enceinte flanked by towers, the citadel at the foot of J. Nukum which rises 1000 ft. above the valley, the fortress and palace of the imams, now replaced by the Turkish military hospital, the suburb of Bir el Azab with its scattered houses and gardens, the Jews' quarter and the village of Rauda, a few miles to the north in a fertile, irrigated plain which Niebuhr compares to that of Damascus. After a stay of ten days at Sana the mission set out again for Mokha, travelling by what is now the main route from the capital to Hodeda, through the rich coffee-bearing district of J. Haraz, and thence southward to Mokha, where they embarked for India. During the next year three other members of the party died, leaving Niebuhr the sole survivor. Returning to Arabia a year later, he visited Oman and the shores of the Persian Gulf, and travelling from Basra through Syria and Palestine he reached Denmark in 1764 after four years' absence.

The period was perhaps specially favourable for a scientific mission of the sort. The outburst of fanaticism which convulsed Arabia twenty years later had not then reached Yemen, and Europeans, as such, were not exposed to any special danger. The travellers were thus able to move freely and to pursue their scientific enquiries without hindrance from either people or ruler. The results published in 1772 gave for the first time a comprehensive description not only of Yemen but of all Arabia; while the parts actually visited by Niebuhr were described with a fulness and accuracy of detail which left little or nothing for his successors to discover.

Asir

Marib.

C. G. Ehrenberg and W. F. Hemprich in 1825 visited the Tehama and the islands off the coast, and in 1836 P. E. Botta made an important journey in southern Yemen with a view to botanical research, but the next advance in geographical knowledge in south Arabia was due to the French officers, M. O. Tamisier, Chedufau and Mary, belonging to the Egyptian army in Asir; another Frenchman, L. Arnaud, formerly in the Egyptian service, was the first to visit the southern Jauf and to report on the rock-cut inscriptions and ruins of Marib, though it was not till 1869 that a competent archaeologist, J. Halévy, was able to carry out any Jauf and complete exploration there. Starting from Sana, Halévy went north-eastward to El Madid, a town of 5000 inhabitants and the capital of the small district of Nihm; thence crossing a plateau, where he saw the ruins of numerous crenellated towers, he reached the village of Mijzar at the foot of J. Yam, on the borders of Jauf, a vast sandy plain, extending eastwards to El Jail and El Hazm, where Halévy made his most important discoveries of Sabaean inscriptions: here he explored Main, the ancient capital of the Minaeans, Kamna on the banks of the W. Kharid, the ancient Caminacum, and Kharibat el Beda, the Nesca of Pliny, where the Sabaean army was defeated by the Romans under Aelius Gallus in 24 B.C. From El Jail Halévy travelled northward, passing the oasis of Khab, and skirting the great desert, reached the fertile district of Nejran, where he found a colony of Jews, with whom he spent several weeks in the oasis of Makhlaf. An hour's march to the east he discovered at the village of Medinat el Mahud the ruins of the Nagra metropolis of Ptolemy. In June 1870 he at last reached the goal of his journey, Marib; here he explored the ruins of Medinat an Nahas (so called from its numerous inscriptions engraved on brass plates), and two hours to the east he found the famous dam constructed by the Himyarites across the W. Shibwan, on which the water-supply of their capital depended.

One other explorer has since visited Marib, the Austrian archaeologist, E. Glaser (1855-1908), who achieved more for science in Yemen than any traveller since Niebuhr. Under Turkish protection, he visited the territory of the Hashid and Bakil tribes north-east of Sana, and though their hostile attitude compelled him to return after reaching their first important town, Khamr, he had time to reconnoitre the plateau lying

between the two great wadis Kharid and Hirran, formerly covered with Himyaritic towns and villages; and to trace the course of these wadis to their junction at El Ish in the Dhu Husen country, and thence onward to the Jauf. In 1889 he succeeded, again under Turkish escort, in reaching Marib, where he obtained, during a stay of thirty days, a large number of new Himyaritic inscriptions. He was unable, however, to proceed farther east than his predecessors, and the problem of the Jauf drainage and its possible connexion with the upper part of the Hadramut valley still remains unsolved.

The earliest attempt to penetrate into the interior from the south coast was made in 1835 when Lieuts. C. Cruttenden and J. R. Wellsted of the "Palinurus," employed on the Exploramarine survey of the Arabian coast, visited the ruins tion in of Nakb (el Hajar) in the W. Mefat. The Himyaritic Hadramut. inscriptions found there and at Husn Ghurab near Mukalla, were the first records discovered of ancient Arabian civilization in Hadramut. Neither of these officers was able to follow up their discoveries, but in 1843 Adolph von Wrede landed at Mukalla and, adopting the character of a pilgrim to the shrine of the prophet Hud, made his way northward across the high plateau into the W. Duwan, one of the main southern tributaries of the Hadramut valley, and pushed on to the edge of the great southern desert; on his return to the W Duwan his disguise was detected and he was obliged to return to Mukalla. Though he did not actually enter the main Hadramut valley, which lay to the east of his track, his journey established the existence of this populous and fertile district which had been reported to the officers of the "Palinurus" as lying between the coast range and the great desert to the north. This was at last visited in 1893 by L. Hirsch under the protection of the sultan of Mukalla, the head of the Kaiti family, and practically ruler of all Hadramut, with the exception of the towns of Saiyun and Tarim, which belong to the Kathiri tribe. Starting like von Wrede from Mukalla, Hirsch first visited the W. Duwan and found ancient ruins and inscriptions near the village of Hajren; thence he proceeded north-eastward to Hauta in the main valley, where he was hospitably received by the Kaiti sultan, and sent on to his deputy at Shibam. Here he procured a Kathiri escort and pushed on through Saiyun to Tarim, the former capital. After a very brief stay, however, he was compelled by the hostility of the people to return in haste 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.

Explora tion 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, wellwatered 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

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, Fēsal, 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 régime 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.

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 Doughty. 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 acquired by Huber for the Louvre. Next summer he went on to Hail and thence back to Khaibar, where the negro governor and townsmen, less tolerant than his former Bedouin hosts, ill-treated him and even threatened his life. Returning to Hail in the absence of the amir, he was expelled by the governor; he succeeded, however, in finding protection at Aneza, where he spent several months, and eventually after many hardships and perils found his way to the coast at Jidda. Three years later Mr Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt made their expedition to J. Shammar. In their previous travels in Syria they had gained the confidence and friendship of a young sheikh whose family, though long settled at Tadmur, came originally from Nejd, and who was anxious to renew the connexion with his kinsmen by seeking a bride among them. In his company the Blunts set out from Damascus, and travelled across the Syrian desert by the Wadi Sirhan to Jauf.. Here the sheikh found some of his relations and the matrimonial alliance was soon arranged; but though the object of the journey had been attained, the Blunts were anxious to visit Hail and make the acquaintance of the amir Ibn Rashid, of whose might and generosity they daily heard from their hosts in Jauf. The long stretch of waterless desert between Jauf and J. Shammar was crossed without difficulty, and the party was welcomed by the amir and hospitably entertained for a month, after which they travelled northwards in company with the Persian pilgrim caravan returning to

Kerbela and Bagdad.

In 1883 the French traveller, C. Huber, accompanied by the archaeologist, J. Euting, followed the same route from Damascus

Huber.

to Hail. The narrative of the last named forms a valuable supplement to that published by the Blunts, and together with Doughty's, furnishes as complete a picture as could be wished for of the social and political life of J. Shammar, and of the general nature of the country. Huber's journal, published after his death from his original notes, contains a mass of topographical and archaeological detail of the greatest scientific value: his routes and observations form, in fact, the first and only scientific data for the construction of the map of northern Arabia. To archaeology also his services were of equal importance, for, besides copying numerous inscriptions in the district between Hail and Tema, he succeeded in gaining possession of the since famous Tema stone, which ranks with the Moabite stone among the most valuable of Semitic inscriptions. From Hail Huber followed nearly in Doughty's track to Aneza and

thence across central Nejd to Mecca and Jidda, where he despatched his notes and copies of inscriptions. A month later, in July 1884, he was murdered by his guides a few marches north of Jidda, on his way back to Hail.

One other traveller visited Hail during the lifetime of the amir Mahommed-Baron E. Nolde-who arrived there in 1893, not long after the amir had by his victory over the combined forces of Riad and Kasim brought the whole of Nejd under his dominion. Nolde crossed the Nafud to Haiyania by a more direct track than that from Shakik to Jubba. The amir was away from his capital settling the affairs of his newly acquired territory; Nolde therefore, after a short halt at Hail, journeyed on to Ibn Rashid's camp somewhere in the neighbourhood of Shakra. Here he was on new ground, but unfortunately he gives little or no description of his route thither, or of his journey northwards by the Persian pilgrim road, already traversed by Huber in 1881. His narrative thus, while containing much of general interest on the climate and on the animal life of northern Arabia, its horses and camels in particular, adds little to those of his predecessors as regards topographical detail.

If the journeys detailed above be traced on the map they will be found to cover the northern half of the peninsula above the line Mecca-Hofuf, with a network of routes, General which, though sometimes separated by wide intervals, results are still close enough to ensure that no important ofex geographical feature can have been overlooked, ploration. especially in a country whose general character varies so little over wide areas. In the southern half, on the other hand, except in Nejran and Jauf, no European traveller has penetrated 100 m. in a direct line from the coast. The vast extent of the Dahna, or great southern desert, covering perhaps 250,000 sq. m., accounts for about a third of this area, but some of the most favoured districts in Arabia-Asir and northern Yemen-remain unexplored, and the hydrography of the Dawasir basin offers some interesting problems, while a great field remains for the archaeologist in the seat of the old Sabaean kingdom from Jauf to the Hadramut valley.

Sinal

Penla

sula.

Topographical Details.-Beginning from the north-west, the Sinai peninsula belongs to Egypt, though geographically part of Arabia. It is bounded on the E. by a line drawn from Ar Rafa, a few miles E. of El Arish on the Mediterranean, to the head of the Gulf of Akaba; and on the W. by the Suez Canal; its length from El Arish to its most southern point is 240 m., and its breadth from Suez to Akaba is nearly 160 m. The greater part drains to the Mediterranean, from which the land rises gradually to the summit of the Tih plateau. The deep depression of in which J. Katherine attains a height of 8500 ft.; except in W. Wadi Feran separates the Tih from the higher mass of Sinai (q.v.), Feran there is little cultivable land, the greater part consisting of bare, rocky hills and sandy valleys, sparsely covered with tamarisk and acacia bushes. The Egyptian pilgrim road crosses the peninsula and a little cultivation, about half way; a steep descent leads down from Suez to Akaba, passing the post of An Nakhl, with a reservoir from the edge of the Tih plateau to Akaba.

Syrian desert.

The rest of the northern borderland is covered by the Syrian desert, extending from the borders of Palestine to the edge of the Euphrates valley. This tract, known as the Hamad, is a gravelly plain unbroken by any considerable range of hills. or any continuous watercourse except the Wadi Hauran, which in rainy seasons forms a succession of pools from J. Hauran to the Euphrates. Its general slope is to the north-east from the volcanic plateau of the Harra south of J. Hauran to the edge of the Euphrates valley. The Wadi Sirhan, a broad depression some 500 ft. below the average level of the Hamad, crosses it from north-east to south-west between Hauran and Jauf; it has a nearly uniform height above sea-level of 1850 ft., and appears to be the bed of an inland sea rather than a true watercourse. Water is found in it a few feet below the surface, and a little cultivation is carried on at the small oases of Kaf and Ithri, whence salt produced in the neighbouring salt lakes is exported. The W. Sirhan is continuous with the depression known as the Jauf, situated on the northern edge of the Nefud or Nafud, and the halfway station between Damascus and Hail; and it is possible that this depression continues eastward towards the Euphrates along a line a little north of the thirtieth parallel, where wells and pasturages are known to exist. Jauf is a small town consisting, at the time of the Blunts' visit in 1879, by a mud wall, covers a space of 2 m. in length by half a mile in of not more than 500 houses. The town with its gardens, surrounded width; the basin in which it lies is barely 3 m. across, and except for the palm gardens and a few patches of corn, it is a dead flat of

white sand, closed in by high sandstone cliffs, beyond which lies the open desert. The oases of Sakaka and Kara are situated in a similar basin 15 m. to the east; the former a town of 10,000 inhabitants and somewhat larger than Jauf according to Huber.

A short distance south of Jauf the character of the desert changes abruptly from a level black expanse of gravel to the red sands of the Nafud. The northern edge of this great desert follows The Nafud. very nearly the line of the thirtieth parallel, along which it extends east and west for a length of some 400 m.; its breadth from north to south is 200 m. Though almost waterless, it is in fact better wooded and richer in pasture than any part of the Hamad; the sand-hills are dotted with ghada, a species of tamarisk, and other bushes, and several grasses and succulent plants -among them the adar, on which sheep are said to feed for a month without requiring water-are found in abundance in good seasons. In the spring months, when their camels are in milk, the Bedouins care nothing for water, and wander far into the Nafud with their flocks in search of the green pasture which springs up everywhere after the winter rains. A few wells exist actually in the Nafud in the district called El Hajra, pear its north-eastern border, and along its southern border, between J. Shammar and Tema, there are numerous wells and artificial as well as natural reservoirs resorted to by the nomad tribes.

Owing to the great extent of the Nafud desert, the formation of sand-dunes is exemplified on a proportionate scale. In many places longitudinal dunes are found exceeding a day's journey in length, the valleys between which take three or four hours to cross; but the most striking feature of the Nafud are the high crescent-shaped sand-hills, known locally as falk or falj, described by Blunt and Huber, who devoted some time to their investigation. The falks enclose a deep hollow (known as ka'r), the floor of which is often hard soil bare of sand, and from which the inner slopes of the falk rise as steeply as the sand will lie (about 50°). On the summit of the falk there is generally a mound known as las or barkhus composed of white sand which stands out conspicuously against the deep red of the surrounding deserts; the exterior slopes are comparatively gentle. The falks are singularly uniform in shape, but vary greatly in size; the largest were estimated by Huber and Euting at 14m. across and 330 ft. deep. They run in strings irregularly from east to west, corresponding in this with their individual direction, the convex face of the falk being towards the west, i.e. the direction of the prevailing wind, and the cusps to leeward. In the south of the Nafud, where Huber found the prevailing wind to be from the south, the falks are turned in that direction. Though perhaps subject to slight changes in the course of years, there is no doubt that these dunes are practically permanent features; the more prominent ones serve as landmarks and have well-known distinctive names. The character of the vegetation which clothes their slopes shows that even superficial changes must be slight. The general level of the Nafud was found by Huber's observations to be about 3000 ft. above sea-level; the highest point on the Jauf-Hail route is at Falk Alam, the rocky peaks of which rise 200 or 300 ft. above the surface of the sand. Other peaks cropping out of the Nafud are Jebel Tawil, near the wells of Shakik, and J. Abrak Rada, a long black ridge in the middle of the desert.

The high plateau which from J. Hauran southward forms the main watershed of the peninsula is covered in places by deep beds of lava, which from their hardness have preserved the underlying The sandstones from degradation, and now stand up considerHarra. ably above the general level. These tracts are known as harra; the most remarkable is the Harrat El Awerid, west of the Haj route from Tebuk to El Ala, a mountain mass 100 m. in length with an average height of over 5000 ft., and the highest summit of which, J. Anaz, exceeds 7000 ft. The harra cast of Khaibar is also of considerable extent, and the same formation is found all along the Hejaz border from Medina to the Jebel el Kura, east of Mecca. The surface of the harra is extremely broken, forming a labyrinth of lava crags and blocks of every size; the whole region is sterile and almost waterless, and compared with the Nafud it produces little vegetation; but it is resorted to by the Bedouin in the spring and summer months when the air is always fresh and cool. In winter it is cold and snow often lies for some time.

Hejaz, if we except the Taif district in the south, which is properly a part of the Yemen plateau, forms a well-marked physical division, Hejaz. lying on the western slope of the peninsula, where that slope is at its widest, between the Harra and the Red Sea. A high range of granite hills, known as the Tehama range, the highest point of which, J. Shar, in Midian, exceeds 6500 ft., divides it longitudinally into a narrow littoral and a broader upland zone 2000 or 3000 ft. above the sea. Both are generally bare and unproductive, the uplands, however, contain the fertile valleys of Khaibar and Medina, draining to the Wadi Hamd, the principal river system of western Arabia; and the Wadi Jadid or Es Safra, rising in the Harra between Medina and Es Safina, which contain several settlements, of which the principal produce is dates. The quartz reefs which crop out in the granite ranges of the Tehama contain traces of gold. These and the ancient copper workings were investigated by Burton in 1877. The richer veins had evidently been long ago worked out, and nothing of sufficient value to justify further outlay was discovered. The coast-line is fringed with small

islets and shoals and reefs, which make navigation dangerous. The only ports of importance are Yambu and Jidda, which serve respectively Medina and Mecca; they depend entirely on the pilgrim traffic to the holy cities, without which they could not exist.

The great central province of Nejd occupies all inner Arabia between the Nafud and the southern desert. Its northern part forms the basin of the Wadi Rumma, which, rising in the Nejd. Khaibar harra, runs north-eastward across the whole width of Nejd, till it is lost in the sands of the eastern Nafud, north of Aneza. The greater portion of this region is an open steppe, sandy in places and in others dotted with low volcanic hills, but with occasional ground water and in favourable seasons furnishing support for a considerable pastoral population. Its elevation varies from about 5000 ft. in the west to 2500 ft. in the east. In Jebel Shammar, Kasim and Wushm, where the water in the wadi beds rises, nearly to the ground level, numerous fertile oases are found with thriving villages and towns.

Jebel Shammar, from which the northern district of Nejd takes its name, is a double range of mountains some 20 m. apart, rising sharply out of the desert in bare, granite cliffs. J. Aja, the western and higher of the two ranges, has a length of about 100 m. from north-east to south-west, where it merges into the high plateau extending from and continuous with the Khaibar harra. The highest point, J. Fara, near its north-eastern extremity, is about 4600 ft. above sea-level, or 1600 ft. above the town of Hail, which, like most of the larger villages, lies along the wadi bed at the foot of J. Aja. The town, which has risen with the fortunes of the Ibn Rashid family to be the capital of Upper Nejd, is at the mouth of the valley between the twin ranges, about 2 m. from the foot of J. Aja, and contained at the time of Nolde's visit in 1893 about 12,000 inhabitants.

The principal tributaries of the W. Rumma converge in lower Kasim, and at Aneza Doughty says its bed is 3 m. wide from bank to bank. Forty years before his visit a flood is said to have occurred, which passed down the river till it was blocked by sand-drifts at Thuwerat, 50 m. lower down, and for two years a lake stood nearly 100 m. long, crowded by waterfowl not known before in that desert country. Below this its course has not been followed by any European traveller, but it may be inferred from the line of watering-places on the road to Kuwet, that it runs out to the Persian Gulf in that neighbourhood. East of Kasim the land rises gradually to the high plateau culminating in the ranges of Jebel Tuwek and J. Arid. The general direction of these hills is from north-west to south-east. On the west they rise somewhat steeply, exposing high cliffs of white limestone, which perhaps gave Palgrave the impression that the range is of greater absolute height than is actually the case. J. Tuwek in any case forms an important geographical feature in eastern Nejd, interrupting by a transverse barrier 200 m. in length the general north-easterly slope of the peninusla, and separating the basin of the W. Rumma from that of the other great river system of central Arabia, the Wadi Dawasir. The districts of Suder and Wushm lie on its northern side, Arid in the centre, and Aflaj, Harik and Yemama on its south, in the basin of the W. Dawasir; the whole of this hilly region of eastern Nejd is, perhaps, rather a rolling down country than truly mountainous, in which high pastures alternate with deep fertile valleys, supporting numerous villages with a large agricultural population. The W. Hanifa is its principal watercourse; its course is marked by an almost continuous series of palm groves and settlements, among which Deraiya the former, and Riad the present, capital of the Ibn Saud kingdom are the most extensive. Its lower course is uncertain, but it probably continues in a south-east direction to the districts of El Harik and Yemama when, joined by the drainage from Aflaj and the W. Dawasir, it runs eastward till it disappears in the belt of sandy desert 100 m. in width that forms the eastern boundary of Nejd, to reappear in the copious springs that fertilize El Hasa and the Bahrein littoral.

Unex plored region of S. Nejd.

As regards the unexplored southern region, Palgrave's informants in Aflaj, the most southerly district visited by him, stated that a day's march south of that place the Yemen road enters the W. Dawasir, up which it runs for ten days, perhaps 200 m., to El Kura, a thinly peopled district on the borders of Asir; this accords with the information of the French officers of the Egyptian army in that district, and with that of Halévy, who makes all the drainage from Nejran northward run to the same great wadi. Whether there be any second line of drainage in southern Nejd skirting the edge of the great desert and following the depression of the W. Yabrin must remain a matter of conjecture. Colonel Miles concluded, from his enquiries, that the low salt swamp, extending inland for some distance from Khor ed Duwan, in the bay. cast of El Katr, was the outlet of an extensive drainage system which may well be continuous with the W, Yabrin and extend far into the interior, if not to Nejran itself.

East of Nejd a strip of sandy desert 50 m. in width extends almost continuously from the great Nafud to the Dahna. East of this again a succession of stony ridges running parallel to the coast has to be crossed before El Hasa is reached. This El Hasa. province, which skirts the Persian Gulf from the mouth of the Euphrates to the frontiers of Oman, is low and hot; its shores are flat, and with the exception of Kuwet at the north-west corner of