“Next morning, a little after sunrise, we arrived at a white calcareous valley, girt round with low hills of marl and sand. Here was the famous Be’er Shekeek, or ‘well of Shekeek,’ whence we were to fill our water-skins, and that thoroughly, since no other source lay before us for four days’ march amid the sand passes, up to the very verge of Djebel Shomer.
“Daughters of the Great Desert, to use an Arab phrase, the ‘Nefood,’ or sand-passes, bear but too strong a family resemblance to their unamiable mother. What has been said elsewhere about their origin, their extent, their bearings, and their connection with the Dhana, or main sand-waste of the south, may exempt me from here entering on a minute enarration of all their geographical details; let it suffice for the present that they are offshoots—inlets, one might not unsuitably call them—of the great ocean of sand that covers about one-third of the peninsula, into whose central and comparatively fertile plateau they make deep inroads, nay, in some places almost intersect it. Their general character, of which the following pages will, I trust, give a tolerably correct idea, is also that of Dahna, or ‘red desert,’ itself. The Arabs, always prone to localize rather than generalize, count these sand-streams by scores, but they may all be referred to four principal courses, and he who would traverse the centre must necessarily cross two of them, perhaps even three, as we did.
“The general type of Arabia is that of a central table-land, surrounded by a desert ring, sandy to the south, west, and east, and stony to the north. This outlying circle is in its turn girt by a line of mountains, low and sterile for the most, but attaining in Yemen and Oman considerable height, breadth, and fertility, while beyond these a narrow rim of coast is bordered by the sea. The surface of the midmost table-land equals somewhat less than one-half of the entire peninsula, and its special demarcations are much affected, nay, often absolutely fixed, by the windings and in-runnings of the Nefood. If to these central highlands, or Nedjed, taking that word in its wider sense, we add the Djowf, the Ta’yif, Djebel ’Aaseer, Yemen, Oman, and Hasa, in short, whatever spots of fertility belong to the outer circles, we shall find that Arabia contains about two-thirds of cultivated, or at least of cultivable, land, with a remaining third of irreclaimable desert, chiefly to the south. In most other directions the great blank spaces often left in maps of this country are quite as frequently indications of non-information as of real non-inhabitation. However, we have just now a strip, though fortunately only a strip, of pure, unmitigated desert before us, after which better lands await us; and in this hope let us take courage and boldly enter the Nefood.
“Much had we heard of them from Bedouins and countrymen, so that we had made up our minds to something very terrible and very impracticable. But the reality, especially in these dog days, proved worse than aught heard or imagined.
“We were now traversing an immense ocean of loose reddish sand, unlimited to the eye, and heaped up in enormous ridges, running parallel to each other from north to south, undulation after undulation, each swell two or three hundred feet in average height, with slant sides and rounded crests furrowed in every direction by the capricious gales of the desert. In the depths between the traveller finds himself as it were imprisoned in a suffocating sand-pit, hemmed in by burning walls on every side; while at other times, while laboring up the slope, he overlooks what seems a vast sea of fire, swelling under a heavy monsoon wind, and ruffled by a cross blast into little red-hot waves.”
Palgrave devotes several pages to his journey across the Nefood, bearing out in his general description its character, as above.
Lady Anne Blunt, who with her husband and native followers crossed the Nefood sixteen years later, however, takes issue with Mr. Palgrave as to its character, as will be found in Chapter XVII., largely devoted to her travels in Arabia.
Arriving at the eastern edge of the Nefood Palgrave continues:
“The morning broke on us still toiling amid the sands. By daylight we saw our straggling companions like black specks here and there, one far ahead on a yet vigorous dromedary, another in the rear dismounted, and urging his fallen beast to rise by plunging a knife a good inch deep into its haunches, a third lagging in the extreme distance. Everyone for himself and God for us all!—so we quickened our pace, looking anxiously before us for the hills of Djobbah, which could not now be distant. At noon we came in sight of them all at once, close on our right, wild and fantastic cliffs, rising sheer on the margin of the sand sea. We coasted them awhile, till at a turn the whole plain of Djobbah and its landscape opened on our view.