With a small band of followers he reached the Wady Sirhan (traversed by Palgrave on his way to the Djowf), where they were attacked by the Aneyzeh Bedouins, all the rest slain, and Abdallah left for dead on the sands. The Arab story is that the locusts came around them, scattered the sand with their wings and feet upon his wounds and thus stopped the flow of blood, while a flock of partridges hung above him to screen him from the burning sun. A merchant of Damascus, passing by with his caravan, beheld the miracle, took the youth, bound up his wounds, and restored him to health by the most tender care. When he had recovered his vigor in Damascus, the generous merchant sent him back to Arabia.
He went first to the Nedjed, entered the service of the Wahabee chief, rose to high military rank, and finally, by his own personal bravery, secured the sovereignty to Feysul, the present (1863) ruler. The latter then gave him an army to recover his heritage of Djebel Shomer, and about the year 1830 his sway was secured in his native country. The rival clan of Beyt Alee was extirpated, only one child being left, whom Telal afterward, with a rare but politic generosity, restored to wealth and honors.
Abdallah took every means to strengthen his power. He found it necessary, through his dependence on Feysul, to establish the Wahabee creed; he used the Bedouins as allies, in order to repress the rivalry of the nobles, and thus gained power at the expense of popularity. Many plots were formed against him, many attempts made to assassinate him, but they all failed: his lucky star attended him throughout. Up to this time he had dwelt in a quarter of the capital which the old chieftains and the nobility had mainly chosen for their domicile, and where the new monarch was surrounded by men his equals in birth and of even more ancient title to command. But now he added a new quarter to the town, and there laid the foundations of a vast palace destined for the future abode of the king and the display of all his grandeur, amid streets and nobles of his own creation. The walls of the projected edifice were fast rising when he died, almost suddenly, in 1844 or 1845, leaving three sons—Telal, Meta’ab, and Mohammed—the eldest scarce twenty years of age, besides his only surviving brother Obeyd, who could not then have been much under fifty.
“Telal was already highly popular,” says Palgrave, “much more so than his father, and had given early tokens of those superior qualities which accompanied him to the throne. All parties united to proclaim him sole heir to the kingdom and lawful successor to the regal power, and thus the rival pretensions of Obeyd, hated by many and feared by all, were smothered at the outset and put aside without a contest.
“The young sovereign possessed, in fact, all that Arab ideas require to insure good government and lasting popularity. Affable toward the common people, reserved and haughty with the aristocracy, courageous and skilful in war, a lover of commerce and building in time of peace, liberal even to profusion, yet always careful to maintain and augment the state revenue, neither over-strict nor yet scandalously lax in religion, secret in his designs, but never known to break a promise once given, or violate a plighted faith; severe in administration, yet averse to bloodshed, he offered the very type of what an Arab prince should be. I might add, that among all rulers or governors, European or Asiatic, with whose acquaintance I have ever chanced to be honored, I know few equal in the true art of government to Telal, son of Abdallah-ebn-Rasheed.
“His first cares were directed to adorn and civilize the capital. Under his orders, enforced by personal superintendence, the palace commenced by his father was soon brought to completion. But he added, what probably his father would hardly have thought of, a long row of warehouses, the dependencies and property of the same palace; next he built a market-place consisting of about eighty shops or magazines, destined for public commerce and trade, and lastly constructed a large mosque for the official prayers of Friday. Round the palace, and in many other parts of the town, he opened streets, dug wells, and laid out extensive gardens, besides strengthening the old fortifications all round and adding new ones. At the same time he managed to secure at once the fidelity and the absence of his dangerous uncle by giving him charge of those military expeditions which best satisfied the restless energy of Obeyd. The first of these wars was directed, I know not on what pretext, against Kheybar. But as Telal intended rather to enforce submission than to inflict ruin, he associated with Obeyd in the military command his own brother Meta’ab, to put a check on the ferocity of the former. Kheybar was conquered, and Telal sent thither, as governor in his name, a young man of Ha’yel, prudent and gentle, whom I subsequently met when he was on a visit at the capital.
“Not long after, the inhabitants of Kaseem, weary of Wahabee tyranny, turned their eyes toward Telal, who had already given a generous and inviolable asylum to the numerous political exiles of that district. Secret negotiations took place, and at a favorable moment the entire uplands of that province—after a fashion not indeed peculiar to Arabia—annexed themselves to the kingdom of Shomer by universal and unanimous suffrage. Telal made suitable apologies to the Nedjean monarch, the original sovereign of the annexed district; he could not resist the popular wish; it had been forced on him, etc.—but Western Europe is familiar with the style. Feysul felt the inopportuneness of a quarrel with the rapidly growing power to which he himself had given origin only a few years before, and, after a wry face or two, swallowed the pill. Meanwhile Telal knowing the necessity of a high military reputation, both at home and abroad, undertook in person a series of operations against Teyma’ and its neighborhood, and at last against the Djowf itself. Everywhere his arms were successful, and his moderation in victory secured the attachment of the vanquished themselves.
“Toward his own subjects his conduct is uniformly of a nature to merit their obedience and attachment, and few sovereigns have here met with better success. Once a day, often twice, he gives public audience, hears patiently, and decides in person, the minutest causes with great good sense. To the Bedouins, no insignificant portion of his rule, he makes up for the restraint he imposes, and the tribute he levies from them, by a profusion of hospitality not to be found elsewhere in the whole of Arabia from Akabah to Aden. His guests at the midday and evening meal are never less than fifty or sixty, and I have often counted up to two hundred at a banquet, while presents of dress and arms are of frequent if not daily occurrence. It is hard for Europeans to estimate how much popularity such conduct brings an Asiatic prince. Meanwhile the townsfolk and villagers love him for the more solid advantages of undisturbed peace at home, of flourishing commerce, of extended dominion, and military glory.
“To capital punishment he is decidedly adverse, and the severest penalty with which he has hitherto chastised political offences is banishment or prison. Indeed, even in cases of homicide or murder, he has been known not unfrequently to avail himself of the option allowed by Arab custom between a fine and retaliation, and to buy off the offender, by bestowing on the family of the deceased the allotted price of blood from his own private treasury, and that from a pure motive of humanity. When execution does take place, it is always by beheading; nor is indeed any other mode of putting to death customary in Arabia. Stripes, however, are not uncommon, though administered on the broad back, not on the sole of the foot. They are the common chastisement for minor offences, like stealing, cursing, or quarrelling; in this last case both parties usually come in for their share.
“With his numerous retainers he is almost over-indulgent, and readily pardons a mistake or a negligence; falsehood alone he never forgives; and it is notorious that whoever has once lied to Telal must give up all hopes of future favor.”