“Now by full daylight appeared the true character of the region which we were traversing; its aspect resembled the Nefood north of Djebel Shomer, but the undulations were here higher and deeper, and the sand itself lighter and less stable. In most spots neither shrub nor blade of grass could fix its root, in others a scanty vegetation struggled through, but no trace of man anywhere. The camels ploughed slowly on; the Persians, unaccustomed to such scenes, were downcast and silent; all were tired, and no wonder. At last, a little before noon, and just as the sun’s heat was becoming intolerable, we reached the verge of an immense crater-like hollow, certainly three or four miles in circumference, where the sand-billows receded on every side, and left in the midst a pit seven or eight hundred feet in depth, at whose base we could discern a white gleam of limestone rock, and a small group of houses, trees, and gardens, thus capriciously isolated in the very heart of the desert.
“This was the little village and oasis of Wasit, or ‘the intermediary,’ so called because a central point between the three provinces of Kaseem, Sedeyr, and Woshem, yet belonging to none of them. Nor is it often visited by wayfarers, as we learned from the inhabitants, men simple and half-savage, from their little intercourse with the outer world, and unacquainted even with the common forms of Islamitic prayer, though dwelling in the midst of the Wahabee dominions.
“A long, winding descent brought us to the bottom of the valley, where on our arrival men and boys came out to stare at the Persians, and by exacting double prices for fruit and camel’s milk proved themselves not altogether such fools as they looked. For us, regarded as Arabs, we enjoyed their hospitality—it was necessarily a limited one—gratis; whereupon the Na’ib grew jealous, and declaimed against the Arabs as ‘infidels,’ for not treating with suitable generosity pilgrims like themselves returning from the ‘house of God.’
“To get out of this pit was no easy matter; facilis descensus, etc., thought I; no ascending path showed itself in the required direction, and every one tried to push up his floundering beast where the sand appeared at a manageable slope, and firm to the footing. Camels and men fell and rolled back down the declivity, till some of the party shed tears of vexation, and others, more successful, laughed at the annoyance of their companions. Aboo-’Eysa ran about from one to the other, attempting to direct and keep them together, till finally, as Heaven willed, we reached the upper rim to the north.
“Before us lay what seemed a storm-driven sea of fire in the red light of afternoon, and through it we wound our way, till about an hour before sunset we fell in with a sort of track or furrow. Next opened out on our road a long descent, at whose extreme base we discerned the important and commercial town of Zulphah. Beyond it rose the wall-like steeps of Djebel Toweyk, so often heard of, and now seen close at hand. Needless to say how joyfully we welcomed the first view of that strange ridge, the heart and central knot of Arabia, beyond which whatever lay might almost be reckoned as a return journey.
“We had now, in fact, crossed the Nefood, and had at our feet the great valley which constitutes the main line of communication between Nedjed and the north, reaching even to the Tigris and Bagdad.
“We passed the whole length of the town of Zulphah, several streets of which had been lately swept away by the winter torrents that pour at times their short-lived fury down this valley. Before us to the southeast stretched the long hollow; on our right was the Nefood, on our left Djebel Toweyk and the province of Sedeyr. The mountain air blew cool, and this day’s journey was a far pleasanter one than its predecessor. We continued our march down the valley till the afternoon, when we turned aside into a narrow gorge running up at a sharp angle to the northeast, and thus entered between the heights of Djebel Toweyk itself.
“This mountain essentially constitutes Nedjed. It is a wide and flat chain, or rather plateau, whose general form is that of a huge crescent. If I may be permitted here to give my rough guess regarding the elevation of the main plateau, a guess grounded partly on the vegetation, climate, and similar local features, partly on an approximate estimate of the ascent itself, and of the subsequent descent on the other or sea side, I should say that it varies from a height of one to two thousand feet above the surrounding level of the peninsula, and may thus be about three thousand feet at most above the sea. Its loftiest ledges occur in the Sedeyr district, where we shall pass them before long; the centre and the southwesterly arm is certainly lower. Djebel Toweyk is the middle knot of Arabia, its Caucasus, so to say; and is still, as it has often been in former times, the turning-point of the whole, or almost the whole, peninsula in a political and national bearing.
“The climate of the northern part of Djebel Toweyk, whether plateau or valley, coincident with the province of Sedeyr, is perhaps one of the healthiest in the world; an exception might be made in favor of Djebel Shomer alone. The above named districts resemble each other closely in dryness of atmosphere, and the inhabitants of Sedeyr, like those of Shomer, are remarkable for their ruddy complexion and well-developed stature. But when we approach the centre of the mountain crescent, where its whole level lowers, while the more southerly latitude brings it nearer to the prevailing influences of the tropical zone, the air becomes damper and more relaxing, and a less salubrious climate pictures itself in the sallower faces and slender make of its denizens.
“Two days later we attained the great plateau, of which I have a few pages since given an anticipated description.