“About noon we halted in a brushwood-covered plain to light fire and prepare coffee. After which we pursued our easterly way, still a little to the north, now and then meeting with travellers or peasants; but a European would find these roads very lonely in comparison with those of his own country. All the more did I admire the perfect submission and strict police enforced by the central government, so that even a casual robbery is very rare in the provinces, and highwaymen are totally out of the question. At last, near the same hour of afternoon that had brought us the day before to Ghat, we came in sight of Mejmaa’, formerly capital of the province, and still a place of considerable importance, with a population, to judge by appearances and hearsay, of between ten and twelve thousand souls.
“We were up early next morning, for the night air was brisk, and a few hours of sleep had sufficed us.
“After sunrise we came on a phenomenon of a nature, I believe, without a second or a parallel in Central Arabia, yet withal most welcome, namely, a tolerably large source of running water, forming a wide and deepish stream, with grassy banks, and frogs croaking in the herbage. We opened our eyes in amazement; it was the first of the kind that we had beheld since leaving the valley of Djowf. But though a living, it is a short-lived rivulet, reaching only four or five hours’ distance to Djelajil, where it is lost amid the plantations of the suburbs.
“We had not long traversed the Meteyr encampment, when we came in view of the walls of Toweym, a large town, containing between twelve and fifteen thousand inhabitants, according to the computation here in use, and which I follow for want of better. The houses are here built compactly, of two stories in general, sometimes three; the lower rooms are often fifteen or sixteen feet high, and the upper ten or twelve; while the roof itself is frequently surrounded by a blind wall of six feet or more, till the whole attains a fair altitude, and is not altogether unimposing.
“Early next day, at a short distance from Toweym, we passed another large village with battlemented walls, and on the opposite side of the road a square castle, looking very mediæval; this was Hafr. A couple of hours further on we reached Thomeyr, a straggling townlet, more abounding in broken walls than houses; close by was a tall white rock, crowned by the picturesque remains of an old outwork or fort, overlooking the place. Here our party halted for breakfast in the shadow of the ruins. Barakat and myself determined to try our fortune in the village itself; no guards appeared at its open gate; we entered unchallenged, and roamed through silent lanes and heaps of rubbish, vainly seeking news of milk and dates in this city of the dead. At last we met a meagre townsman, in look and apparel the apothecary of Romeo; and of him, not without misgivings of heart, we inquired where aught eatable could be had for love or money. He apologized, though there was scarce need of that, for not having any such article at his disposal; ‘but,’ added he, ‘in such and such a house there will certainly be something good,’ and thitherward he preceded us in our search. We found indeed a large dwelling, but the door was shut; we knocked to no purpose: nobody at home.
“Our man now set us a bolder example, and we altogether scrambled through a breach in the mud wall, and found ourselves amid empty rooms and a desolate court-yard. ‘Everybody is out in the fields, women only excepted,’ said our guide, and we separated, no better off than before. Despairing of the village commissariat, we climbed a turret on the outer walls, and looked round. Now we saw at some distance a beautiful palm-grove, where we concluded that dates could not be wanting, and off we set for it across the stubble fields. But on arriving we found our paradise surrounded by high walls, and no gate discoverable. While thus we stood without, like Milton’s fiend at Eden, but unable, like him, ‘by one high bound to overleap all bound,’ up came a handsome Solibah lad, all in rags, half-walking, half-dancing, in the devil-may-care way of his tribe. ‘Can you tell us which is the way in?’ was our first question, pointing to the garden before us; and, ‘Shall I sing you a song?’ was his first answer. ‘We don’t want your songs, but dates; how are we to get at them?’ we replied. ‘Or shall I perform you a dance?’ answered the grinning young scoundrel, and forthwith began an Arabian polka-step, laughing all the while at our undisguised impatience. At last he condescended to show us the way, but no other than what befitted an orchard-robbing boy, like himself, for it lay a little farther off, right over the wall, which he scaled with practised ingenuity, and helped us to follow. So we did, though perhaps with honester intentions, and, once within, stood amid trees, shade, and water. The ‘tender juvenile’ then set up a shout, and soon a man appeared, ‘old Adam’s likeness set to dress this garden,’ save that he was not old but young, as Adam might himself have been while yet in Eden. We were somewhat afraid of a surly reception, too well merited by our very equivocal introduction; but the gardener was better-tempered than many of his caste, and after saluting us very politely, offered his services at our disposal. We then proposed to purchase a stock of dates for our onward way, whereon the gardener conducted us to an outhouse where heaps of three or four kinds of this fruit, red and yellow, round or long, lay piled up, and bade us choose. At his recommendation we filled a large cloth, which we had brought with us for the purpose, with excellent ruddy dates, and gave in return a small piece of money, welcome here as elsewhere. We then took leave and returned, but this time through the garden gate, to the stubble fields, and passing under the broken walls of the village, reached our companions, who had become anxious at our absence.”
For three days longer the travellers journeyed southward, through the valleys branching out from Djebel Toweyk, encamping for the night near some of the small towns. “In the early gray of the fourth morning,” says Palgrave, “we passed close under the plantations of Rowdah down the valley, now dry and still, once overflowed with the best blood of Arabia, and through the narrow and high-walled pass which gives entrance to the great strongholds of the land. The sun rose and lighted up to our view wild precipices on either side, with a tangled mass of broken rock and brushwood below, while coveys of partridges started up at our feet, and deer scampered away by the gorges to right or left, or a cloud of dust announced the approach of peasant bands or horsemen going to and fro, and gardens or hamlets gleamed through side openings or stood niched in the bulging passes of the Wady itself, till before noon we arrived at the little hamlet of Malka, or ‘the junction.’
“Its name is derived from its position. Here the valley divides in form of a Y, sending off two branches—one southerly to Derey’eeyah, the other southeast-by-east through the centre of the province, and communicating with the actual capital, Ri’ad.
“Aboo-’Eysa had meditated bringing us on that very evening to Ri’ad. But eight good leagues remained from Malka to the capital; and when the Na’ib had terminated his cosmetic operations, the easterly turning shadows left us no hope of attaining Ri’ad before nightfall. However, we resumed our march, and took the arm of the valley leading to Derey’eeyah; but before reaching it we once more quitted the Wady, and followed a shorter path by the highlands to the left. Our way was next crossed by a long range of towers, built by Ibraheem Pasha, as outposts for the defence of this important position. Within their line stood the lonely walls of a large, square barrack; the towers were what we sometimes call Martello—short, large, and round.