From Hail, the party joined the Haj, or caravan of Persian pilgrims, returning home from Mecca and Medina; and after eighty-four days’ travel from Damascus their Arabian journey came to an end at Bagdad. Their route from Hail took them far north of Palgrave’s route, so that they did not visit Ri’ad, the headquarters, in Palgrave’s time, of the Wahabee ruler Feysul. Lady Blunt, however, in an appendix to her narrative enlightens us in regard to the end of Feysul, and the continued decline of the Wahabee regime after the visit of Palgrave.
Three years after Palgrave’s visit Feysul died, and the Wahabee state, which under him had regained much of its power and influence (which had been all but crushed by the Turks after the Crimean war) was again weakened by internal dissensions. Feysul left two sons, Abdallah and Saoud, who quarrelled and put themselves at the head of their respective adherents. Saoud proved himself the stronger party, and in 1871 Abdallah fled to Jebel Shammar and sought the aid of Midhat Pasha, Turkish governor at Bagdad.
The result was that a Turkish expedition of 5,000 regular troops occupied the seaboard territory of Hasa, and took possession of Hofhoof (mentioned by Palgrave); whilst Abdallah and his adherents, and a third rival, Abdallah-ibn-Turki, attacked Saoud at Ri’ad. Saoud was defeated, and Abdallah essayed to govern at Ri’ad; but in the following year he was again ejected by Saoud who reigned till 1874, when he died, not without suspicion of poison.
Lady Blunt’s account of affairs at the Wahabee capital ends with the information that Abdallah and a half-brother, Abderrahman, were in joint and amicable control, Abdallah as Emir, the latter as his chief minister. Hasa and the seaboard was held by the Turks, whose policy was the stirring up of strife and feudal enmity among the Arabs, with a view to weakening the power and authority of the Emir at Ri’ad, and so making the country easy prey whenever opportunity arrives for its incorporation in the Ottoman dominions. The power and fanaticism of the once powerful Wahabee Empire, has become but little more than a name and a remembrance among the Bedouin tribes, who once paid tribute to its Emirs; and whatever was national in thought and respectable in inspiration in Central Arabia seemed to be grouping itself around the new dynasty of the Emir of Jebel Shammar, Mohammed-ibn-Rashid of Hail.
THE END.
NOTES.
[59] The inscription, which is copied in Lieutenant Wellsted’s work, appears to be in the Himyaritic character. If any translation of it has ever been made, the compiler is unable to say where it can be found.
[201] “The Na’ib” was a Persian official, despatched by the Persian pilgrims to lay before Feysul, the ruler of Nedjed, a statement of the extortions to which they had been compelled to submit at Bereydah. He was thus equally under Aboo-’Eysa’s charge, and his company was rather an advantage to Palgrave, since his mission was another cause of removing—or, at least, lessening—the prominence of the latter, after his arrival at Ri’ad.
[279] It is well to point out here that Palgrave and Lady Blunt spell the names of places quite differently, which makes it rather difficult at times to identify them as referring to places mutually visited. Thus, Blunt’s “Hail” and Palgrave’s “Ha’yel” are one; as are also “Jôf” and “Djowf.” Other differences are “Nejd,” “Nejed,” “Djebel Shomer,” “Jebel Shammer,” etc.