ARABIA, a peninsula at the south-west extremity of Asia ly ing between 12° and 32° N. and 35° and 6o° E., bounded west by the Red Sea, south by the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, east by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, and north by `Iraq and the mandated territory of Trans-Jordan. The northern bound ary starts in the east at a point near Fao at the head of the Persian Gulf and follows the 'Iraq–Kuwait boundary to Riqa'i, whence it runs (as laid down in detail in the Treaty of Muhammara, 1921) in a north-west direction to Jebal Anaza (intersection of 32° N. and
E.), whence the line is as described in the Treaty of Hadda (1925) to the intersection of 29° 35'N. and 38° E. From this point westward the boundary (undefined) runs through Mudawwara sta tion on the Hejaz railway to a point immediately south of Aqaba and thence along the eastern shore of the gulf of that name. The Sinai peninsula, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Syria and `Iraq, though of predominantly Arab population, are thus excluded from Arabia, whose formerly uncertain land frontiers have at last acquired a certain amount of precision. In shape the peninsula forms a rough trapezium of a total area of about i,000,000 sq.m. Its greatest length is 1,400m. from Aqaba to Aden, whence the distance to Ras Al Hadd is 1,25om. The other two sides are roughly 9oom. to Fao and 750m. thence to Aqaba.
In general terms Arabia may be described as a plateau sloping gently eastward from a mountain range run ning along the whole length of its west side within an average of Jo or 15m. of the Red Sea littoral, from which it rises steeply to an average height of 5,000f t. The coastal plain rarely exceeds 3om. in width. The greatest height of the range is at the southern end where it rises to 9,000 or i o,000f t., and the plateau-slope is fur ther divided into subsidiary slopes trending respectively north-east and south-east from a central watershed. At the south-east ex tremity the uniform character of the peninsula is disturbed by the lofty excrescence of the Jebal Akhdar range of Oman, 9,00o to 1 o,000f t. Outside Yemen, Oman and numerous scattered valleys in the western range Arabia is a country remarkable for its aridity and barrenness. The monsoon-rains that visit Abyssinia bring but little precipitation to Arabia and that only to the region of high mountains in the south-west. Elsewhere the country is true desert with numerous but widely scattered oases in the dry beds of tor rents which on rare occasions each year come down in spate. There are no rivers and no forests and, so far as is known, only three groups of permanent pools (Hasa, Kharj and Aflaj) scarcely worthy to be called lakes. The peninsula falls naturally into three main divisions : a central core of hard desert with numerous val leys and oases supporting a considerable settled population; an almost complete circle of sand waste surrounding the above with bulges of enormous area to north and south; and an outer circle round the latter of steppe or mountain, in part bare and arid and in part more or less thickly populated and cultivated. The first is Nejd; the second comprises the northern Nefud, the Dahna and the Rub' Al Khali; and the last the Syrian Hamad, Midian, Hejaz, Asir, Yemen, Hadhramaut, Oman and Hasa. The highlands of Asir and Yemen with part of Hadhramaut constitute the Arabia Felix of old time imagination, enjoying a temperate climate, a rea sonable rainfall and good soil. The same remarks apply to Oman, whose Batina coast, irrigated by the streams of Jebal Akhdar, is as productive as any other part of the peninsula. Outside these areas the desert predominates, dotted with oases, many of them of great fertility such as Medina, the Qasim and Hasa, to name but three. The Rub' Al Khali is empty and only visited by the Bedouins.
An account of the progress of exploration of Arabia up to the year 1904 has been given in detail by the late Dr. D. G. Hogarth in his Penetration of Arabia. Since then, and particularly during the World War, considerable additions have been made to European knowledge of the peninsula, though no professional sur vey work has been carried out in any part of the country excepting the Aden Protectorate and, to a less extent, on the northern fringe of Hejaz during the war. The coastline has been laid down with reasonable accuracy by the marine surveys of the Indian Govern ment and the Admiralty, but the mapping of the interior is entirely based on the itineraries of explorers supported to an increasing extent by their astronomical and other observations. Maps of the greater part of the country on the international scale 1 :1,o0o,000 have been published, and the general character of the penin sula is well enough known. Vast gaps, however, still remain to be filled in in our detailed knowledge of Arabia, which in the Rub' Al Khali contains what is probably the largest and most important totally unexplored area in the two hemispheres. excluding the Polar regions.
Carsten Niebuhr.—Arabian exploration in the modern sense may be said to have begun with Carsten Niebuhr's expedition under the auspices of the Danish Government in 1761-64. After a year in Egypt and Sinai the party reached Jedda at the end of 1 762 and after a short stay sailed to Luhaiya, a port on the coast of Yemen, the exploration of which was the main object of the mission. The party travelled via Bait al Fakih and Zabid to Mocha, then the great port of the coffee-trade, and thence up into the highlands which they reached at Udain in the coffee country. As they ascended eastwards to higher altitudes coffee gave way to wheat and barley and Jibla was reached amid mountains i o,000f t. high. Travelling south to Taizz, they returned to the Tihama (coastal plain) and reached Mocha via Hais and Zabid. Von Haven, the mission's archaeologist, having died, Taizz was revis ited in June 1763, whence the party travelled to Sana, the capital of Yemen and the headquarters of its ruling Zaidi Imam, via Jibla and Yarim, where Forskal the botanist died, and Dhamar, a Zaidi university frequented by 500 students. Four days' march over a stony plateau dominated by bare sterile mountains brought the mission to Sana where it was cordially received by Mandi 'Abbas, the Imam. Niebuhr describes the city as it was in his time in terms which substantially represent its main features at the pres ent day, though recent Italian penetration may be expected to pro duce considerable changes in the near future. It had an encircling wall flanked with towers, a citadel at the foot of Jebal Nuqum which rises i,000ft. above the plain and the fortress and palace of the Imams (now replaced by a Turkish hospital). The Jews' quarter and the suburb of Bir Al Azab with its scattered houses and gardens were prominent features of the city, a few miles to the north of which is the large village of Raudha in a fertile irri gated plain which Niebuhr likened to Damascus. Having spent ten days at Sana the mission returned to Mocha travelling along part of the present main road to Hodeida as far as the rich coffee district of Jebal Haraz and thence south. At Mocha they em barked for India and next year the death of his three remaining companions left Niebuhr the sole survivor. He then visited Oman at the south-eastern extremity of Arabia. and various points. on the shores of the Persian Gulf and, travelling via Basra, Syria and Pal estine, reached Denmark in 1764 after an absence of four years. The results of Niebuhr's mission, published in 1772, gave the world its first comprehensive description not only of Yemen but of all Arabia. At the same time the localities actually visited were described with such fullness and accuracy of detail that little or nothing was left for later travellers to discover.
The next great name in the record of the explora tion of south-west Arabia is J. Halevy who went to the Yemen more than a century later. It was Halevy who in 1869 carried out the first exploration of Marib and its rock-cut inscriptions. Travelling south-east from Sana he reached Madid (5,000 inhabit ants) and, after crossing a plateau, Mijzar at the foot of Jebal Yam on the borders of Jauf, whence he made his most important discoveries of Sabaean inscriptions. He explored Main (ancient capital of Minaeans), Kamna (ancient Caminacum) and Khirbat Al Baidha (Pliny's Nesca), where the Romans under Aelius Gallus defeated the Sabaean army in 24 B.C. Passing northwards by Khabb and skirting the Great South Desert he reached the fertile district of Najran, where he spent several weeks with a colony of Jews at Makhlaf. Some miles to the east he discovered the ruins of Ptolemy's Nagra at Madinat Al Ma'hud and in June, 1870, he reached Marib, where he explored the ruins of Madinat Al Nahas (so named from its inscriptions engraved on brass plates). Two hours to the east he found the famous dam constructed by the Himyarites across the Wadi Shibwan, on which depended the water supply of their capital.
E. Glaser.—The next visitor to Marib was the Austrian ar chaeologist, E. Glaser (1855-1908), who under Turkish protection visited the spot in 1889 after an initial failure due to the hostility of the Hashid and Bakil tribes north-east of Sana, who turned him back from Khamr. He was able however to reconnoitre the pla teau between the wadis Kharid and Hirran formerly covered with Himyarite settlements, and to trace these wadis to their junction at Al'Ish and thence to Jauf. On his second journey he reached and spent 3o days at Marib collecting a large number of inscrip tions. He was unable to penetrate further eastward and left the problem of the Jauf drainage and its connection with the Hadhra maut valley unsolved.
J. T. Bent.—Meanwhile in 1835 the first attempt had been made by Lieuts. J. R. Wellsted and C. Cruttenden of the "Palinurus," employed on the marine survey of the Arabian coast, to penetrate into the interior of the Hadhramaut. Among the ruins of Naqb Al Hajr and at Husn Ghurab near Mokalla they found Himyaritic inscriptions, the first record of ancient Arabian civilization in this province. They were unable to follow up their discoveries and it fell to Adolph von Wrede in 1843 to reach wadi Duwan, one of the main southern tributaries of the Hadhramaut valley. He reached the edge of the Great South Desert but was forced to return to Mokalla owing to the detection of his disguise as a pilgrim to the shrine of the prophet Hud. He had established the existence of the populous and fertile district of the main Hadhramaut valley reported to Wellsted and his failure to enter it was made good in 1893 by L. Hirsch travelling from Mokalla under the protection of the Qa'aiti Sultan, ruler of the whole province except Saihun and Tarim which belonged to the Kathiri dynasty. Reaching wadi Duwan, where he found ruins and inscriptions near Hajrain, he proceeded north-east to Hauta in the main valley and thence to Shibam. With a Kathiri escort he passed on through Saihun to Tarim, the former capital, whence after a short stay the hostility of the in habitants compelled him to a hasty retreat via Shibam and wadis Ibn 'Ali and 'Adim to Mokalla, whence a few months later J. Theo dore Bent and his wife with Imam Sharif, a surveyor lent by the Indian Government, travelled by the same track upwards, visiting many ruinous sites with Himyaritic remains and inscriptions and making a very valuable survey of the country. The hostility of the local Saiyids militated against adequate examination of the re mains and much was left for future travellers. Oman, the south eastern buttress of the Great South Desert, offers perhaps condi tions more favourable for exploration than any other part of Arabia. Here as in Hadhramaut Wellsted was the pioneer of ex ploration as Niebuhr did not go inland from Muscat. In 1810 a British Indian expedition to the Pirate coast provided various op portunities of visiting the interior, but it was not till 1835 that Wellsted carried out the first proper exploration of the country. Landing at Sur near Ras Al Hadd he travelled south through Bani Bu' All country to the edge of the desert and thence north-west up wadi Baidha, a fertile, well-watered country running up to the southern fringe of Jebal Akhdhar. He was made welcome by the inhabitants, visiting 'Ibra, Samad and Nazwa, but the presence of Wahhabi outposts and raiding-parties prevented him exploring to the west and he returned to India after an excursion along the Batina coast to Sohar.
His work was continued in 1876 by Col. S. B. Miles, who travelled from Sohar across the dividing range into the Dha hira, whose principal settlement, Buraima, he was the first to visit. In this district he found an industrious agricultural population with numerous settlements and he ascertained that the unexplored tract extending thence a5om. west to Qatar is a gravelly steppe shelving down to the salt marshes along the Persian Gulf.
The lure of the forbidden Mecca and Medina has made the Hejaz the best known province of Arabia. Its first European visitor was perhaps L. de Varthema, an Italian, who appears to have reached it by travelling from Damascus via wadi Sirhan early in the 16th century. Joseph Pitts, of Devon, was another early vis itor and others are known to have reached Mecca in the disguise or semblance of pilgrims, but it was not till the beginning of the 19th century that the Hejaz was visited for the first time by an European explorer with a definite scientific object. This was the Spaniard, Badia y Leblich, who, under the name of 'Ali Bey and claiming to be the last representative of the 'Abbasid Califs, ar rived at Jedda in 1807 and performed the pilgrimage to Mecca. Besides giving to the world the first accurate description of the holy city and the Hajj ceremonies, he was the first to fix the posi tion of Mecca by astronomical observations and to describe its surroundings.
Burckhardt.—But the real pioneer of exploration in the Hejaz was J. L. Burckhardt, who had already won a reputation as the discoverer of Petra, and whose experience of Arabian travel and knowledge of Arab life enabled him to pass as a Muslim. He landed at Jedda in 1814, when the Wahhabi occupation of the Hejaz had been terminated and the troops of Mohammed 'Ali were preparing for an advance into Nejd. Having first visited Taif, he spent three months in Mecca performing the rites incumbent on a pilgrim. In Jan. 1815, he travelled to Medina by the western or coast route and, in spite of failing health, recorded all that he saw and experienced with the same accuracy that had marked his work at Mecca. He was forced however to curtail his wanderings and returned via Yanbu' to Cairo, where he died two years later. With Niebuhr, Burton and Doughty he must be reckoned among the greatest of Arabian explorers.
His successor in the Hejaz—sed longo in tervallo—was perhaps one of the greatest explorers of the 19th century, and his work in Arabia, though confined to the Hejaz, has never been surpassed in its intensity, its accuracy and its compre hensiveness. Richard Burton, travelling as an Afghan pilgrim, reached Yanbu' after a long and arduous voyage from Suez in a sanbuk (native sailing-boat) with a crowd of pilgrims in
Thence he visited Medina, where he amplified Burckhardt's de scription while confirming its accuracy. He then proceeded to Mecca by the eastern route, not traversed by any other explorer, running south-east from Medina and then south across the Harra lava-field, always keeping to the high plateau of the Nejd-Hejaz borderland. Lack of time and tribal unrest in the interior balked his scheme of travelling across the Great South Desert and it was not till 1877 that he was able to make further contributions to Arabian geography, being deputed by Khedive Ismail of Egypt to examine the reported gold deposits of Midian (northern Hejaz). He found traces of ancient workings in several places and made many archaeological discoveries of value, while carrying out a valuable topographical survey of the country from Aqaba south ward to wadi Hamdh, whose importance he was the first to recog nize. His survey extended from the coast to the Hisma plain be yond the mountain barrier of Midian.
Two decades later the Hejaz and its holy cities were visited by another explorer worthy to be ranked among the greatest of the explorers of Arabia, Snouck Hurgronje, a Dutchman. The work of Snouck Hurgronje, published in Ger man only, did not bring him the fame that his predecessors achieved, but this was in part due to the fact that for the most part he covered ground already well known. Nevertheless for full ness and accuracy his sojourn in the Hejaz marked a definite stage in the exploration of the country. The overthrow of the Wahhabi power by Ibrahim Pasha in 1818 marks the beginning of European penetration of the deserts of central Arabia. A number of Euro pean officers accompanied the Egyptian army but left no record of their experiences and observations, but it was to that expedition that the first visit of a British traveller to Nejd was directly due.
The Indian Government, concerned to put down piracy in the Persian Gulf and desirous of obtaining a first hand report on the Arabian situation, deputed Capt. G. F. Sadlier to visit Ibrahim Pasha as de facto ruler of the Wahhabi country. Arriving at Hufuf he learned that Ibrahim had already left Dar 'iya, but hoping to find him before he left Nejd, he followed up the Egyptian army's line of march to Rass in Qasim, where he heard that the pasha had gone on to Medina. Unable to obtain escort or safe-conduct back to the coast, Sadlier unwillingly accompanied the army to Medina where he met Ibrahim and was courteously re ceived. Unable however to achieve any result from his interview he continued his journey to Yanbu', thus being the first European to cross the Arabian peninsula from sea to sea. He returned via Jedda to India and, though the political results of his mission were nil, the value of his journey was immense from the geographical standpoint and for the first time it became possible to locate some of the principal places in Arabia in something like their proper relative positions. It also showed that a considerable body of troops could cross the deserts of Nejd even in July and August. Sadlier's fame as an explorer appears to have been achieved with considerable reluctance on his part if not positively in spite of his efforts to avoid it. The trail that had been blazed by Sadlier had left the province of Jebal Shammar untouched.
That province was the objective of the next journey into Arabia, made by G. A. Wallin in 1845 on behalf of Mohammed Ali, who desired information on the new situation in northern Nejd brought about by the rising power of Abdullah Ibn Rashid. Crossing the Damascus-Mecca route at Ma'an he trav elled via wadi Sirhan to Jauf and thence, some months later, across the Nafud to Hail, already a flourishing town and capital of the Shammar principality embracing all northern Nejd from Qasim to the Syrian border. Enjoying every opportunity of observing the character of the country and its inhabitants as well as the hospi tality and patriarchal justice of its chief, he returned to Egypt via Medina and Mecca. In 1848 he revisited Hail, travelling via Mo waila, Tabuk and Taima, and passed out of Arabia on the eastern side at Karbala.
Wallin's visit to Jauf was repeated in 1851 by an Italian Levantine, Carlo Guarmani, who in 1864 set out on a more ambitious expedition to buy stallions for the French em peror. Travelling through the Ruwala country he reached Taima without incident and was the first European to visit Khaibar, then under Ibn Rashid's rule, whence he proceeded to the Qasim. Ab dullah, the son of Faisal Ibn Saud, was there on a raiding-expedi tion and sent him a prisoner to Anaiza, where Zamil, the Amir, befriended him and enabled him to proceed to Hail. He was well received there by the new ruler, Talal, and in due course returned with his successful purchases of horseflesh across the Nafud to Syria. The geographical results achieved by him were remarkable and to him belongs the credit of making the scientific cartography of central Arabia possible. His travels occasioned some scepticism but there is no reasonable doubt as to his general veracity, sup ported by compass bearings which have not been shaken by subse quent work in the same field.
W. G. Palgrave.—The same can scarcely be said of another and more famous traveller of the same period, W. G. Palgrave, who claimed to have visited Jauf, Hail, Buraida, Riyadh, Kharj, Aflaj and the Hasa during the years 1862-63 in company with one Barakat, a Syrian Christian priest who afterwards became a bishop. Palgrave published a remarkable narrative which has taken its place as a classic of Arabian travel. His intimate knowl edge of Syria and the Arabic language and his unchallengeable knowledge of the history and politics of Arabia enabled him to paint a picture of Arab life of the greatest interest and charm, but the geographical value of his work is practically nil. This fact, emphasized by the fantastic nature of his geographical descriptions of the country, laid him open to a vigorous challenge by G. P. Badger, who, for want of full and accurate knowledge, failed how ever to establish his case. Yet it is strange that Doughty, visiting the country only 15 years later, should apparently have found no trace of him. Be that as it may, Palgrave's reputation survived until well into the loth century, when it was subjected to a vig orous attack in detail by Philby, who had covered all the ground which he claimed to have traversed except Jebal Shammar. Pal grave was ably defended by Dr. D. G. Hogarth and again in 1924 by Cheesman, who had visited the Hasa and thought that, for all his inaccuracies, he must have been an eye-witness of the scenes described.
Col. Lewis Pelly, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, headed a mission to the Wahhabi capital in 1865 and accomplished some work of great geographical value, visiting Sadus, where a column was seen in situ supposed to date from pre-Islamic days and now destroyed by Wahhabi fanaticism, and other places in the Sudair province. He established the basis of a British entente with Faisal Ibn Saud which has endured to our own times.
Doughty.—Charles Doughty, the next Englishman to visit northern Arabia, covered little new ground but saw more of the desert life and described it more faithfully and more artistically than any other explorer before or since. Travelling down from Damascus in 1875 with the Hajj caravan he stopped at Al Hajr to explore the rock-cut tombs of Madain Salih, drawings of which together with copies of the inscriptions thereon he sent to Renan in Paris before launching out on his wanderings in Arabia. Trav elling with the Fuqara Bedouins he wandered all over the Nejd Hejaz borderland, visiting Taima where he discovered the famous inscribed stone afterwards acquired by Huber for the Louvre. The following year he travelled to Hail and back to Khaibar where the negro governor and inhabitants ill-treated him and threatened his life. Returning to Hail in the absence of Mohammed Ibn Rashid, its great Amir, he was expelled thence and also later from Buraida, but eventually found the hospitable protection of Zamil at Anaiza, whence after many perils and an arduous journey with a butter-caravan bound for Mecca he reached the Hejaz and, nar rowly escaping with his life from a mad Sharif, visited Taif and reached the coast at Jedda. A dozen years later he published his epic account of his experiences under the title of Arabia Deserta, which fell completely flat, but he lived to hear it acclaimed on all sides as a masterpiece just before and during and after the World War. As Khalil he is still remembered at Hail and Anaiza and many of his Arabian contemporaries still alive heard with regret of his death in Jan. 1926, full of years and honour.
Three years later Mr. Wilfred and Lady Anne Blunt made their expedition to Jebal Shammar in company with a young sheikh of Palmyra, who was anxious to visit Nejd to seek a bride among his own folk. They travelled via Kaf and wadi Sirhan to Jauf, where the matrimonial object of the journey was successfully achieved, and thence across the Nafud to Hail, where they were hospitably entertained for a month by the Amir. Thence they accompanied the Persian pilgrim caravan returning to Kar bala and Baghdad, taking with them the nucleus of what was to become the famous Crabbet Park stud of Arab horses. Their de scriptions of the Nafud threw much new light on the whole prob lem of Arabian horse breeding and other matters in connection with native pastoral life.
In 1883 the French traveller, C. Huber, accompanied by the archaeologist, J. Euting, travelled from Da mascus to Hail by the same route as the Blunts. Euting's narrative of the journey, supplemented by the accounts of the Blunts and Doughty, furnishes as complete a picture as could be wished for of the social and political life of Jebal Shammar and of the general nature of the country. Huber's journal contains a vast array of topographical and archaeological material of the greatest scientific value and his notes are still the best available data (supplemented by those of A. Musil) for the mapping of northern Arabia. Be sides copying many inscriptions between Hail and Taima he se cured the famous Taima stone which ranks with the Moabitic stone of Diban amongst the most valuable of Semitic inscriptions. From Hail Huber followed Doughty's track to Anaiza and thence travelled to Jedda. A month later, in July, 1884, at the inception of another journey he was murdered by his guides at Rabigh. His body was buried in the cemetery at Jedda under a monument pro vided by the French Government in recognition of his service to science.
E. Nolde.—Mohammed Ibn Rashid still ruled at Hail when the next European visitor, Baron E. Nolde, reached it in 1893. The Amir's victory over the Wahhabi forces at Mulaida had now brought the whole of Nejd under his rule. Nolde crossed the Nefud to Haiyaniya and, finding the Amir absent from Hail, jour neyed to his camp in the neighbourhood of Shaqra. He gives, how ever, little or no description of his route thither or of his return journey north by the Persian pilgrim route already covered by Huber in 1881. Thus, though he broke much new ground, his work, containing much of interest regarding the climate and animal life—especially the horses and camels—of central Arabia, is de void of topographical value. He was the last of the 19th century pioneers of Arabian exploration who prepared the ground for the more detailed work awaiting the travellers of the first quarter of the aoth century. At the dawn of the latter the northern half of the Arabian peninsula above the line Mecca-Hufuf had been cov ered with a network of routes which made it unlikely that any im portant geographical feature had been overlooked. Below that line, except at Najran and Jauf, no European had penetrated loom. in a direct line from the coast, and the whole of southern Nejd and Asir and the Great South Desert were virgin territory.
The desert north of lat. 3o N. is now well known and the number of those who have con tributed to this result is legion. Chief among the causes of our im proved knowledge of this area are the activities of the British armies of Generals Allenby and Maude during the World War, the work of the Royal Air Force and the Nairn and other motor transport companies since the war ; and the projected scheme of a railway and oil pipe-line connecting `Iraq and Palestine. Amid such a plethora of material it is impossible to single out the work of individuals, but no one man has contributed more to a cor rect idea of the topography of northern Arabia than Alois Musil, the results of whose many pre-war journeys are now being pub lished in 7 volumes—two already issued on Northern Hejaz and Arabia Deserta with a case of maps. His work is a monument of skill and patience. Among others may be mentioned Lt. Col. G. E. Leachman who first drew attention to wadi Kharr and the route from `Iraq to Syria via Jauf in 1910 and 1912 and was the first to travel from Jebal Shammar to Suq Al Shuyukh ; Miss Gertrude Bell, who travelled from Damascus round the west fringe of the Nefud to Hail and thence to Najaf via Lauqa and who was one of the few women who can lay just claim to the title of explorer, having used instruments along the whole of her route ; W. H. I. Shakespeare, who in 1914 crossed the peninsula from Kuwait to Suez via Sudair, Riyadh, Washm, Qasim, Hail and Jauf ; Douglas Carruthers, who visited Taima in 19o9; and Major A. L. Holt, who carried out much preliminary survey work for the railway above mentioned and, with Philby, travelled from Amman via Wadi Sirhan and Jauf to Karbala.
It is in Nejd and particularly in its southern parts that the most striking results have been achieved in the eluci dation of the country's topography. Leachman came down from `Iraq through Qasim and Washm to Riyadh and passed out of Arabia via the Hasa in 1912, his geographical results being disap pointing owing to the speed of his marching often at night. In the same year Barclay Raunkiaer, a Dane, travelled from Kuwait to Qasim and returned via the Hasa, meeting with much hostility at Buraida. Shakespeare during a number of years carried out extensive journeys in the hinterland of Kuwait, ending up with the great journey across the peninsula already mentioned in 1914 and cementing the British -entente with the Wahhabi ruler, Ibn Saud (q.v.), to whom he returned on the outbreak of the World War as British Representative. He was killed in Jan., 1915, at Jarrab in a battle between Ibn Saud and Ibn Rashid. Though he covered little ground that was absolutely new few travellers have added more than he to our knowledge of the topography of central Arabia. Major H. R. P. Dickson in 1921 did some excellent (still unpublished) mapping in the Hasa, whose topography was com prehensively studied in 1923-24 by Major R. E. Cheesman, who in addition gained well-deserved laurels by making the first visit of an European to the mysterious oasis of Jabrin on the edge of the Great South Desert, clearing up during his journey all the prob lems connected with this tract and confirming the existence of the Sahaba channel. Jabrin itself was found to be a dilapidated oasis and Major Cheesman heard of ruins named Magainma far out in the heart of the desert. The latest and completest explorations of the Great Central Desert were those of two Englishmen, Bertram Thomas in 1931-32, and H. St. John Philby in 1932-33.
In 1917-18 Philby had crossed the peninsula from sea to sea, a feat previously accomplished by only one other European, Capt. Sadlier in 1819, Philby's route being by way of Hufuf, Riyadh and Taif. In the Hufuf oasis the rainfall of a large area emerges at the surface and makes for great fertility. Beyond Riyadh he followed the great central pilgrim route to Mecca, a pioneer effort. Subsequently he explored southern Nejd, going 3oom. southward from Riyadh to Dam and back, making valuable contributions to the map of this area. The oases of Nejd were found to comprise, usually, a nucleus town with scattered hamlets, with not more than a few square miles of cultivated land in each case, and populations not exceeding 1 o,000 save at Riyadh. That city has a great Wah habi mosque and a palace of the Emirs and its population was from 12,000 to 15,000. In Aflaj and Kharj he discovered ruins spread over a wide area, suggesting burial mounds of an early era.
In both districts, the peculiar system of irrigation from natural reservoirs or deep well pits by means of subterranean channels, or karez, was unexpectedly found to prevail. At Umm al Jabal, just south of Laila, is a lake gym. by
possibly the largest sheet of permanent water in Arabia, and also a number of reservoirs of unusual size, one measuring 500 by 600 yards. In the Makran de pression, south of Badia (lat. 22° N.) , are other perennial pools of water surrounded by woods of well-grown trees. The oasis of Dam, locally known as "the wadi," consists of some 20 separate settlements with a total population of 9,000, mostly of negro origin or of the Dawasir tribe. It was found that the Nejd oases are not tropical paradises, that there is no chain of oases linking Nejd with either Asir or Yemen ; and that there is no region of fertility be tween southern Nejd and Oman, nor any settled spot between it and either Oman or Hadhramaut.
The determination in 1917 of the exact position of Maan and the observation of the longitude of a few stations to the south facilitated the adjustment of the inaccurately known alinement of the Hejaz railway. A tract 3oom. long between Wajh and Rabigh and a smaller area south of Aqaba were ex plored during the World War, while a Turkish staff-map of the country within a 3om. radius of Medina added further useful data. A great part of the Hejaz can now therefore be mapped with fair accuracy. A. J. Wavell visited Mecca and Medina in the disguise of a Zanzibari pilgrim in 1908-09 and has left an admirable account of those cities and the pilgrimage ceremonies.
During the World War much information was collected by British officers about the tribes and localities of Asir, which, however, except for Sabiya and points along the coast, still remains totally unexplored, though the position of Ibha, its capital, is known. In Yemen on the other hand great progress has been made towards the acquisition of accurate knowl edge of the country and the influx of Italians in recent years will certainly result in the solution of all its geographical and scien tific problems in due course. Of pre-war visitors A. J. Wavell, who visited Sana in 1911 and gave the best description of the city since Manzoni (1884), stands out. A. J. Beneyton, a French engineer, did much survey work in 1909 in connection with a pro jected railway from Hodeida to Sana and Amran, much unex plored territory being mapped. And in 1912 G. Wyman Bury travelled from Hodeida to Sana and has thrown much light both on the topography and on the economic conditions of Yemen. Col. H. F. Jacob of the Aden residency made several journeys into Yemen before and since the war, publishing his results under the title Kings of Arabia in 1923. Three years later Sir Gilbert Clayton conducted a British political mission to the Imam Yahya at Sana and its failure to achieve any result led to the despatch of an Italian mission under Commendatore Gasparini in the same year, resulting in an Italo-Yemeni treaty of friendship.
In 1902-04 an Anglo-Turkish commis sion demarcated the boundary between the Protectorate and Yemen, which runs from a point opposite Perim north-eastwards to Qa'taba. This afforded full opportunity for the study of the topography of the region and in 1911 Bury penetrated the Kaur watershed north of the Yafa'i country, reached Yashbum (pop. 4,000) the capital of the Upper Aulaqi, where cotton and indigo are cultivated, and got as far as Baihan, 1tom. inland from Sha qra and not distant from Marib.
The naval patrol during the World War explored the intricate coast-line between Aqaba and Aden, exposing the numerous channels through the triple coral-reef which had hitherto limited navigation in these waters.
Oman and Hadhramaut.—Among the first and most notable explorers of the Oman province in the 2oth century was Col. P. Z. Cox (later Sir Percy Cox, and Chief Political Officer of the Mesopotamian force and High Commissioner for `Iraq), who added considerably to our knowledge in the course of several journeys while serving as Political Agent at Muscat. More re cently a thorough geological investigation of part of the country has been made by an expedition organized by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Mr. B. S. Thomas and Capt. G. Eccles have also acquired much new and interesting information. In Hadhramaut the only recent traveller of importance is Capt. W. H. Lee Warner who covered some new ground and compiled a valuable report of conditions in the country. He reached wadi Duwan by a previously untraversed route (wadi Himam) and went on to Shibam.
Syrian
Syrian desert or Hamad occupies the whole of northern Arabia above lat. 30° N. extending from the confines of Palestine on the west to the edge of the Mesopotamia delta. For the most part this tract belongs politically to Pales tine, Syria and `Iraq, though it is a definite geographical unit clearly to be classified with Arabia rather than with its border lands. On the west a tract of dark-coloured flint-desert separates the slopes of the Moab and Edom mountain-chain from the de pression of wadi Sirhan and the volcanic ridges forming the southern continuation of Jebal Druz. From this upland an un broken gravel plain slopes gently eastward to 'Iraq, scored by the channels of numerous wadis, of which the chief is wadi Hauran. The depression of wadi Sirhan runs south-eastward from the permanent spring-pools of Azraq at the edge of the Druz country through the "salt-villages" of Kaf, Ithra, etc., where a certain amount of palm-cultivation is carried on and salt-pans are largely exploited for the Syrian market, to the great oasis depression of Jauf-Sakaka with the two towns of those names. Wadi Sirhan with its nearly uniform altitude of about i,85of t. above sea-level appears to have been originally an inland sea. Brackish water is found in it at many points a few feet only below the surface. The town of Jauf has extensive rich palm groves and a population of some 3,00o souls, while that of Sakaka (a collection of villages scattered among flourishing palm groves rather than a town) is somewhat larger. Jauf is the original settlement of Daumat Al Jandal and its chief feature is the fine mediaeval castle of Marid. A short distance south of Jauf begins the Great Nafud, a vast expanse of billowy red sand desert which with the Dahna, extending southward from its east ern extremity, the great south desert or Rub' Al Khali occupying the greater part of southern Arabia, and a series of lesser sand strips on the west, forms the most characteristic feature of the peninsula—an almost continuous circle of sand enclosing the central core of Nejd.
The Northern Nafud.—The northern Nafud extends some 400m. from west to east and has an average width of 200 miles. Almost waterless throughout its whole extent, it is rich in pasture in any season of normal winter rainfall and during the spring season is the regular resort of the Bedouins and their herds of camels. The formation of sand-dunes is here exemplified on a large scale and longitudinal dunes of astonishing length are of frequent occurrence with valleys between them which it takes three or four hours to cross on a camel (about io to 12 miles) . The most striking feature of this dune area is however the Falj pits of horse-shoe formation, studied in considerable detail by Blunt and Huber. Their floor is generally of hard soil bare of sand and their enclosing walls are of pure sand piled up to a consid erable height at a steep angle of as much as 50°. The largest of these pits, which are of uniform appearance but vary greatly in size, was estimated by Huber at iim. across and 33oft. deep. They appear to run in strings from east to west corresponding with their individual direction, the convex face of the Falj being towards the west, i.e., the direction of the prevailing wind, and the cusps to leeward. In the south of this tract Huber found the pits turned towards the south, the prevailing wind being from that direction. These dunes, though subject to slight changes, ap pear to be practically permanent features. The general altitude of the Nafud is almost 3,000ft. above sea-level. Excrescences of rock are of frequent occurrence.
The Dahna.—Unlike the Nafud, the Dahna has an average width of only about 3om. and a length from north to south of some 400 miles. It consists of seven longitudinal bands of sand of varying width separated by shallow sandy valleys seldom more than a mile across. In the northern half of the Dahna sand-peaks of aoo or 3oof t. in height and of pure red-sand without any sign of vegetation rise out of the longitudinal sand-ridges in groups or long lines, as many as 3o being visible together in some parts. Further south these peaks disappear as also to some extent the longitudinal arrangement of the ridges, the whole width of the barrier being a confused mass of low dunes and hollows without symmetry. South of the Riyadh-Hasa road the Dahna is un known to Europeans, but the whole tract is, like the northern Nafud, covered with rich desert pasture in the winter and spring, when it is visited by the Bedouins. So far as is known the tract is entirely waterless.
The Rub' Al Khali.—The southern sand-desert or Rub' Al Khali is wholly unexplored and may contain considerable tracts of hard gravel or limestone desert in its vast inhospitable ex panse. For the most part, however, it is probably a tract of sand-dunes generally similar to the northern Nafud and the Dahna. Its fringes have been viewed from afar at several points and it is reputed to contain the ruins of settlements of ancient times. The Al Murra and other tribes breed the famous Umaniya camel in its vast spaces, somewhere in whose recesses lies an area of salt-marshes or briny pools, of which the camels but not the human denizens of the desert drink. The latter subsist on camel's milk during their extended periods of sojourn with their flocks in this area, their permanent bases of operations being Jabrin, the southern districts of Nejd and the fringes of Oman, Hadh ramaut and Yemen.
The western part of Nejd is separated from the Hejaz by vari ous sand-strips, none of which have the importance of those al ready described and the most important of which is probably the Arq Al Subai lying athwart the main route between Riyadh and Mecca. A tract of firm desert parts its northern extremity from the southern extremities of the northern Nafud and pro vides the only unprotected entrance to Nejd.
Nejd.—Inside the sand-barrier above described lies the cen tral province of Nejd, the fountain-head, as it were, of the Arab race. It is traversed by three main wadi-systems from west to east : wadi Rima in the northern part rising in the Khaibar Harra and traversing the Qasim district, where its continuity is broken by the sand-masses of that area and the Dahna, beyond which it resumes its course under the name of Al Batin to the neighbour hood of Zubair; wadi Sirra, which rises in the highlands of west ern Nejd and, breaking through the longitudinal barrier of the Jebal Tuwaiq plateau under the name of Sha'ib Birk, eventually joins wadi Hanifa at Yamama and, again changing its name to Al Sahba, cuts through the Dahna and eventually reaches the Persian Gulf near Al Qatar ; and wadi Dawasir in the south which unites the three Asir and Yemen wadis of Ranya, Bisha and Tathlith at Al Hajla and, passing through the Dawasir and Sulai yil settlements, loses itself south-eastward in the Rub' Al Khali. All three of these wadis carry floods on occasion, but wadi Rima more regularly than the others. Wadi Dawasir, which flows but seldom, experienced a flood of great magnitude in 1917. The floods of wadi Sirra are very local, though its affluent, wadi Han ifa flows almost every year and often more than once in a year.
The general slope of Nejd is from west to east in conformity with that of the peninsula as a whole. As already stated two of its chief "rivers" rise outside the province in the main mountain range of the west. The third rises in a confused tract of moun tains within the western frontier of the province, which are of granite and kindred formation and appear to be an offshoot of the main western range though separated from it by a wide in terval. These mountains (Hadhb Dawasir, Damkh, the Ardh range, etc.) form an irregular mass scattered over the face of a vast sandy desert and rising at many points to an elevation of 5,000 or 6,000ft. above sea-level. They offer no impediment to progress, as the various ridges and massifs are separated by wide gaps through which run the main pilgrim-route from east to west and other caravan-tracks. Farther north lies the better known group of granite mountains collectively with the district depend ent on them called Jebal Shammar. This group is also an offshoot of the main western range, merging westward in a plateau which extends continuously from the Khaibar Harra. It consists of two parallel ranges, Jebal Aja loom. long from south-west to north east and rising to 4,600ft. above sea-level, and Jebal Salma, less high and to the east. The town of Hail, formerly the capital of the Ibn Rashid dynasty, and many flourishing villages with extensive palm and other cultivation depend on the floods of the wadis emanating from the twin ranges. The rest of the Jebal Shammar district is pastoral in character and the headquarters of the Shammar, one of the leading tribes of Arabia. Hail con tains a population of some i 5,000 souls. South of Jebal Shammar and separated from it by a steppe-desert lies the district of Qasim astride Wadi Rima—a district of sand-dunes with numer ous oases scattered about Its hollows. Most important of these are the vast oasis and town of Anaiza (i 5,000 inhabitants) and the important town of Buraida (20,000 inhabitants) with its extensive palm-groves. Continuing southward we come at the tail of Wadi Hanifa to the district of Kharj with its old capi tal of Yamama now choked with drifted sand and its modern capital of Dilam (s,000 inhabitants). Its chief feature is a series of unfathomed spring-fed pools still used for the irrigation of a considerable area through narrow channels cunningly con structed in the limestone rock and formerly a source of the great prosperity which gained for the district its now lost reputation of being the granary of Nejd. Here ancient ruins betoken the presence at one time of a race, perhaps the Persians, more skilled in irrigation and agriculture than the Arab inhabitants of to-day. Still further south in the heart of Tuwaiq is the Fara valley dis trict with the two important settlements of Hauta and Hariq with r 5,000 inhabitants between them: and the province of Aflaj partly in Tuwaiq and partly to the eastward of it, where is the largest surface of open water in all Arabia—the lake of Umm Al Jebal, which with half a dozen other spring-fed reservoirs formed the basis of an elaborate system of irrigation in former times and still serves, though to a reduced extent, the same pur pose. Laila with 8,000 inhabitants is the capital of the district— a large and flourishing oasis like its neighbour, Saih. Other no table settlements here are Raudha and Badia with Ghail on its perennial stream in the hill tract.
El Hasa.—The eastern and western flanks of the great encir cling sand-barrier are bordered by wide expanses of steppe-desert running north and south. That of the east sloping gently towards the Persian Gulf, from which it is parted by a sand-strip of an average width of 25m., comprises the Dibdiba and Summan of gravel and limestone respectively and contains one of the most prosperous districts of Arabia, El Hasa, famous for its many hot and cold spring-fed reservoirs, its irrigation channels, its rich vegetation—the Khalas date of its palm-groves is among the best dates in the world—and its two great towns of Hufuf (30,00o inhabitants) and Mubarraz (20,000). At some distance to southward lies the important but unprosperous oasis of Jabrin at the edge of the Great Desert, while 5om. east lies the rich and populous sea-port and oasis of Katif. South of the latter is Ukair, the ancient Gerra. Other settlements along the Gulf coast are Kuwait furthest north, Jubail, Qatar and the Trucial coast ports.
Hejaz and Yemen.—The outer crust of Arabia on the north, west and south is formed by an almost continuous barrier of lofty mountains beginning in the north with the coastal granite range of Midian and the inner volcanic masses known as Harra (the most important of these are Harrat Uwairidh, Harra Khaibar and Harra Nawasif) forming a southern excrescence of the vol canic system of Jebal Druz. The mountain range is continued southward by limestone massifs increasing in height through the Taif hills and the uplands of Asir to the lofty mountains of Yemen. Turning eastward the range runs at a considerably lower elevation through the Hadhramaut district and peters out in the southern sands of the Great Desert. The highest point in the Harra tracts is probably Jebel Anz of 7,000ft. The peaks of Midian rise to even greater heights, while those of Yemen often exceed io,000ft. Down to the southern border of the Hejaz (q.v.) this mountain system is the scene of rich though intermittent cul tivation, containing the city and large oasis of Medina, the oases of Yanbu Al Nakhl and Taif and the city of Mecca (70,000 in habitants). The highlands of Asir (q.v.) and Yemen (q.v.) are even more richly and continuously cultivated (coffee being an important item), while the valleys of Hadhramaut are rich in palms and tobacco. The mountain-range is supposedly rich in mineral deposits, gold having been worked formerly in Midian, where and further south in Asir (and the adjacent Farsan islands) there are indications of oil. Rock salt abounds in various local ities. Sana (i s,000 inhabitants) is the capital of Yemen, and Abha (5,000) that of Asir. On the east and partly on the south the outer crust of the peninsula is formed by sand-ridges, but in the south-east the continuity of these is interrupted by the great mountain-mass of Oman (q.v.), rising to ro,000ft. above sea level, with its capital at Muscat on the coast of the Gulf of Oman. This, like Yemen, is a tract of great fertility, its mountain valleys and oases on the sea coast maintaining a population of about a million. The range of Jebal Akhdar, the central feature of the district, plunges down abruptly on both sides to the sea and the Great Desert respectively.
The geological structure of Arabia is very similar to that of Egypt. The oldest rocks consist of granite and schist with intrusive dykes, and on this foundation lie sedimentary de posits beginning with the Nubian sandstone of Petra, which out crops at Jauf and runs along the Hejaz railway southward and is overlain by Cretaceous strata to the east. Later deposits are found in Wadi Sirhan and in the desert fringing 'Iraq. Jurassic formations have been found on the surface in the range of Jebal Tuwaiq, and the eastern desert belongs mainly to later epochs. The granite outcrops in Nejd at Jebal Shammar and in the west ern highlands. Over the Nubian sandstone and the older granite great sheets of lava have been poured and these, protecting the softer beds beneath from denudation, stand up as the high pla teaux and hills called Harra. Volcanic cones are numerous and an eruption was recorded near Medina as recently as A.D. 1256. In southern Arabia the crystalline floor appears along the coast and in Oman, the geology of which has recently been studied by an expedition of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. At Marbat Nubian sandstone overlies the granite, and marls showing Cenomanian fossils are in evidence, being overlaid by Cretaceous limestones with isolated patches of overlying Alveolina limestones. The greater part of southern Arabia seems, however, to be formed of Aiveolina and nummulitic limestones of Tertiary age. An ex tinct volcano occurs at Aden and volcanic rocks are found near the Straits of Bab Al Mandab. Throughout Arabia the folding of the sedimentary beds is of the gentlest, but faults of considerable magnitude occur here and there. The Gulf of Aqaba is a case in point and the Red Sea itself is a great trough bounded by faults along each side. The occurrence of hot springs in Hasa and the deep spring-fed reservoirs of Kharj and Aflaj deserve careful further study in connection with the geological structure of the peninsula.
Owing to its low latitude and general aridity Arabia must be classed among the hot regions of the earth, but is not comparable in the matter of high temperatures with such tracts as the Sind desert and Mesopotamia. The mean maximum sum mer temperature of Nejd probably seldom exceeds 112°, while frosts are not uncommon in the northern part of the province, where a temperature of i8° was registered (by Nolde) at Hail in Feb. 1893. The central desert tracts indeed may be said to en joy a healthy climate at all times of the year owing to the dryness of the atmosphere which produces a feeling of great invigoration when the wind is from the north—the famous Nasim or zephyr of Nejd. With a south wind at whatever season of the year the climate tends to be relaxing. The same effects are experienced with the wind in the north and south respectively all along the coastal fringe, where an excessive humidity, coupled with max imum summer temperatures of over 90° on the Red Sea coast and over loo° in the Persian Gulf, has given the whole country an unsavoury reputation scarcely warranted by the facts. The high plateau and mountain-range of western Arabia and the massif of Oman enjoy a delightful climate without extremes of temperature at all times, though the Midian district experiences considerable falls of snow and low temperatures with chill winds from the east in winter. Except in Yemen, which lies within the monsoon belt and receives considerable precipitation in the later summer months (i 6in. were recorded from June to Sept. in 1902 at Dhala, 4,800ft., on the Aden Protectorate frontier), and Oman, which has a good rainfall and occasional snow, Arabia is a country of scanty and irregular rainfall. The average annual fall at Aden is only about Sin. and that of the Red Sea coast is scarcely more, precipi tation, when it occurs, being of a torrential character and con centrated in only a few hours or days of the winter. In the centre and east of the peninsula the rainfall also occurs during the winter, though occasionally in the central and west-central dis tricts there is a small fall in Aug. or Sept. Great areas of Arabia, especially in the west and south, experience long periods of drought, but on the whole the country gets enough rain to make the desert blossom in the spring and to foster the oasis cultiva tion of its valleys. The mountain districts of Hejaz are generally well favoured in this respect and Taif enjoys the distinction of being at the extreme limit of the monsoon area northwards.
In northern Arabia the prevailing winds alternate between east and west, the latter bringing the rain from the Mediterranean across the Palestine hills. Elsewhere north and south are the prevailing directions of the wind which alternates between those points in periodical bursts—the south wind being the harbinger of rain in the winter and of heat in the summer. Yemen receives the moisture of heavy mists sweeping up from the plains during the rainless season and elsewhere dew, in parts exceedingly heavy, plays the life-giving role of rain in more favoured countries.
The wild animals of Arabia are for the most part of the desert-loving type, the commonest of all being gazelles akin to the Persian gazelle. These roam the desert spaces in considerable numbers, though the advent of the high-velocity rifle has made them less numerous than formerly. Of the larger antelopes so common on the African side of the Red Sea only one is found in Arabia—the Oryx beatrix or wild cow of the Arabs, which is found in the northern Nafud and in the Rub' Al Khali. The Wal, a species of ibex, is found in the mountains of Yemen, Hejaz and Oman. Hares . and foxes are common as also the Jarbu and a species of coney called Wabar. Monkeys of several species occur in Hejaz and Yemen, while wolves, hyenas and panthers are not uncommon. The wild cat is also found in the mountain districts. Of birds the greatest is the ostrich, not uncommon in the desert round Jauf and found also on the fringes of the Rub' Al Khali. Sand-grouse and Sisi are very plentiful in most parts of the penin sula, as also are doves and pigeons, but duck and snipe are by no means common visitors. Quail are found everywhere in small numbers and the bustard is fairly common in all desert-tracts. Much light has recently been thrown on the wild fauna of eastern Arabia by Major R. E. Cheesman, while that of Oman was in tensively studied at the beginning of the century by Sir Percy Cox. Wyman Bury has studied the birds of Yemen, but much still remains to be done for the elucidation of the fauna of Arabia as a whole. This particularly applies in the realm of insects of which comparatively little is known, though Arabia would ap pear to be the meeting place of species characteristic of the three continents at the junction of which it lies. Many insects new to science have been found of recent years. Scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, spiders and ants are very common. Locusts frequently appear in great swarms, doing much damage to crops and pro viding the Bedouins with a welcome addition to their larder. Bee keeping is a flourishing industry among the hill-folk of Hejaz, Yemen and Hadhramaut, the honey having a great local reputa tion though it has a peculiar taste. The domestic fauna of Arabia comprises camels, horses, sheep, goats, donkeys and, to a less extent, cows. Of these the most useful is the camel which is the sole stock-in-trade of the great Bedouin tribes. The Arabian camel has a single hump and is in general more aristocratic than his like in neighbouring countries. The best of the Arabian breeds, which differ from each other in appearance as widely as a race horse from a cart-horse, is the Umaniya bred by the Al Murra tribe of the Rub' Al Khali. This, like most of the better Arabian breeds, is renowned for its endurance of long periods without water and long marches at a high average speed. But it is not suited to the carrying of great burdens; 300 lb. is a heavy load for an Arabian camel to carry over long distances or day after day, and eight miles an hour would seem to be as great a speed as it can maintain for any length of time continuously. In Jan. 1928, a large number of Bedouin entrants for a race between Jedda and Mecca failed to cover the distance of about 50m. in less than 6i hours. In the summer good camels will do without water for three or even four days' marching an average of 25m. a day, but in the spring pastures they will abstain from water for as long as a month at a time. Horse-breeding has of recent years suffered a set-back in Arabia partly owing to the introduction of the modern rifle, which has made them of less account in Bedouin warfare, and partly owing to the decline of the Bombay horse-market, once a good and regular customer of Arabia. Horse-breeding is still, nev ertheless, a favourite hobby of the Arabian princes and Ibn Saud maintains a large stud in the Kharj district as the Ibn Rashid dy nasty used to do at Hail. The best stud in Arabia at the present day is probably, however, that of Ibn Jiluwi, governor of Hasa. From it came "Romany," a horse of classic Nejdi type, which has recently made history in Egypt. The greater number of horses now marketed as Arabs in Egypt and India hail from Upper Meso potamia and Trans-Jordan, where the partially settled or nomadic tribes still breed from an original Nejdi stock under more favour able conditions of pasture than obtain in its original home. Anaiza in the Qasim is still to some extent a clearing-house for horses destined for export to India via Kuwait.
Large white asses of excellent quality are bred in many places, the best being those of Hasa. This stock was formerly much ex ported to Mecca, where they are still bred and were much used for riding purposes until the recent advent of the motor-car. The gipsy tribe of Suluba breeds a hardy type of white ass capable of great feats of endurance in the matter of thirst and probably originally derived from the Hasa stock. Asses and camels are much used for well-traction throughout the country and cows also to a limited extent. The latter are small in stature and not numerous. The sheep and goats of Arabia are of excellent quality as regards the milk and meat they provide but inferior as regards their wool. The Saman, or clarified butter made from their milk, and their skins and fleeces are an important article of export capable of much development, while the goat's hair provides the material for the black booths of the Bedouins. Camel's hair is used for the weaving of the mantles worn by the better class Arabs.
The flora of Arabia has been investigated by P. Fors kal of Niebuhr's mission, P. E. Botta, G. Schweinfurth and A. Deflers. Their results and those of more casual collectors have been published in volumes 7 and 8 of the Records of the Botanical Survey of India by E. Blatter, to which the reader is referred for a compendious view of the matter. The most thoroughly investi gated part of the peninsula in this respect is the mountain region of the south-west, but it may be said in general terms that the Arabian type has African rather than southern Asian affinities. Various species of fig, tamarind, carob and several kinds of cac tiform Euphorbia occur in the higher regions, as also the juniper of which there are forests in Yemen, Asir and Midian. Adenium obesum with its bulb-like stems and red flowers occurs in Yemen. Some fine aloes are found and all over Arabia the Zizyphus Jujuba is common, often growing to large trees. The tamarisk or Ithil occurs everywhere in sandy tracts and is often planted (as in Qasim) in hedges to protect villages and cultivation from the encroachment of drift-sand. The date-palm flourishes everywhere, producing fruit of great excellence in many parts. Vines, peach, apricot, pomegranate and fig occur in most oases ; quince and apple in the highlands only ; and banana in favoured valleys of low altitude. Of cereals wheat and barley and the common millets, Dhurra and Dukn, occur commonly, while lucerne is a favourite fodder-crop. The water-melons of Manfuha enjoy a high reputa tion and both these and musk-melons are cultivated in the Hejaz and elsewhere. Radishes, pumpkins, cucumbers, onions and leeks grow freely. Roses grow at Taif and other highland localities, where Itr or attar of roses is extracted on a small scale. Thyme, jasmine, lavender and other aromatic plants are of frequent oc currence. Coffee is said to have been introduced from Abyssinia in the 6th century A.D. and thrives on the seaward slopes of Yemen and Asir between 4,00o and 7,000 ft. Jebal Haraz is an im portant centre of its cultivation, it being planted here and else where in terraces and protected from the sun by fringes of tama rind and fig. The plants are raised from seedlings, transplanted when six weeks old in rows 4 to 6f t. apart. They are watered from irrigation channels twice a month and bear fruit in two to four years. The berries are dried in the sun and sent down to Hodeida and Aden, whence they are exported in considerable quantities. The husks are used for making a beverage called Qishr in Yemen and southern Nejd. Another plant universally used as a stimulant in south-west Arabia is Kat (Cathy edulis), which grows best around Taizz. It is a small bush grown from cuttings and stripped of its leaves after three years, except for a few buds which develop next year into young shoots sold in bunches as Kat Mubarak. The Kat Malliani or shoots of the suc ceeding year command a higher price. The bushes are then left for another three years and the same process repeated. The leaves are chewed and have a highly stimulating effect. Tobacco is grown on a considerable scale in Hadhramaut, the chief source of the hummi leaf smoked in the nargilas of the western coast. Gum bearing acacias flourish in the desert, as also many other varieties of acacia, but there is little trade in gum. Myrrh is extracted at Suda, 6om. north-north-east of Sana by cupping the trunks and the balsam of Mecca is collected in the same way. The plants of the Nefud areas and the hard desert are legion.
The population of Arabia may be roughly esti mated at 7,000,00o, distributed as follows:— According to an Arab proverb Yemen is the cradle and `Iraq the grave of the Arab race, and this saying probably represents fairly accurately the facts of the peopling of the peninsula. Who the original denizens of the desert were and whence they came cannot even be conjectured, but there seems to be little doubt that the large Anaza tribe of northern Arabia came originally from the Yemen and their progress across the desert in a north-east direction can be traced in detail in the colonies of Anaza origin scattered over the face of the peninsula. The same is true of other tribal elements and the history of pastoral Arabia must ever have been the same, the displacement of one tribe by a stronger or larger treading on its heels. Cross and reverse currents of popu lation have also doubtless played their part and Arab tradition insists that the Arab race is derived from two stocks—the pure Arabs of Qahtan, a descendant of Shem, with their original home in the highlands of south and west Arabia ; and the Must'araba or naturalized Arabs descended from Ishmael. Both stocks are pre sumably of Semitic origin, while another important element of the Arabian population, found at the present day in every stage of assimilation to the aboriginal population, doubtless came from Af rica across the Red Sea. As far north as Khaibar and the villages of Jebal Shammar and throughout the country south thereof to wadi Dawasir a negro element is found in the settlements side by side with settlers of Bedouin origin. This element has mixed freely with the Arabs producing in the process a large and homo geneous group of mixed origin known as Bani Khadhir. Another extraneous element in the population is represented by the curious gipsy tribe of Suluba, who claim a Christian origin and are de spised by the Arabs as an inferior race. They are great hunters and enjoy a practical monopoly of various crafts in the service of the great tribes to whom they pay a tolerance fee. These Suluba are found mainly in east Arabia, whereas in the west their functions are performed by the remnants of a Jewish element which was once numerous, occupying Medina (Yathrib) in pre Muslim times, but is now confined to a few localities in Yemen. The Jewish population of Sana numbers several thousands and there is also a small colony in Najran. These Jews possibly rep resent an unconverted remnant of one of the Must'araba reverse currents already referred to. Alternative traditions date this Jewish immigration to the reign of Solomon and to the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar. The pilgrimage prescribed by the Prophet has given Mecca, Medina and Jedda a cosmopol itan character, while the seaports of the Arabian coast have drawn their populations from the neighbouring countries—In dians, Persians and Baluchis at Muscat and the Gulf ports; In dians and others at Makalla and the Red Sea ports. Of the Arab population the Bedouin tribes are of pure descent with some negro infiltration, and these tribes take precedence among each other under a broad distinction between those that raise camels and horses (the aristocracy) and those that breed sheep and goats (the helots). Most of the princely houses of Arabia derive from the Anaza tribe, to which belongs Ibn Saud, the king of Hejaz and Nejd. But an important element of the aristocracy in the west comprises various groups of claimants to direct descent from the Prophet. Of these the most prominent section is the Ashraf of the Hejaz, who ruled in Mecca until the Egyptian in vasion of 1814, and, after a century of comparative suppression under the Turks, recovered their dominant position by the re volt of King Husain in 1916. Their return to power was how ever short-lived as they were ousted in 1925 by the Wahhabi con quest of their country. The Imams of Sana claim descent from the Prophet and rule the Yemen in virtue of that fact. In that prov ince and Hadhramaut many villages are exclusively occupied by a religious hierarchy of Saiyids and inland Oman is ruled by an Imam, who is in constant opposition to the temporal dynasty of the coast. In Asir the administration is also in religious hands, its rulers being the Idrisi family under a Wahhabi protectorate. During the last decade and a half the revived Wahhabi movement has coloured the texture of Bedouin society and the patriarchal system of tribal administration, with its democratic rule, its blood feuds and its lex talionis, is gradually giving way before the divine majesty of the Shar law of Islam. Ikhwan colonies have sprung up at numerous points like mushrooms and the ancient pastime of raid and counter-raid is 'discouraged by the new doctrine of universal brotherhood in the faith. Arabia is changing rapidly into the semblance of an organized state.
In no respect is Arabia changing more rapidly than in the matter of its communications. At the begin ning of the aoth century there were no railways in the whole country. During its first decade Medina was linked by the Hejaz railway via Maan (800km.) with Damascus and a survey made for an extension to Mecca, which has not yet materialized. About the same time a railway-survey was made of the country between Hodeida and Sana, though progress with the scheme was rendered impossible by the Turco-Italian War of 1913. During and since the World War a railway has been constructed between Aden and Lahaj and beyond, but the southern section of the Hejaz railway from Maan to Medina, seriously damaged by the opera tions of Lawrence and deprived of practically all its rolling stock in the interests of Syria and Palestine since the war, has only been in fitful operation during the last ten years. The Hejaz saw its first aeroplanes during the war and has maintained a num ber of them as part of its armament since then, though the foreign personnel employed by the Sharifian regime have disappeared and the machines have been relegated to a maintenance basis. The Imam of Yemen has recently received one or more of these ma chines as a present from the Italian Government, while early in the year 1928 squadrons of the Royal Air Force were posted at Aden where the military command is henceforth to be exercised by an Air officer. Finally, and also early in 1928, the Royal Air Force in `Iraq conducted punitive operations against the Ikhwan raiders of the north-eastern frontier. The exploration of the Rub' Al Khali by air has also been frequently mooted of recent years but in general terms it may be said that air communications are still a thing of the future so far as Arabia is concerned. The same remark applies to wireless telegraphy, though there are wireless stations at a number of places in Hejaz (Jedda, Me dina, etc.) and a station (19a 7) at Sana. A telegraph and tele phone line connects Jedda with Mecca and is to be extended to Taif, while Jedda communicates with the outer world by a cable to Port Sudan, the joint property now of the Hejaz and Sudan Governments and maintained by the Eastern Telegraph Company. In another direction astonishing progress has been made of recent years. Motor cars first came to the Hejaz dur ing the World War but were sternly discouraged thereafter by King Husain except for limited personal and official use. Nejd and Hasa saw motor cars for the first time in 1919 or 192o. With the establishment of the Wahhabi regime in the Hejaz, how ever, motor transport was allowed in connection with the 1926 and subsequent pilgrimages, with the result that the number of cars in the country has increased from f our to over 600 in two years. The journey between Jedda, Mecca and Medina is now regularly performed by car, while the road between Medina and Yanbu has recently been opened. Ibn Saud and his large camp fol lowing have also in two successive years performed the journey between Hejaz and Riyadh in the royal fleet of cars, from 25 to 3o vehicles. Motor transport is thus definitely established in Arabia.
At the end of 1927 the construction of a metalled road between Jedda and Mecca was begun but there are no other metalled roads in the whole country. Of the old caravan-routes one of the most important, that from Damascus to Medina, has been killed by the Hejaz railway, as the adoption of the sea route killed the pilgrim track along the coast from Aqaba to Yanbu and Mecca. Camel transport still holds its own, however, on the Hejaz pil grim tracks and for goods, while it still enjoys the monopoly of the main north to south and east to west routes across the penin sula, as well as on all the feeder-routes.
There is regular steamship communication between Suez and Port Sudan and the Arabian ports of the Red Sea down to Aden, while in the pilgrim season Jedda receives numerous ships direct from Java, Singapore and India. Mokalla is in similar commer cial communication with Bombay and Karachi, whence there are also regular sailings to the Persian Gulf ports. In addition to the above a great part of the Arabian coasting traffic is carried on by native sailing-boats.
For want of exact statistics in most of the ports concerned with the export and import trade of Arabia it is diffi cult to estimate the annual value of goods entering and leaving Arabia. The chief articles of export are coffee (from Aden, Hodeida and Mocha), hides, wool, saman (clarified butter), sheep (mainly from Wajh to Suez) and dates (from Hasa). Specie, mainly brought in by the pilgrims visiting the country, is ex ported in large quantities to make good the deficit between the small volume of exports and the heavy imports of the ordinary necessaries of life—piece-goods, rice, flour, sugar and tea. Of recent years motor cars and machinery of all kinds have formed a rapidly increasing part of the import trade of the country.
(H. ST. J. B. P.) Arabia is a land of Semites, and is supposed by some scholars to have been the original home of the Semitic peoples. The dis persion of the early Arabian Semites is easy to imagine. The mi gration into Babylonia was simple, as there are no natural boun daries between it and north-east Arabia. That of the Aramaeans at an early period was likewise free from any natural hindrance. The connection with Palestine has always been close ; and the Abyssinian settlement is probably as late as the beginning of the Christian era. Of these migrations, however, history knows noth ing." Arabian literature has its own version of prehistoric times, but it is entirely legendary. In the 19th century the discovery and translation of numerous early Arabian inscriptions revealed the existence of a great civilization in Arabia for at least I,000 years before the Christian era and stimulated the study of the materials in the Assyrian inscriptions, the Old Testament, and classical writ ings. All scholars are agreed that the inscriptions reach as far back as the 9th century B.C. and prove the existence of at least four civilized kingdoms during these centuries. These are the kingdoms of Main (Minaean), of Saba (Sabaean), of Hadhra maut (Hadramut) and of Katabania (Katabanu). Of the two latter little is known.
As to the Sabaean kingdom there is fair agreement among scholars. The inscriptions go back to 800 B.C.
or earlier. A queen of this people (the "Queen of Sheba") is said (I. Kings x.) to have visited Solomon about 95o B.C. There is, however, no mention of such a queen in the inscriptions. The Sabaean rule is generally divided into periods indicated by the titles given to their rulers. In the first of these (between the 9th and the 6th century) ruled the Makarib, who seem to have been priest-kings. Their first capital was at Sirwah. The second period begins about 55o B.C. The rulers are known as "kings of Saba." Their capital was Ma'rib. Their sway lasted until about 115 B.c., when they were succeeded by the Himyarites. During this period they were engaged in constant strife with the neighbouring kingdoms of Hadramut and Katabanu. The great prosperity of south-west Arabia at this time was due in large measure to the fact that the trade from India with Egypt came there by sea and then went by land up the west coast, but this trade was lost when the Ptolemies established an overland route from India to Alexandria. The connection of Saba with the north, where the Nabataeans (q.v.) had existed from about 200 B.C., was now broken. The decay that followed caused a number of Sabaeans to migrate to other parts of Arabia.
The Minaean kingdom extended over the south Arabian Jauf, its chief cities being Karnau, Main and Yathil. Some 25 kings are known from the inscriptions, and their history must cover several centuries. As inscriptions in the Minaean language are found in al-`Ula in north Arabia, it is probable that they had colonies in that district. With regard to their date opinion is much divided; some scholars maintaining that their kingdom existed prior to that of Saba, others that none of the inscriptions is earlier than about 800 B.C. and that the Minaean kingdom existed side by side with the Sabaean. It is curious that the Sabaean inscrip tions contain no mention of the Minaeans, though this may be due to the fact that very few of the inscriptions are historical in content.
About 115 B.C. the power over south Arabia passed from the Sabaeans to the Himyarites, a people from the extreme south-west of Arabia; and about this time the kingdom of Katabanu came to an end. The title taken by the new rulers was "king of Saba and Raidan." In this period the Romans made their one attempt at direct interference in the affairs of Arabia. But the expedition under Aelius Gallus was betrayed by its guides and lost in the desert. During the latter part of this time the Abyssinians, who had earlier migrated from Arabia to the opposite coast of Africa, began to flow back to the south of Arabia, and in the 4th century they became strong enough to overturn the Himyarite kings and establish a dynasty of their own. The Himyarites were, however, still active, and having accepted Judaism founded a Jewish Sa baean kingdom. The struggle between them and the Abyssinians now became one of Judaism against Christianity, and apparently for this reason Christian Abyssinia was supported from Byzantium in its attempts to regain power. These attempts were crowned with success in 525, but in 575 the Persians, who had been called in by the opponents of Christianity, succeeded in taking over the rule and in appointing governors over Yemen. (See further
