Riyadh

“ On the morning of the second day he came to a halting-place from which he could see the city of Riad, and he was astonished at the size and magnificence of the Sultan's palace, which was visible above the walls of the fortification. Yet he was aware that he had seen all this before as in a dream not altogether forgotten [21] when a man wakes at dawn after a long and restless night.
He gazed awhile, after he had made his ablutions, and then calling to his mare to come to him, he mounted and rode through the southern gate into the heart of the city. ”

“ In the city of Riad, in Arabia, there rules a powerful king, the Sultan of the kingdom of Nejed, blessed in all things save that he has no son to inherit his vast dominions. One daughter only has been born to him in his old age, of such marvellous beauty that even the Black Eyed Virgins enclosed in the fruit of the tree Sedrat, who wait for the coming of the faithful, would seem but mortal women beside her. ”

“ The modern Arabic geography, which has been partly adopted on our maps, is based, to some extent, on the political divisions of the country. The coast region along the Red Sea, down to a point nearly half way between Djidda and the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and including the holy cities of Medina and Mecca, is called the Hedjaz. Yemen, the capital of which is Sana, and the chief sea-ports Mocha, Hodeida, and Loheia, embraces all the southwestern portion of the peninsula. ”

“ The entire coast region of Arabia, on the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Gulfs of Oman and Persia, is, for the most part, a belt of fertile country, inhabited by a settled, semi-civilized population. Back of this belt, which varies in width from a few miles to upwards of a hundred, commences a desert table-land, occasionally intersected by mountain chains, and containing, in the interior, many fertile valleys of considerable extent, which are inhabited. ”

“ Arabia, and Mecca as typical of Arabia, is a country governed by earth's primal forces. It has not yet emerged from the shadow of that early world, bare and chaotic, where a blinding sun pours down upon dusty mountain ridges, and nothing is temperate or subdued. It fosters a race of men, whose gods are relentless and inscrutable, revealing themselves seldom, and dwelling in a fierce splendour beyond earthly knowledge. To the spirit of a seeker for truth with senses alert to the outer world, this country speaks of boundless force, and impels into activity under the spur of conviction ”

“ We now come to Arabia itself, "the Peninsula of the Arabs," where orthodox Islam has its strongholds and missionary enterprise is not encouraged.
Geographers differ somewhat as to what constitutes Arabia proper, but for the purposes of modern practical politics it may be considered as all the peninsula south of a line from the head of the Gulf of Akaba to the head of the Persian Gulf, and consisting of Nejd, the Hejaz, [C] Asir, Yamen, Aden protectorate, Hadhramaut and Oman. ”

“ From this description it is evident that the least attractive part of the country is the coast. This may be the reason that Arabia has been so harshly judged, as to climate and soil and so much neglected by those who only knew of it from the captains who had touched its coast in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Nothing is more surprising, than to pass through the barren cinder gateway of Aden up the mountain passes into the marvellous fertility and delightful climate of Yemen. Arabia like the Arab, has a rough, frowning exterior but a warm, hospitable heart. ”

“ If to these central highlands, or Nedjed, taking that word in its wider sense, we add the Djowf, the Ta’yif, Djebel ’Aaseer, Yemen, Oman, and Hasa, in short, whatever spots of fertility belong to the outer circles, we shall find that Arabia contains about two-thirds of cultivated, or at least of cultivable, land, with a remaining third of irreclaimable desert, chiefly to the south. In most other directions the great blank spaces often left in maps of this country are quite as frequently indications of non-information as of real non-inhabitation. ”

“ The physical and economic geography of the Arabian Peninsula controlled in a, decisive manner the primitive social stages of its inhabitants and produced the Semitic type.
Arabia exhibits a great and contrasting variety of physical conditions, partly favouring a rapid increase of population, partly compelling migration and emigration. The south-western, southern, and central highlands possess a healthy climate, and in many parts a rarefied and bracing air, a fertile soil, yielding to a moderate amount of labour rich harvests of subtropical products. ”

“ For six hundred years after Mohammed’s death Islam and Christendom were nearly equal powers, and it is difficult, even now, to decide which contributed the more to the arts from which modern civilization has sprung. Arabia flourished, as never before, under the Caliphs; yet it does not appear that the life of the inhabitants was materially changed, or that any growth, acquired during the new importance of the country, became permanent. Its commerce was restricted to the products of its narrow belt of fertile shore; an arid desert separated it from Bagdad and Syria ”

“ Rugs, dates, figs, and damask fabrics are exported to Europe through Beirut, its seaport, with which it is connected by rail. Much of the stuffs exported is gathered from Persia. [Pg 354] Yafa is the port of Jerusalem. Bagdad is the chief trade-centre of Mesopotamia.
Arabia.—Arabia is nominally a Turkish possession, but the coast-regions only are under the control of the Sultan. The interior is peopled by nomadic tribes, who do not acknowledge the sovereignty of Turkey. The province of Yemen, on the Red Sea, is about the only noteworthy part of the peninsula. ”

“ Prejudices relative to the inconveniences and dangers of travelling in Arabia have hitherto kept the moderns in equal ignorance.”—M. Niebuhr (1792) .
What Jerusalem and Palestine are to Christendom this, and vastly more, Mecca and Arabia are to the Mohammedan world. Not only is this land the cradle of their religion and the birthplace of their prophet, the shrine toward which, for centuries, prayers and pilgrimage have gravitated; but Arabia is also, according to universal Moslem tradition, the original home of Adam after the fall and the home of all the older patriarchs. ”

“ But should any of my readers have ever approached Damascus from the side of the Anti-Lebanon, and surveyed the Ghootah from the heights above Mazzeh, they may thence form an approximate idea of the valley of Ri’ad when viewed from the north. Only p. 216this is wider and more varied, and the circle of vision here embraces vaster plains and bolder mountains; while the mixture of tropical aridity and luxuriant verdure, of crowded population and desert tracks, is one that Arabia alone can present, and in comparison with which Syria seems tame, and Italy monotonous. ”

“ To the Arab Nation it was as a birth from darkness into light; Arabia first became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people, roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world: a Hero-Prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe: see, the unnoticed becomes world-notable, the small has grown world-great; within one century afterwards, Arabia is at Grenada on this hand, at Delhi on that;—glancing in valour and splendour and the light of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great section of the world. Belief is great, life-giving. ”

“ When Khaled was within half a day's march of Riad, the Sultan came out to meet him with a great train of attendants and courtiers, with cooks bringing food and sweetmeats, and a number of musicians. And they all encamped together for a short time in the shade of the trees, for there were gardens in the place. ”

“ It is an evergreen and is always flourishing winter and summer. It is a lovely sight to see the huge clusters of ripening fruit, golden-yellow or reddish-brown, amid the bright green branches. Along the rivers in the north of Arabia, at Hassa and in Oman, date orchards stretch for miles and miles as far as you can see. Some of the Arabs have such large date gardens that they do not know the number of their trees. How do you suppose they climb the tree? The Arabs have no ladders and indeed it would be hard to make a ladder long enough to reach to the top of a tall palm tree. ”

“ Then Abdullah stopped in the darkest part of the narrow lane, seeing that they had recognised him, and conceiving that it would be a reproach for a sheikh of pure blood to run from beggars; and he feared also that it would be remembered against him on the morrow. He therefore made a pretence of being diverted, and laughed.
'Surely,' he said, 'the lame men of Riad could [218] outrun in a race the sound men of any other city. ”

“ To the north of the oases lay a belt of sand, and then an immense gravel and lava plain, filling up everything between the eastern edge of Syria and the banks of the Euphrates where Mesopotamia began. The practicability of this northern desert for men and motor-cars enabled the Arab revolt to win its ready success.
The hills of the west and the plains of the east were the parts of Arabia always most populous and active. In particular on the west, the mountains of Syria and Palestine, of Hejaz and Yemen, entered time and again into the current of our European life. ”

“ It is the boast of Arabia that it has never been conquered. This immunity from subjugation has, however, been only partial, and is owing to the nature of the country; for although the barren sands of the Hejaz and Nejed have always baffled the efforts of hostile armies, yet the more inviting region of Yemen, the Happy Arabia of the ancients, has more than once allured a conqueror, and submitted to his sway. The inhabitants of this country have been the same in blood and in manners from the dawn of history. ”

“ In its general features Arabia resembles the Sahara, of which it may be considered a continuation. Like the Sahara, it has its wastes of loose sand, its stretches of bare rocks and stones, its mountains devoid of vegetation, its oases with their wells and streams, their palm-groves and cultivated fields—islands of green amidst the surrounding desolation. Rivers proper there are none. ”

“ The interior has always been a sterile sandy desert, interspersed however by frequent green and fertile oases, which were occupied by villages and small towns, as was the case with Palmyra, which rose to power and opulence by being the centre of the trade from the Persian gulf. [12] On the east the Arabs were often in possession of the rich plains of the Hauraun and Damascus; towards the north the districts of Edessa and Emessa, as well as Irak and part of Mesopotamia towards the east, were long ruled by Arabian dynasties. ”

“ For in the background of all is the vast peninsula of Arabia, which at long intervals fills with its wild, untamable humanity to a point beyond which it cannot support them. This has been the origin of the long succession of Semitic waves—Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite, Hebrew, Nabataean, Moslem—that have flowed over Mesopotamia and Palestine; there is every reason to suppose that they will be followed by others, and that the Arab will remain master at the end, as he was in the beginning. ”

“ There are many tiny villages dotted about here and there, recognisable only by their nest of palm trees and their strips of verdure. In the dim distance, to our left, arose the mountains of Arabia; beyond, the flat coast-line of El Hasa, encircling that wild, mysterious land of Nejd, where the Wahabi dwell—a land forbidden to the infidel globe-trotter. ”

“ The third or southern division contains the highland plateaus of Asir and Yemen in the west, and J. Akhdar in the east, which with a temperate climate, due to their great elevation and their proximity to the sea, deserve, if any part of Arabia does, the name of Arabia Felix—the population is settled and agricultural, and the soil, wherever the rainfall is sufficient, is productive. The Batina coast of Oman, irrigated by the mountain streams of J. Akhdar, is perhaps the most fertile district in the peninsula ”

“ I wish that the police regulations of the city would enforce a little more cleanliness about these numerous shambles; every refuse is left to cumber the ground at scarce two yards’ distance. But dogs and dry air much alleviate the nuisance—a remark I made before at Ha’yel and Bereydah; it holds true for all Central Arabia.
“Barakat and I resolve on continuing our walk through the town. Ri’ad is divided into four quarters: one, the northeastern, to which the palaces of the royal family, the houses of the state officers, and the richer class of proprietors and government men belong. ”

“ Might I venture on the delicate and somewhat invidious task of constructing a ‘beauty-scale’ for Arabia, and for Arabia alone, the Bedouin women would, on this kalometer, be represented by zero, or at most 1°; a degree higher would represent the female sex of Nedjed; above them rank the women of Shomer, who are in their turn surmounted by those of Djowf. The fifth or sixth degree symbolizes the fair ones of Hasa; the seventh those of Katar; and lastly, by a sudden rise of ten degrees at least, the seventeenth or eighteenth would denote the pre-eminent beauties of Oman. ”