[Gutenberg 42215] • A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race. Vol. 1 [of 2] / A Visit to the Court of the Arab Emir, and "our Persian Campaign."

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ...on lemonade. January 8.--A cloudy, almost foggy morning, and a shower of rain. We wished Dowass and his soldiers good-bye, and they really seemed sorry to part with us. They are extraordinarily goodtempered, honest people, and have treated us with great kindness. Dowass's last attention to me was the present of an enormous treng as big as a large cocoanut. The trengs are sour not sweet lemons, but they have a rind an inch thick, sweet enough to be eaten though very woolly. Meskakeh, where we have come to-day, is about twenty miles from J6f, and there is a Avell-beaten track between the two places. We were a rather numerous party, as several Jofi came with us for company, and we have Areybi ibn Aruk, Nassr's son, and another Aruk, a cousin of his, and a man with a gun who is by way of going on with us to Hail. All the party but ourselves were on foot, for the J6fi never ride, having neither horses nor camels nor even donkeys. One of the men had with him an ostrich eggshell slung in a sort of network, and used like a gourd to hold water. He told me that ostriches are common in the Nefud, which is now close by. The scenery all the way was fantastic, sometimes picturesque. First we crossed the punchbowl of J6f to the other side, passing several ruined farms, the ground absolutely barren, and the lowest part of it covered with salt. The whole of this depression is but a mile across. Then our road rose suddenly a hundred feet up a steep bank of sand, and then again a hundred and sixty feet over some stony ridges, descending again to cross a subbkha with a fringe of tamarisks just now in flower, then tracts of fine ironstone gravel, undistinguishable from sheep's droppings. About two hours from J6f is a large water-hole, which the Jofi call a...