GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1865. 



387 



any considerable intercourse with adjacent 

 States, and that the Wahabites produced 

 among themselves whatever they needed, and 

 had no occasion or desire to cultivate relations 

 of trade or intercourse with foreigners or for- 

 eign nations. In a subsequent interview, how- 

 ever, he showed himself more complaisant, 

 and urged the colonel to visit all quarters 

 of his kingdom. Finding that the subordinate 

 officers of the government regarded him and his 

 companions, with covert hostility, and that 

 his prime minister, the son of a negro and a 

 Georgian slave, was particularly bitter against 

 them, Lieut.-Col. Pelly deemed it best to return 

 without delay to Bushire, and made his way 

 almost due east through the fertile oasis of 

 El-Ahsa, to the lower portion of the Persian 

 Gulf. 



In December, 1864, Signer C. Guarmani, a 

 highly intelligent Italian' traveller and explorer, 

 thoroughly acquainted with the Arabic tongue 

 and customs, left Jerusalem, under commis- 

 sion from Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, to 

 procure for him some Arabian horses of the 

 pure Nedjed breed. He assumed the name of 

 Ivalil Aga, and passed as a Turkish Aga, travel- 

 ling in the service of one of the Pachas of Con- 

 stantinople. He explored with considerable 

 thoroughness the kingdom of Djebel Shomer, 

 visiting Hail or Kail, its capital, twice, and spend- 

 ing some time there, and penetrating into the 

 Wahabite country as far as Oneiza the capital 

 of the province of El-Kasim. On his return, 

 having procured four stallions of great beauty, 

 he encountered a large force of Beuouins of the 

 tribe of Scererat, who attacked add plundered 

 the caravan with which he was travelling, kill- 

 ing one of his horses. He reached Jerusalem 

 on his return about the 1st of June, 1865. 

 Neither of these explorers has traversed so 

 much of the region of Central Arabia as Mr. 

 Palgrave, but both have visited some portions 

 which he did not. Guarmani, following the 

 mountainous region near the boundaries of El- 

 Hidjaz, about 150 miles west of Palgrave's 

 route, avoided the great desert of Nefud, in 

 which Palgrave came near losing his life. 

 There is still a vast region south of Palgrave's 

 route in the Wahabite kingdom unexplored, 

 but much of it is undoubtedly desert. 



Dr. J. G. Wetzstein, an eminent German ge- 

 ographer, has devoted two or three elaborate 

 papers in the Zeitschrift fur Allgemeine Erd- 

 kunde to the geography of Northern Arabia and 

 the Syrian Desert ; and availing himself of all the 

 recent explorations of that region, he has given 

 a more complete and satisfactory account of it 

 than any heretofore published. 



Syria and Palestine have been explored with 

 great thoroughness during the past two years. 

 M. E. G. Rey, one of the members of the French 

 Exploring Expedition, during the autumn of 

 1864, made a very thorough examination of 

 the chain of Ansaries, a part of the Lebanon 

 Mountains, visiting its principal summits, Naby 

 Metu, Naby Salek, and Sultan Ibrahim, which 



he found of an average height of about 4,060 

 feet. M. Vignes, the commander of one of the 

 vessels comprising the Luynes Expedition, ex- 

 plored the Syrian Desert from Horns to Pal- 

 myra, discovered many extensive mines hither- 

 to unknown, and has contributed to our knowl- 

 edge of the character, manners, and customs of 

 the Arabs of this desert. M. Vincent Guerin 

 has made a careful survey of Mount Tabor, and 

 has described, in the Bulletin de la Societe de 

 Geographic, its configuration, its ruins, and the 

 magnificent panorama visible from its summit. 

 He states its height as 2,470 feet above Lake 

 Tiberias, 1,950 feet above the Mediterranean, 

 and 1,300 feet above the plain of Esdraelon. 

 The Baroness von Gertsdorff has communicated 

 to Petermann's Mittheilungen a very full ac- 

 count of an exploring tour made with her late 

 husband through Syria from Aleppo to the 

 Euphrates. Our countryman, the late Rev. Dr. 

 Edward Robinson, had prepared, and his liter- 

 ary executors have published, a " Physical Ge- 

 ography of Palestine." By far the most thor- 

 ough and complete work on the physical geog- 

 raphy, and especially the orography of Pales- 

 tine, is the " Treatise of Herr C. W. M. Van de 

 Velde on Palestine," the result of two years' 

 exploration, published in Petermann's Mitthei- 

 lungen for May, June, and August, 1,865. Herr 

 Von de Velde has, with commendable care and 

 perseverance, ascertained the 7 elevation above 

 or depression below the sea level of 450 places 

 in Palestine, giving in many instances the vary- 

 ing observations of several other explorers as 

 well as his own, and has brought together a 

 more complete view of the physical geography 

 of the Holy Land than has ever previously been 

 published, and has accompanied it with an ad- 

 mirable map. 



Lieut.-Col. H. J. Stebnitzky, a Russian staff- 

 officer of Tiflis, has been engaged in investigat- 

 ing the condition, area, and population of the 

 Caucasian provinces, and reported, in 1865, to 

 the Government and the Imperial Geographical 

 Society the results of his explorations so far as 

 completed the area of the three Cis-Caucasian 

 provinces at 88,909 square miles, and that of 

 the seven Trans-Caucasian provinces at 84,959.5 

 square miles, making the whole area of the 

 Caucasian Government 173,852.56 square miles. 

 The population of Cis-Caucasia was 1,262,524, 

 or 142 to the square mile ; of Trans-Cau- 

 casia, 2,894,943, or 34 to the square mile, and 

 and of the whole 4,157,517, or 239 to the square 

 mile. Of this population 2,185,157 (864,996 in 

 the Cis-Caucasian, and 1,380,161 in the Trans- 

 Caucasian provinces) were Christians, viz., 

 1,615,053 Greek Church; 56,601 other sects 

 approximating to the Greek Church; 491,356 

 Gregorian or orthodox Armenians ; 12,872 Ar- 

 menian Catholics ; 3,479 Roman Catholics ; 

 5,777 Lutherans and Reformed Church. There 

 were also 1,972,310 belonging to the non-Chris- 

 tian religions; of these 1,944,651 were Moham- 

 medans, 16,138 Jews, and 11,521 Pagans. The 

 cities and towns of the Caucasus are small. 



