[1880-1881] A JOURNEY IN THE HEjAZ 485 



recommended to any one who has not some knowledge of 

 Arabic. There is little to attract the sportsman, and no 

 opening for commercial enterprise. It is not, therefore, 

 surprising that even the more accessible parts of the 

 Hejaz have been very little visited, and very imperfectly 

 described. I fancy, therefore, that some account of a 

 ten days excursion to Taif, from which I have just 

 returned, may prove acceptable to your readers. 



The town of Taif lies nearly due east slightly south 

 ward of Mecca, and the three towns of Jeddah, Mecca, 

 and Taif are nearly in a line. The distances are not very 

 great. Mecca is reckoned to be forty miles from Jeddah, 

 and Taif by the straight road is, I suppose, about the 

 same distance from Mecca. But the direct road is very 

 difficult, ascending the great mountain of Kara by paths 

 impracticable except for mules and a peculiar breed of 

 mountain camels. Thus the great highway from Mecca 

 to Taif makes a wide sweep to the north, winding round 

 the Kara range, and Franks who cannot pass through 

 Mecca have to make a still farther deviation, so as to 

 keep always outside the boundaries of the Haram, or 

 consecrated land. It took me four days and a half to 

 get to Taif by dromedary. I returned over the Kara 

 range in two days and a half, taking mules across the 

 mountains, and being met by the dromedaries in the 

 plain below. This was hurried travelling. The weather 

 had broken, and there were rumours of a war between 

 the Oteibe and the Harb, which might call for the return 

 of my escort to Mecca. On the other hand, our pace 

 going to Taif was not rapid, the weather being not so 

 warm as is desirable to bring a camel to his best paces. 

 A fair estimate would be that Taif can be reached by 

 moderately easy stages in four days by way of the Derb- 

 es-Seil, while the return by Kara should be spread over 

 three. 



The Hejaz is, in theory, a province of the Turkish 

 Empire, and, to a certain extent, the theory is supported 



