496 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



the present position of the question, and the influence 

 that is inevitably exercised by the extension of our com 

 mercial relations with Arabia. 



All this has not very much to do with my journey to 

 Taif, to which I shall return in another letter, in which I 

 promise to be less digressive. 



II. OUR COMPANY 



I started for Taif a little before noon on Wednesday, 

 January 28. The High Shereef, in the old spirit of 

 Eastern hospitality, had not only sent me a guard, but 

 furnished the dromedaries for our journey and made pro 

 vision for my reception as his guest at Taif. In Arabia 

 the entertainment of strangers is still the duty, and in 

 some sense the prerogative, of princes. A young friend 

 from Oneize, in the Nejd, asked me the other day whether, 

 if he visited England, the Queen would receive him as 

 her guest. In Oneize, he said, the king (so they call 

 their ruler) would not permit a stranger to seek hospitality 

 with any one else. Our cavalcade consisted of five 

 dromedaries. The animal which I rode was a very hand 

 some and well -trained beast, gaily caparisoned with 

 silken bridle and a mountain of gorgeous saddle trappings, 

 with silk tassels, and green and yellow embroideries, the 

 whole crowned by a crimson sheepskin laid between two 

 pillars of chased silver. There is no doubt a great sense 

 of dignity in sitting on such a throne as this, high above 

 the heads of the walking multitude ; but I confess that, 

 when I first mounted my dromedary, my chief concern 

 was how to keep the hinder pillar out of the small of my 

 back as I swayed to and fro with the undulations of the 

 camel s body. A well- broken dromedary, which differs 

 from a common camel as a racer does from a cart horse 

 in breeding and fineness of points, has some paces which 

 are far from uncomfortable, when one has got well settled 

 down on a pile of soft rugs, with one leg hooked round the 



