Proceedings of 'Learned Societies. 77 



ing a little before daybreak, and continuing the march until sunset. 

 Their astronomical observations were taken at night, when the Arab 

 attendants were asleep ; and for this purpose they planted their 

 tent with the entrance open to the North star. Soon after leaving 

 Kowait all traces of road cease, and the Wahabee territory com- 

 mences with boundless, gently-undulating plains, which in this 

 early spring-time were slightly sprinkled with grass and flowers. 

 Snakes, lizards, and insects abounded, but no human habitation was 

 seen until they reached JVejed Proper, and only a single tree and 

 one group of wells. The physical character of the country was 

 varied by a series of seven ridges of sand hills, which lay parallel to 

 each other and to the shore-line of the Persian Gulf, and which the 

 party again crossed when returning by another route. They extend 

 over many degrees of latitude, and are separated by narrow valleys ; 

 but there is, independently of this, a gradual general rise of the 

 country from the seaboard towards the north-west. After ten days' 

 march across these sandy ridges and narrow valleys, the party saw 

 before them a boundless plain called Ormah, sprinkled here and 

 there with brushwood. Wells and running streams were met with, 

 but the latter soon terminate in the arid country to the east and 

 west. The Ormah district is bounded on the west by a remarkable 

 ridge, through a picturesque gap in which the road leads into Shaab 

 an upland plain a few miles in width, bounded by the Aridh hills 

 which are succeeded on the north by the Towaij chain, the two 

 being separated by the well-peopled plain of Mehmeel. The culti- 

 vated and populous district of Sedeyr is a strip of land lying imme- 

 diately under the Towaij range. The first town they entered in the 

 centre table land was Sidoos, a cheerful, neat-looking place, em- 

 bosomed in date-groves, where they were well received and invited 

 to turn Mussulmen. They then turned eastward towards Riadh, 

 the Wahabee capital, arriving fifteen days after their departure from 

 Kowait. Colonel Pelly had three interviews with the Amir or 

 Wahabee ruler, who is both the spiritual and temporal head of the 

 Wahabee territories, and in all respects absolute throuo-kout his 

 dominions. The Amir was a man of exceeding dignity and self- 

 confidence. He treated the British Envoy throughout with respect, 

 and explained that the Wahabee empire was cut off, by the physical 

 character of the country, from external relations ; consequently he 

 could have no foreign relations, nor did he wish for any, espe- 

 cially with the English. He claimed for the Wahabees the credit of 

 having saved the Mahommedan religion from falling off from its 

 original purity, and proposed to Colonel Pelly that he should become 

 a Mahommedan. As far as the chief himself was concerned, Colonel 

 Pelly believed that no obstacle would be placed in the way of a 

 scientific exploration of the country, but the persons who surround 

 him would be likely to present the greatest difficulties, on account 

 of their intense bigotry and hatred of foreigners. The party re- 

 turned to Okair, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, by way of El 

 Ahsa district, a fertile oasis, from 20 to 30 miles in length by 12 

 in width. The longitude of Riadh is 46 s 41' 48", the latitude 

 24° 38' 34". 



