The long repose and seclusion of Central Arabia was first broken during the present century. It may be well to state, very briefly, the circumstances which led to it, since they will explain the great difficulty and danger which all modern explorers must encounter. Early in the last century, an Arabian named Abd el-Wahab, scandalized at what he believed to be the corruption of the Moslem faith, began preaching a Reformation. He advocated the slaughter or forcible conversion of heretics, the most rigid forms of fasting and prayer, the disuse of tobacco, and various other changes in the Oriental habits of life. Having succeeded in converting the chief of Nedjed, Mohammed Ibu-Savod, he took up his residence in Derreyeh, the capital, which thenceforth became the rendezvous for all his followers, who were named Wahabees. They increased to such an extent that their authority became supreme throughout Central Arabia, and the successor of Ibu-Savod was able to call an army of 100,000 men into the field, and defy the Ottoman power.
In the year 1803 the Wahabees took and plundered Mecca, and slew great numbers of the pilgrims who had gathered there. A second expedition against Medina failed, but the annual caravan of pilgrims was robbed and dispersed. Finally, in 1809, the Sultan transferred to Mohammed Ali, of Egypt, the duty of suppressing this menacing religious and political rebellion. The first campaign in Arabia was a failure; the second, under Ibrahim Pasha, was successful. He overcame the Wahabees in 1818, captured Derreyeh, and razed it to the ground. In 1828 they began a second war against Turkey, but were again defeated. Since then they have refrained from any further aggressive movement, but their hostility and bigotry are as active as ever. The Wahabee doctrine flatters the clannish and exclusive spirit of the race, and will probably prevent, for a long time, any easy communication between Arabia and the rest of the world.
The greater part of our present knowledge of Arabia has been obtained since the opening of this century. The chief seaports and the route from Suez to Mt. Sinai were known during the Middle Ages, but all else was little better than a blank. Within the last fifty or sixty years the mountains of Edom have been explored, the rock-hewn city of Petra discovered, the holy cities of Medina and Mecca visited by intelligent Europeans; Yemen, Hadramaut, and Oman partly traversed; and, last of all, we have a very clear and satisfactory account of Nedjed and the other central regions of Arabia, by the intrepid English traveller, Mr. Palgrave.
Thus, only the southern interior of the peninsula remains to be visited. The name given to it by the Arabs, Roba el-Khaly, “the abode of emptiness,” no doubt describes its character. It is an immense, undulating, sandy waste, dotted with scarce and small oases, which give water and shelter to the Bedouins, but without any large tract of habitable land, and consequently without cities, or other than the rudest forms of political organization.
CHAPTER II.
Early Explorers of Arabia.
When the habit of travel began to revive in the Middle Ages, its character was either religious or commercial, either in the form of pilgrimages to Rome, Palestine, (whenever possible), and the shrines of popular saints, or of journeys to the Levant, Persia and the Indies, with the object of acquiring wealth by traffic, the profits of which increased in the same proportion as its hazards. From the time of Trajan’s expedition to Arabia, (in A.D. 117) down to the sixteenth century, we have no report of the history or condition of the country except such as can be drawn from the earlier Jewish and Christian traditions and the later Mohammedan records.
The first account of a visit to Arabia which appears to be worthy of credence, is that given by Ludovico Bartema, of Rome. After visiting Egypt, he joined the caravan of pilgrims at Damascus, in 1503, in the company of a Mameluke captain, himself disguised as a Mameluke renegade. After several attacks from the Bedouins of the desert, the caravan reached Medina, which he describes as containing three hundred houses. Bartema gives a very correct description of the tomb of the Prophet, and scoffs at the then prevalent belief that the latter’s coffin is suspended in the air, between four lodestones.
He thus describes an adventure which befell his company the same evening after their visit to the mosque. “At almost three of the night, ten or twelve of the elders of the sect of Mohammed entered into our caravan, which remained not past a stone’s cast from the gate of the city. These ran hither and thither, crying like madmen with these words: ‘Mohammed, the messenger and apostle of God, shall rise again! O Prophet, O God, Mohammed shall rise again! Have mercy on us, God!’ Our captain and we, all raised with this cry, took weapon with all expedition, suspecting that the Arabs were come to rob our caravan. We asked what was the cause of that exclamation, and what they cried? For they cried as do the Christians when suddenly any marvellous thing chanceth. The elders answered: ‘Saw you not the lightning which shone out of the sepulchre of the Prophet Mohammed?’ Our captain answered that he saw nothing, and we also being demanded, answered in like manner. Then said one of the old men: ‘Are you slaves?’ This to say bought men, meaning thereby, Mamelukes. Then said our captain: ‘We are indeed Mamelukes.’ Then again the old man said: ‘You, my lords, cannot see heavenly things, as being neophiti, that is, newly come to the faith, and not yet confirmed in our religion.’ It is therefore to be understood that none other shining came out of the sepulchre than a certain flame, which the priests caused to come out of the open place of the tower, whereby they would have deceived us.”
Leaving Medina, the caravan travelled for three days over a “broad plain,” all covered with white sand, in manner as small as flour. Then they passed a mountain, where they heard “a certain horrible noise and cry,” and after journeying for ten days longer, during which time they twice fought with “fifty thousand Arabians,” they reached Mecca, of which Bartema says: “The city is very fair, and well inhabited, and containeth in round form six thousand houses as well builded as ours, and some that cost three or four thousand pieces of gold: it hath no walls.”
Bartema describes the ceremonies performed by the pilgrims, with tolerable correctness. His fellowship with the Mamelukes seems to have been a complete protection up to the time when the caravan was ready to set out on its return to Damascus, and the members of the troop were ordered to accompany it, on pain of death. Then he managed to escape by persuading a Mohammedan that he understood the art of casting cannon, and wished to reach India, in order to assist the native monarchs in defending themselves against the Portuguese. Reaching Jedda in safety, Bartema sailed for Persia, visiting Yemen on the way; made his way to India, and after various adventures, returned to Europe by way of the Cape of Good Hope.
The second European who made his way to the holy cities was Joseph Pitts, an Englishman, who was captured by an Algerine pirate, as a sailor-boy of sixteen, and forced by his master to become a Mussulman. After some years, when he had acquired the Arabic and Turkish languages, he accompanied his master for a pilgrimage to Mecca, by way of Cairo, Suez and the Red Sea. Here he received his freedom; but continued with the pilgrims to Medina, and returned to Egypt by land, through Arabia Petræa. After fifteen years of exile, he succeeded in escaping to Italy, and thence made his way back to England.
Pitts gives a minute and generally correct account of the ceremonies at Mecca. He was not, of course, learned in Moslem theology, and his narrative, like that of all former visitors to Mecca, has been superseded by the more intelligent description of Burckhardt; yet it coincides with the latter in all essential particulars. His description of the city and surrounding scenery is worth quoting, from the quaint simplicity of its style.
“First, as to Mecca. It is