Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 10TH CENTURY: ARABIA 709
" Resident " in Bushire, Colonel Pelly, who journeyed from
Quwait (Koweit) at the northwest point of the Persian Gulf,
due south to Riyadh, 1 in the district called Nejd. Just before
reaching Riyadh he made a short detour to Sedus,
while on the return trip he travelled due east via Hof huf to
the Gulf, by a somewhat more northerly route than that
taken by Palgrave. Although in important discoveries his
tour cannot compare with those of Wallin and Palgrave,
still
with scientific precision he located Riyadh, Hof huf, and
other places, and determined the physical character of the
whole region between Riyadh and the Gulf. Here we
should mention the fact that between Yemama, with its
capital
Riyadh, and the coast region of Bahrain — the ancient
" Sea-country " of the Babylonian inscriptions — lies a sandy
desert (the so-called Dehna) about eight days' journey in
width, which Pelly and before him Palgrave had to cross on
their way.
In the same year, 1865, Wetzstein, at that time Prussian
consul at Damascus, published 2 the important information
which he had gained from different Arabs concerning the
principal highways of Central and Northern Arabia.
The names coming next in order, those of the Jewish
Orientalist Joseph Halevy of Paris, and Heinrich von
Maltzan, bring us back to South Arabia. The former took
advantage of the fact that in Yemen there are a number of
Hebrew communities, tolerated by Islam. Near the end
of the year 1869, in the guise of a poor Jew from Jerusalem,
he undertook important explorations in South Arabia, the
land of the Queen of Sheba, around whose name so manv
legends cluster. The character which Halevy had assumed
exposed him often to unfair treatment, but he also was
1
See Pelly's own report, " A Visit to the Wahabee Capital," in the
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. xxxv.
2
Under the title Nordarabien und die syrische Wiiste nach den Angaben der
Eingeborenen in
52
the Berliner Zeitschrift fur allgemeine Erdkunde, vol. xviii.