Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... the southern edge of the sands at the oasis of Jubbe, where a ridge of hard sandstone to south and west shelters a small calcareous depression from the drifting sands, and collects enough rainfall to supply wells. A long march to south of it the sand gives place abruptly to granitic gravel, and the traveller sees before him the high plateau of Jabal Shammar, with the serrated granites of Aja in the foreground. Two other Europeans had come to Jabal Shammar by other roads before any of those whose course we have already traced, except Wallin and Palgrave. Of this pair one is to be rated first among adventurers in Arabia, by reason of the daring of his feat, the quality of his observation, and the pregnant fidelity of his narrative; but the earlier and less remarkable has left a name worthy of high honour. His journey followed closely on Palgrave's, and was undoubtedly, to some extent, an outcome of it, though the traveller himself seems to have known little or nothing of his predecessor. found relief near What impression in regard to other matters Palgrave made on his imperial patron is uncertain; but, at any rate, his report on the Nejdean horse, fanciful though it was, led to immediate action. In September, 1863, a Levantine Italian, Carlo Guarmani, then or formerly consular agent for the King of Prussia at Jerusalem, and known, since his expedition to Jauf in 1851, to be able and willing to assume disguise in Arab lands, received a summons to Paris. This was followed by a further mandate to Turin; and, in the event he returned to Jerusalem, intrusted with a mission to buy stallions in Nejd for their French and Sardinian majesties. The envoy set out late in January, 1864, consoled, he says, amid the tears and dismal prognostications of...
