2]***


This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

          [Picture: Portrait of Lady Anne Blunt in Arab Costume]





                          A PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD,


                      _THE CRADLE OF THE ARAB RACE_.

                                * * * * *

                A VISIT TO THE COURT OF THE ARAB EMIR, AND
                         “OUR PERSIAN CAMPAIGN.”

                                * * * * *

                           BY LADY ANNE BLUNT.
             AUTHOR OF “THE BEDOUIN TRIBES OF THE EUPHRATES.”

                                * * * * *

                         IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.

                                * * * * *

               WITH MAP, PORTRAITS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
                          THE AUTHOR’S DRAWINGS.

                                * * * * *

                            _SECOND EDITION_.

                                * * * * *

                                 LONDON:
                      JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET,
                                  1881.

                         [_All Rights reserved_.]

                                * * * * *




These Volumes Are Dedicated


                                    TO

                      SIR HENRY CRESWICKE RAWLINSON,

                              K.C.B., F.R.S.

                                    BY

                                                            THE AUTHORESS.




PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.


READERS of our last year’s adventures on the Euphrates will hardly need
it to be explained to them why the present journey was undertaken, nor
why it stands described upon our title page as a “Pilgrimage.”  The
journey to Nejd forms the natural complement of the journey through
Mesopotamia and the Syrian Desert; while Nejd itself, with the romantic
interest attached to its name, seems no unworthy object of a religious
feeling, such as might prompt the visit to a shrine.  Nejd, in the
imagination of the Bedouins of the North, is a region of romance, the
cradle of their race, and of those ideas of chivalry by which they still
live.  There Antar performed his labours of Hercules, and Hatim Taï the
more historical hero entertained his guests.  To the Ánazeh and Shammar,
especially, whose northward migrations date only from a few generations
back, the tradition of their birth-place is still almost a recollection;
and even to the Arabs of the earlier invasions, the townsmen of such
places as Bozra, Palmyra, and Deyr, and to the Taï Bedouins, once lords
of Jebel Shammar, it appeals with a fascination more than equal to that
of the Hejaz itself.  Nejd is to all of them what Palestine is to the
Jews, England to the American and Australian colonists; but with this
difference, that they are cut off from the object of their filial
reverence more absolutely in practice than these by an intervening gulf
of desert less hospitable than any sea.  It is rare to meet anywhere in
the North an Arab who has crossed the Great Nefûd.

To us too, imbued as we were with the fancies of the Desert, Nejd had
long assumed the romantic colouring of a holy land; and when it was
decided that we were to visit Jebel Shammar, the metropolis of Bedouin
life, our expedition presented itself as an almost pious undertaking; so
that it is hardly an exaggeration, even now that it is over, and we are
once more in Europe, to speak of it as a pilgrimage.  Our pilgrimage then
it is, though the religion in whose name we travelled was only one of
romance.

Its circumstances, in spite of certain disappointments which the
narrative will reveal, were little less romantic than the idea.  Readers
who followed our former travels to their close, may remember a certain
Mohammed Abdallah, son of the Sheykh of Palmyra, a young man who, after
travelling with us by order of the Pasha from Deyr to his native town,
had at some risk of official displeasure assisted us in evading the
Turkish authorities, and accomplishing our visit to the Ánazeh.  It may
further be remembered that, in requital of this service and because we
had conceived an affection for him (for he appeared a really high-minded
young fellow), Mohammed had been given his choice between a round sum of
money, and the honour of becoming “the Beg’s” brother, a choice which he
had chivalrously decided in favour of the brotherhood.  We had then
promised him that, if all went well with us, we would return to Damascus
the following winter, and go in his company to Nejd, where he believed he
had relations, and that we would help him there to a wife from among his
own people.

The idea and the promise were in strict accordance with Bedouin notions,
and greatly delighted both him