![A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race. Vol. 2 [of 2] - Lady Anne Blunt](/cover_206253.jpg "A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race. Vol. 2 [of 2] - Lady Anne Blunt")
1
Abbas Pasha’s Seglawieh is reported to have had two foals while in Egypt; one of them died, and the other was given to the late King of Italy, and left descendants, now in the possession of the present king.
2
We measured one, a pollard, thirty-six feet round the trunk at five feet from the ground.
3
Rassam, who has been digging at Babylon, informs me that these inscriptions are in the ancient Phœnician character. It would seem that the Phœnicians, who were a nation of shopkeepers, were in the habit of sending out commercial travellers with samples of goods all over Asia; and wherever they stopped on the road, if there was a convenient bit of soft rock, they scratched their names on it, and drew pictures of animals. The explanation may be the true one, but how does it come that these tradesmen should choose purely desert subjects for their artistic
1
Abbas Pasha’s Seglawieh is reported to have had two foals while in Egypt; one of them died, and the other was given to the late King of Italy, and left descendants, now in the possession of the present king.
2
We measured one, a pollard, thirty-six feet round the trunk at five feet from the ground.
3
Rassam, who has been digging at Babylon, informs me that these inscriptions are in the ancient Phœnician character. It would seem that the Phœnicians, who were a nation of shopkeepers, were in the habit of sending out commercial travellers with samples of goods all over Asia; and wherever they stopped on the road, if there was a convenient bit of soft rock, they scratched their names on it, and drew pictures of animals. The explanation may be the true one, but how does it come that these tradesmen should choose purely desert subjects for their artistic efforts – camels, ostriches, ibexes, and horsemen with lances. I should have fancied rather that these were the work of Arabs, or of whoever represented the Arabs, in days gone by, anyhow of people living in the country. But I am no archæologist.
4
It was to Taybetism that Abdallah ibn Saoud fled ten years ago when he was driven by his brother out of Aared, and from it that he sent that treacherous message to Midhat Pasha at Bagdad which brought the Turks into Hasa and broke up the Wahhabi Empire.
5
Red is said to be the female and green the male, but some say all are green at first and become red afterwards.
6
Compare Mr. Palgrave’s account.
7
Compare Fatalla’s account of the war between the Mesenneh and the Dafir near Tudmor at the beginning of the present century.
8
Belkis is the name usually given by tradition to the Queen of Sheba.
9
I have since been told by dentists that the fact of a third set of teeth being cut in old age is not unknown to science.
