Book Description

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. 1866 edition. Excerpt: ... REMARKS ON THJ5 ROUTE ACROSS ARABIA, FROM EL-KATIF IN THE PERSIAN GULF TO YAMRO IN THE RED SEA. With a view to elucidate the general direction of my route, to mark the probable relative positions of the intervening towns or places which I passed in this journey, and to render the narrative of His Excellency Ibrahim Pacha's exploits more clear, I have affixed a route across Arabia from Katif to Yambo. During the first stages I was obliged to guess at the distances, not being as yet sufficiently acquainted with the pace and gait of the camel to form an idea of the rate at which we were moving; a few days' observation and timing the animal's pace enabled me to form a tolerably correct opinion, and thence deduce a rate for my general guidance, by calculating from the number of hours we were actually on the march. For marches not exceeding eight hours I calculated three miles an hour, and for inarches exceeding that number of hours I lessened the computed distance to two and half and to two and three-quarter miles per hour, making a deduction in some cases for hilly and rocky ground. The general direction of the line of march I took frequently with a very good compass, always alighting from my camel, its motion being too rough to admit of a compass being used even when in a walk. Prom Katif we proceeded by broken stages to Oomerrubeeah in the desert, and thence by a retrograde and circuitous route to Ul Ahsa, * from whence we returned very unexpectedly to Oomerrubeeah by a different route. Ou laying down the track thus far there does not appear to be any considerable error, as the distances and bearings which I had taken brought me within seven or eight miles of my first calculation. From this point we again set out with the intention of...