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A Bedouin assured me that twenty encampments of different tribes may now be seen here in the course of one day's march such is the security maintained by the Wahaby chief, who is inexorable in the punishment of robbers. The fine pastures of Nedjed have produced an excellent breed of camels, more numerous here than in any other Arabian province of equal extent.
According to the orders of the Sultan, whose nominal supremacy over the Hedjaz was recognised until the last Wahaby conquest, the revenue arising from the customs collected at Djidda should have been divided equally between the Pasha and the sherif of Mekka, while the former was to have exclusively the command of the town.
El Aredh is less fertile than El Kasym, from which, in fact, it is partly supplied with provisions. Its principal town, Derayeb, has always been a place of note, but much increased since it has become the capital of the Wahaby power and sect. The town is not walled.
The expenses attending the increased forces of the Sherif during the Wahaby war, were considerable; it was necessary to make donations to the Sherif and the Bedouins, to keep them in his interest; but it happened, for once, that his interests were equally their own; and Bedouins, though never tired of asking for presents, are generally content with small sums.
Many complaints were made at Constantinople against this man, but the Sultan had not power enough to dispossess him; and whenever the caravan arrived from Syria, Hassan el Kalay showed He threw great obstacles in their way; and it is generally ascribed to him, that the last caravan from Damascus, which attempted to perform the journey after the Wahaby conquest, was obliged to return to Syria.
It was in this spot that Mohammed Aly's first expedition against the Wahabys, under the command of his son Tousoun Beg, was defeated in autumn 1811. They had possession of both mountains, and the discharges of musketry from each side Most of the Sheikhs of the tribe of Harb, and the two great southern Wahaby chiefs, Othman el Medheyfe and Tamy, were present, with two of the sons of Saoud.
The mansion of the Wahaby chief stands on the mountain, at about ten minutes' walk from the town: it is spacious, but without any splendid apartments: all the married members of the reigning family have their own chambers; and there are many rooms for guests, with whom the house is constantly filled; for all the chiefs of tribes who come to Derayeh on business are invited to the mansion or palace of the great Sheikh.
Before the Wahaby invasion, this was a commercial town, to which the Arabs of the country around, at the distance of many days' journey, resorted, that they might pur-chase articles of dress; while those of the mountains brought caravans of wheat and barley: it was also a considerable entrepot for coffee, brought on camels from the mountains of Yemen by Be-douins, who thus eluded the heavy duties levied in the harbours of the Arabian coast.
In circumference Hedjer extends several miles; the soil is fertile, watered by many wells and a running stream: here are generally large encampments of Bedouins. The Wahaby chief, Saoud, intended to build a town on this spot; his olemas deterred him, by declaring that it would be impious to restore a place that the Almighty had visited with his wrath.
They twice repulsed the Wahaby chief Saoud, who had subdued all the other Arab tribes except the Beni Sobh, of the Harb race, in the northern parts of the Hedjaz. The Beni Yam made a kind of treaty with the Wahabys, and were allowed to perform the pilgrimage annually.
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