The chief authorities on the interior of Oman were, until recent date, Niebuhr, Wellsted (1835), Whitelock (1838), Eloy (1843) and Palgrave, (1863). Palgrave, however, only visited the coast and his account of the interior and its history is pure romance. Later travellers have visited the chief cities of Jebel Achdar and corroborated the accuracy of Lieutenant Wellsted in his “Travels in Arabia.” Unfortunately Wellsted’s acquaintance even with colloquial Arabic was very limited and he frankly avows that he encountered serious difficulties in understanding the people. “Wellsted’s map,” says Badger, “is the only one of the province which we possess drawn up from personal observation and ... it affords little or no certain indication of the numerous towns and villages beyond the restricted routes of the travellers. It is remarkable and by no means creditable to the British Government in India, that, notwithstanding our intimate political and commercial relations with Oman, for the last century, we know actually less of that country beyond the coast than we do of the Lake districts of Africa.”[31] Badger wrote in 1860, but although Colonel Miles and others have visited the region of Jebel Achdar, all the country beyond is still largely _terra incognita_. No one has ever made the journey beyond the range of mountains or solved the mystery of Western Oman, which is still a blank on the best maps; nor do we know anything of the land 100 miles southwest of Muscat, save by Arab hearsay.