The day after their arrival they made a call upon Mohanna, the ruler of Bereydah, in order to ask his assistance in proceeding to Nedjed. But he was too busy in devising means to exact more tribute-money from the Persian pilgrims to give any notice to two persons whose dress and appearance gave no token of wealth. This neglect afterward proved to be a piece of good fortune. They then spent several days in a vain attempt to find camels and guides; no one was willing to undertake the service. The central province of Nedjed, the genuine Wahabee country, is to the rest of Arabia a sort of lion’s den, into which few venture and yet fewer return. An elderly man of Bereydah, of whom Palgrave demanded information, simply replied, “It is Nedjed; he who enters it does not come out again,” and this is almost literally true. Its mountains, once the fastnesses of robbers and assassins, are at the present day equally, or even more, formidable as the stronghold of fanatics who consider everyone save themselves an infidel or a heretic, and who regard the slaughter of an infidel or a heretic as a duty, at least a merit. In addition to this general cause of anticipating a worse than cold reception in Nedjed, wars and bloodshed, aggression and tyranny, have heightened the original antipathy of the surrounding population into special and definite resentment for wrongs received, perhaps inflicted, till Nedjed has become for all but her born sons doubly dangerous and doubly hateful. Another circumstance, which seemed to make Palgrave’s situation more difficult, although it was equally fortunate in the end, was a rebellion which had broken out in the neighboring city of ’Oneyzah, headed by Zamil, a native chief. The town was at that time besieged by the Wahabees, yet held out gallantly, and the sympathy of the people of all Kaseem was so strongly on the side of Zamil, that only the presence of the Wahabee troops in Bereydah kept that city, also, from revolt. The rebels had sent deputations to Mecca and also to Djebel Shomer for assistance, and there seemed to be some possibility of a general Central Arabian revolt against the hated Wahabee supremacy. It seemed thus to be a most unpropitious time for penetrating the stronghold of Nedjed. Palgrave did not so much fear the suspicion of being a European, as that of being an Ottoman spy. His first need, however, was the means of going forward safely. He thus described how an apparent chance made him acquainted with the man to whom almost the entire success of his later travels was due: