“Afterward, the minister of foreign affairs condescended to come in person, and, sweetly smiling, informed us that our temporary habitation was ready, and that Aboo-’Eysa would conduct us thither without delay. We then begged to know, if possible, the king’s good-will and pleasure regarding our stay and our business in the town. For on our first introduction we had duly stated, in the most correct Wahabee phraseology, that we had come to Ri’ad ‘desiring the favor of God, and secondly of Feysul; and that we begged of God, and secondly of Feysul, permission to exercise in the town our medical profession, under the protection of God, and in the next place of Feysul.’ For Dogberry’s advice to ‘set God first, for God defend but God should go before such villains,’ is here observed to the letter; whatever is desired, purported, or asked, the Deity must take the lead. Nor this only, but even the subsequent mention of the creature must nowise be coupled with that of the Creator by the ordinary conjunction ‘w’,’ that is, ‘and,’ since that would imply equality between the two—flat blasphemy in word or thought. Hence the disjunctive ‘thumma,’ or ‘next after,’ ‘at a distance,’ must take the place of ‘w’,’ under penalty of prosecution under the statute. ‘Unlucky the man who visits Nedjed without being previously well versed in the niceties of grammar,’ said Barakat; ‘under these schoolmasters a mistake might cost the scholar his head.’ But of this more anon; to return to our subject, ’Abd-el-’Azeez, a true politician, answered our second interrogation with a vague assurance of good-will and unmeaning patronage. Meantime the Na’ib and his train marched off in high dudgeon to their quarters, and Aboo-’Eysa gave our dromedaries a kick, made them rise, and drove them before us to our new abode.” In the course of a day or two the travellers discovered what a sensation the arrival of their caravan had produced at court. The old king, Feysul, now in the thirty-third year of his reign, possessed all the superstition and bigotry of the old Wahabees, and the sudden presence of Syrians, suspected of being Christians, Persians, and Meccans, in his capital, was too much for him. He at once left the palace, took up his temporary residence in a house outside the city, and a strong guard was posted around him until the court officials should have time to examine the strangers, discover, if possible, their secret designs, and report them to the king. The first spy was a shrewd and intelligent Affghan, a pretended convert to the Wahabee doctrine, who discovered nothing, and consequently made an unfavorable report. The second was a “man of zeal,” one of a committee of twenty-two inquisitors, appointed by the king to exercise constant espionage upon the inhabitants, with the power of punishing them at will for any infraction or neglect of the Wahabee discipline. Palgrave gives the following account of his visit: