“Abd-el-Kereem doubted not that he had a sincere scholar before him, nor would refuse his hand to a drowning man. So, putting on a profound air, and with a voice of first-class solemnity, he uttered his oracle, that ‘the first of the great sins is the giving divine honors to a creature.’ A hit, I may observe, at ordinary Mahometans, whose whole doctrine of intercession, whether vested in Mahomet or in ’Alee, is classed by Wahabees along with direct and downright idolatry. A Damascene Shekh would have avoided the equivocation by answering, ‘infidelity.’ “‘Of course,’ I replied, ‘the enormity of such a sin is beyond all doubt. But if this be the first, there must be a second; what is it?’ “‘Drinking the shameful,’ in English, ‘smoking tobacco,’ was the unhesitating answer. “‘And murder, and adultery, and false witness?’ I suggested. “‘God is merciful and forgiving,’ rejoined my friend; that is, these are merely little sins. “‘Hence two sins alone are great, polytheism and smoking,’ I continued, though hardly able to keep countenance any longer. And Abd-el-Kereem, with the most serious asseveration, replied that such was really the case. On hearing this, I proceeded humbly to entreat my friend to explain to me the especial wickedness inherent in tobacco leaves, that I might the more detest and eschew them hereafter. “Accordingly he proceeded to instruct me, saying that, Firstly, all intoxicating substances are prohibited by the Koran; but tobacco is an intoxicating substance—ergo, tobacco is prohibited. “I insinuated that it was not intoxicating, and appealed to experience. But, to my surprise, my friend had experience too on his side, and had ready at hand the most appalling tales of men falling down dead drunk after a single whiff of smoke, and of others in a state of bestial and habitual ebriety from its use. Nor were his stories so purely gratuitous as many might at first imagine. The only tobacco known, when known, in Southern Nedjed, is that of Oman, a very powerful species. I was myself astonished, and almost ‘taken in,’ more than once, by its extraordinary narcotic effects, when I experienced them, in the coffee-houses of Bahreyn.” Palgrave furnishes a tolerably complete account of the provinces of Nedjed and the tribes which inhabit them. His concluding statement, however, embodies all which will interest the reader.