From this place Burton took passage on a steamer for Suez, and returned to Cairo, but without the Meccan boy, Mohammed, who began to have a suspicion of his true character, after seeing him in company with some English officers, and who left him before embarking. CHAPTER VIII. PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS IN CENTRAL ARABIA: FROM PALESTINE TO THE DJOWF. MR. WILLIAM GIFFORD PALGRAVE, son of Sir Francis Palgrave, the historian, performed, in 1862–63, a journey in Arabia, which gives us the first clear and full account of the interior of the country, including the great Wahabee state of Nedjed, the early home of Arabian poetry and also of the famous Arabian breed of horses. Mr. Palgrave’s qualifications for the undertaking were in some respects superior to those of either Burckhardt or Burton. To a high degree of general culture and a vigorous and picturesque style as a writer, he added a knowledge of the Arabic language and literature equal to that of any native scholar; he spoke the language as well as his mother tongue; his features were sufficiently Oriental to disarm suspicion, and years of residence in the East had rendered him entirely familiar with the habits of the people and even with all those minor forms of etiquette which are so rarely acquired by a stranger. His narrative, therefore, is as admirable and satisfactory in its character as the fields he traversed were new and fascinating. It throws, indeed, so much indirect light upon the experiences of all his predecessors, and is so much richer in its illustrations of Arab life and character that no brief summary of its contents can do justice to its importance. [Picture: William Gifford Palgrave] Of the first stage of the journey, from Gaza on the Mediterranean to the little town of Ma’an, which lies on the route of the caravans from Damascus to Mecca, a short distance to the northeast of Petra, and thus nearly on the boundary between the country of Moab and Edom, Palgrave gives us no account. Yet, in spite of the comparatively brief distance traversed, it must have been both laborious and dangerous. His narrative commences as follows, at the moment of his departure from Ma’an: