Abdallah took every means to strengthen his power. He found it necessary, through his dependence on Feysul, to establish the Wahabee creed; he used the Bedouins as allies, in order to repress the rivalry of the nobles, and thus gained power at the expense of popularity. Many plots were formed against him, many attempts made to assassinate him, but they all failed: his lucky star attended him throughout. Up to this time he had dwelt in a quarter of the capital which the old chieftains and the nobility had mainly chosen for their domicile, and where the new monarch was surrounded by men his equals in birth and of even more ancient title to command. But now he added a new quarter to the town, and there laid the foundations of a vast palace destined for the future abode of the king and the display of all his grandeur, amid streets and nobles of his own creation. The walls of the projected edifice were fast rising when he died, almost suddenly, in 1844 or 1845, leaving three sons—Telal, Meta’ab, and Mohammed—the eldest scarce twenty years of age, besides his only surviving brother Obeyd, who could not then have been much under fifty. “Telal was already highly popular,” says Palgrave, “much more so than his father, and had given early tokens of those superior qualities which accompanied him to the throne. All parties united to proclaim him sole heir to the kingdom and lawful successor to the regal power, and thus the rival pretensions of Obeyd, hated by many and feared by all, were smothered at the outset and put aside without a contest. “The young sovereign possessed, in fact, all that Arab ideas require to insure good government and lasting popularity. Affable toward the common people, reserved and haughty with the aristocracy, courageous and skilful in war, a lover of commerce and building in time of peace, liberal even to profusion, yet always careful to maintain and augment the state revenue, neither over-strict nor yet scandalously lax in religion, secret in his designs, but never known to break a promise once given, or violate a plighted faith; severe in administration, yet averse to bloodshed, he offered the very type of what an Arab prince should be. I might add, that among all rulers or governors, European or Asiatic, with whose acquaintance I have ever chanced to be honored, I know few equal in the true art of government to Telal, son of Abdallah-ebn-Rasheed.