Page 6 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

VII*

formation. They were drawn from tales heard in the coastal
towns. The information conveyed and above all the carto­
graphic records—map-making was an important task of ev­
ery traveller at that time—were thus necessarily incomplete
and inaccurate. So, for example, Niebuhr’s map of Oman
shows all the important localities of that time, but the geo­
graphic positions of the settlements, wadis and mountain
ranges are totally inaccurate. Nevertheless, this does not
diminish the validity of A. F. Biisching’s statement that this
map was a “true and valuable innovation” in its own time.
Strictly speaking, the exploration of inland South and
Southeast Arabia did not begin even with Niebuhr. These
areas of the Arabian peninsula still lay in deep darkness
from the point of view of their scientific investigation.
The achievement of bringing light into this darkness, i. e.
of passing on information of the lands and people hidden
behind the borderland mountains and coastal cliffs on the
south and east side of Arabia, belongs to travellers whose
efforts, though not forgotten in the literature dealing with
the history of exploration, are not, in my opinion, suffi­
ciently appreciated. For Southeastern Arabia in the first
half of the 19th century (cf. Fig. 1.), such travellers were
the Frenchman Aucher-Eloy and the Englishman Wellsted,
who travelled in this area in 1830— 33 and 1834—35 respec­
tively. Aucher-Eloy, whose report on Oman is recorded in
the work “Relations de Voyages en Orient de 1830—33”
(pp. 545—578), visited the oases Nakhel, the mountain set­
tlement Saiq and the fortified settlements Tanuf and Nizwa
in the hinterland while using Matrah as a base, and returned
to the coast via Wadi Samail. However it is to Wellsted that
credit is due for the achievement of visiting and describing
all the important districts of Inner Oman as well as the
central part of the Oman mountain range, the Jabal Akh-
dar. (cf. Fig. 1.) The starting point of his journey was the
capital and harbour town of Muscat. Wellsted reached Sur