The division of Arabia into provinces has always been rather according to physical geography than political boundaries. The earliest division of the peninsula, and in some respects the most correct, was that of the Greek and Roman writers into Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix. The latter epithet was perhaps only a mistaken translation of El-Yemen—the land on “the right hand,” that is south of Mecca, for the Orientals face east. This is contrasted with Syria which in Arabic is called “Es-Sham” or the land “to the left” of Mecca. The third division, Arabia PetrÆa, or “Stony Arabia,” first appears in Ptolemy and is applied to the Sinai district. He limits Arabia Deserta to the extreme northern desert and so his map of the entire peninsula bears the title of Arabia Felix. The great geographer anticipated all modern maps of Arabia by naming the regions according to the tribes that inhabit them; a much more intelligent method than the drawing of artificial lines around natural features and dubbing them with a name to suit the cartographer.

The Arab geographers know nothing of this threefold division into sandy, stony, and happy-land. They divide the Island-of-the-Arabs (Jezirat-el-Arab) into five provinces.[4] The first is called El-Yemen and includes Hadramaut, Mehrah, Oman, Shehr, and Nejran. The second El-Hejaz, on the west coast, so called because it is the barrier between Tehama and Nejd; it nearly corresponds to our Hejaz, excluding its southern portion. The third is Tehama, along the coast, between Yemen and Hejaz. The fourth is Nejd, a term loosely applied to all the interior table-lands. The fifth is called Yemama or ’Arudh because it extends all the “wide” way between Yemen (Oman) and Nejd. It is important to distinguish between this Arabian division and that now nearly everywhere adopted on the maps of the occident; much confusion has arisen when this distinction was not made.

The modern division of the peninsula into seven provinces: Hejaz, Yemen, Hadramaut, Oman, Hasa, Irak and Nejd, is according to political geography and serves all practical purposes, although it is not strictly accurate. Hejaz, the Holyland of Arabia, includes the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina. Yemen is bounded by the line of fertility on the north and east so as to include the important region of Asir. Hadramaut has no clearly defined boundaries and stretches northward to the unknown region of the Dahna. Oman is the peninsula between the southern shore of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, while Hasa covers the entire coast district north of El-Katar peninsula (on some maps called El-Bahrein). Irak-Arabi or Irak is the northern river-country politically corresponding to what is called “Turkish-Arabia.”

As to the present division of political power in Arabia, it is sufficient here to note that the Sinai peninsula and 200 miles of coast south of the Gulf of Akaba is Egyptian; Hejaz, Yemen and Hasa are nominally Turkish provinces, but their political boundaries are shifting and uncertain. The present Shereef of Mecca at times dictates to the Sublime Porte while the Bedouin tribes even in Hejaz acknowledge neither Sultan nor Shereef and waylay the pilgrim caravans that come to the holy cities unless they receive large blackmail. In Yemen the Arabs have never ceased to fret under the galling yoke of the Turk since it was put on their shoulders by the capture of Sana in 1873. The insurrection in 1892 was nearly a revolution and again this year (1899) all Yemen is in arms. It is very suggestive that in the present revolt some of the Arabs made use of the English flag to secure sympathy.

In Hasa, the real sovereignty of Turkey only exists in three or four towns while all the Bedouin and many of the villagers yield to the Dowla, neither tribute, obedience nor love. Irak alone is actually Turkish and yields large revenue. But even here Arab-uprisings are frequent. Nominally, however, Turkey holds the fairest province on the south, the religious centres on the west and the fertile northeast of Arabia,—one-fifth of the total area of the peninsula.

The remainder of Arabia is independent of Turkey. Petty rulers calling themselves Sultans, Ameers or Imams have for centuries divided the land between them. The Sultanate of Oman and the great Nejd-kingdom are the only important governments, but the former lost its glory when its seat of power and influence was transferred to Zanzibar. Nejd in its widest sense is governed to-day by Abd-el-Aziz bin Mitaab the nephew of the late Mohammed bin Rashid, King Richard of Arabia, who gained his throne by the massacre of seventeen possible pretenders. The territory of this potentate is bordered southward by Riad and the Wahabi country. Northward his influence extends beyond the Nefud, right away to the Oases of Kaf and Ittery in the Wady Sirhan (38° E. Long., 31° N. Lat.) east of the Dead Sea. The inhabitants of these oases acknowledge Abd-el-Aziz as their suzerain paying him a yearly tribute of four pounds ($20.00) for each village. The people of the intervening district of Jauf also acknowledge his rule which reaches westward to Teima. He also commands the new pilgrim-route from the northeast which formerly passed through Riad but now touches Hail, the capital of Nejd. The Wahabi movement has collapsed and their political power is broken, although their influence has extended to the furthest confines of Arabia.

The only foreign power dominant in Arabia, beside Turkey, is England. Aden became a British possession in 1838 and since then British influence has extended until it now embraces a district 200 miles long by forty broad and a population of 130,000. The Island of Perim in the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Kuria-Muria Islands on the south coast, and Socotra are also English. All the independent tribes on the coast from Aden to Muscat and from Muscat to Bahrein have made exclusive treaties with Great Britain, are subsidized by annual payments or presents and are “protected.” Muscat and Bahrein are in a special sense protected states since England’s settled policy is to have sole dominion in the Persian Gulf. She has agencies or consulates everywhere; the postal system of the Persian Gulf is British; the rupee has driven the piastre out of the market and as ninety-eight per cent. of the commerce is in English hands the Persian Gulf may yet become an English lake.

Arabia has no railroads, but regular caravan routes take their place in every direction. Turkish telegraph service exists between Mecca and Jiddah in Hejaz; between Sanaa, Hodeidah and Taiz in Yemen; and along the Tigris-Euphrates between Bagdad and Busrah connecting at Fao (at the delta) with the submarine cable to Bushire and India.

Of the fauna and flora of Arabia we will not here speak at length. The most characteristic plants are the date-palm of which over 100 varieties are catalogued by the Arab peasantry, and which yields a staple food. Coffee, aromatic and medicinal plants, gums and balsams, have for ages supplied the markets of the world. Yemen is characterized by tropical luxuriance, and in Nejd is the ghatha tree which grows to a height of fifteen feet, and yields the purest charcoal in the world.

Among the wild animals were formerly the lion and the panther, but they are now exceedingly rare. The wolf, wild boar, jackal, gazelle, fox, monkey, wild cow (or white antelope) ibex, horned viper, cobra, bustard, buzzard and hawk are also found. The ostrich still exists in southwest Arabia but is not common The chief domestic animals are the ass, mule, sheep, goats, but above all and superior to all, the camel and the horse.

The exact population of a land where there is no census, and where women and girls are never counted is of course unknown. The Ottoman government gives exaggerated estimates for its Arabian provinces, and travellers have made various guesses. Some recent authorities, omitting Irak, put the total population of Arabia as low as 5,000,000. A.H. Keane, F.R.G.S., gives the following estimate:[5]

Albrecht Zehm in his book “Arabien seit hundert Jahren,” arrives at nearly the same result:

But undoubtedly both of these estimates, following Turkish authorities, are too high, especially for Hejaz and Yemen. A conservative estimate would be 8,000,000 for the entire peninsula in its widest extent. The true number of inhabitants will remain unknown until further explorations disclose the real character of southeastern Arabia, and until northern Hadramaut yields up its secrets. In this, as in other respects, the words of Livingstone are true: “The end of the geographical feat is the beginning of the missionary enterprise.”