'The Penetration of Arabia a record of the development of Western knowledge concerning the Arabian Peninsula with illustrations from drawings, photographs, and maps by J. G. Bartholomew.' [‎102] (165/496)

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ARABIA
hope. These officers have left no first-hand record
of their experiences in the peninsula.
Ibrahim's motto was his father's, —" Slow but
Sure;" his plan, in the famous anecdote of him, to
" roll up the carpet" of Arabia and reach the prize
at its centre without venturing on ground not first
made his own; his actual policy to win at all costs
the sheikhs of the great Bedawin tribes, which held
the roads to the Wahabi oases. When he was sure
of the Harb and Meteir, had tried his cavalry by a
series of short raids into Kasim and western Jabal
Shammar, and was instructed in the ways of desert
warfare, then, and not till then, did he strike his
camps about Medina and set forth for the heart of
the peninsula. He fell on Rass, the first important
town of Kasim, in July, 1817, and needed all his
dogged temper to remedy the defects of his general
ship. He lost three thousand men, and spent above
four futile months before those mean mud walls; and
the discretion of surrender was with the townsmen at
the last. The spectacle, however, of his obstinacy and
his resources determined the speedier submission of
greater towns, Aneiza and Bereida, and what was still
more important, the adhesion of two great Bedawin
tribes of South Nejd, the Ateiba and the Beni Khalid;
while bitter experience forced the general hencefor
ward to repose more confidence in his French adviser.
With Shakra Woshm fell, and the way lay open to
the Wahabi capital in Wady Hanifa of Ared. In April,
1818, the Egyptian sat down before Deraiye itself.