54
Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia
Seen by a Diplomat’s
Spouse
the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry,
who spoke proudly of the achievements of his splendid
city. He showed us around the city and took us to the new
park that had just been opened. We spent three days at a
luxurious and comfortable hotel whose rooms overlooked
an unforgettable view of the chain of mountains that
extend endlessly towards the horizon of green mountains
that are linked by the wide multi-circular and very short
highways. We visited a number of hospitable houses and
were surprised to know that the people there keep, in their
orchards that lie outside the city, poisonous snakes in
cages, as pieces of ornaments, just as we do with rabbits
and parrots. They showed us a peaceful cobra in a safe
cage of which the small children of the family were not
afraid.
Moving eastward, the chain of Hijaz mountains is
transformed into mountain slopes. Thence, to the plateau
of the central region of the Arabian Peninsula, wherein
appear mountains that are not very high and drift smoothly
to a flat plain and sometimes to the swampy coast of the
Arab (Persian) Gulf. Here, the moving sand dunes cover
vast expanses. In the valleys between them are hidden
small thickets of short palm trees and wild shrubs of desert
plants. During the rain season, hardly noticeable flowers
of sweet fragrance grow. Here and there, there rise, like
silent sentinels, huge bare rocks that have been eroded by
the wind. The closer one approached to the Gulf, the more
the landscape changed and the desert became covered
with low rising trees and islands of thick greenery. In the
eastern part of the Kingdom, in particular, are found the
55
Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia
Seen by a Diplomat’s Spouse
largest of oases, where the cultivation of date trees and
the picking of dates constitute the main occupation of
the local population. In the hinter land of the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia, the Najd mountainous plateau occupies
the central region of the Kingdom, which represents a flat
plain to the north of which lie Shummar Mountain and
Touwaiq Mountain in the south- east. In the south there
lies the largest desert in the Arabian Peninsula called the
“Empty Quarter” (Al-Rab’ Al-Khali) which extends over
a million square kilometers, most of which is covered
with moving sands. It extends up to the borders of the
state itself including, in the eastern part of the territory,
the Sultunate of Oman and, in the south, part of Yemen
territory. This obscure part of the Arabian Peninsula has
had a notorious reputation since time immemorial: endless
expanses of moving dunes from which emanate the noises
produced by the blowing winds as they move from one
place to another and merge together, and the landslides
of which swallow and bury everything else, including
branch, animal or human beings that have lost their way.
In this region, there is no trace of any source of water and
hardly ever a bird may be seen over flying this region.
The climate in the vast majority of the Kingdom’s
territory is characterized by rare rain and incomparable
dryness, with the exception of the mountainous regions
of Hijaz and the regions that are close to the sea, where
the extreme humidity combines with high temperature to
make the climate unbearable. In the city of Riyadh, as in
all the central part of the Arabian Peninsula, the summer is
long (about five months), temperature sometimes reaching