Charles Doughty, the next Englishman to visit northern Arabia, though he covered little new ground, saw more of the desert life, and has described it more minutely and faithfully than any other explorer. Travelling down from Damascus in 1875 with the Haj caravan, he stopped at El Hajr, one of the pilgrim stations, with the intention of awaiting the return of the caravan and in the meantime of exploring the rock-cut tombs of Medain Salih and El Ala. Having successfully completed his investigations and sent copies of inscriptions and drawings of the tombs to Renan in Paris, he determined to push on farther into the desert. Under the protection of a sheikh of the Fukara Bedouin he wandered over the whole of the borderland between Hejaz and Nejd. Visiting Tema, where among other ancient remains he discovered the famous inscribed stone, afterwards acquired by Huber for the Louvre. Next summer he went on to Hail and thence back to Khaibar, where the negro governor and townsmen, less tolerant than his former Bedouin hosts, ill-treated him and even threatened his life. Returning to Hail in the absence of the amir, he was expelled by the governor; he succeeded, however, in finding protection at Aneza, where he spent several months, and eventually after many hardships and perils found his way to the coast at Jidda.
Three years later Mr Wilfrid and Lady Anne Blunt made their expedition to J. Shammar. In their previous travels in Syria they had gained the confidence and friendship of a young sheikh whose family, though long settled at Tadmur, came originally from Nejd, and who was anxious to renew the connexion with his kinsmen by seeking a bride among them. In his company the Blunts set out from Damascus, and travelled across the Syrian desert by the Wadi Sirhan to Jauf. Here the sheikh found some of his relations and the matrimonial alliance was soon arranged; but though the object of the journey had been attained, the Blunts were anxious to visit Hail and make the acquaintance of the amir Ibn Rashid, of whose might and generosity they daily heard from their hosts in Jauf. The long stretch of waterless desert between Jauf and J. Shammar was crossed without difficulty, and the party was welcomed by the amir and hospitably entertained for a month, after which they travelled northwards in company with the Persian pilgrim caravan returning to Kerbela and Bagdad.