"نجد الجنوبية: رحلة إلى الخرج والأفلاج والسليل ووادي الدواسر في سنة ١٩١٨." [و‎‎٥] (١٠٠/١٤)

1
A TRIP TO SOUTHERN NEJD AND
WADI DAWASIR.
Prefatory Note.— The first twenty-one pages only have
been revised in proof by the author. For the rest, editors and
printers have had to do their best alone with pencilled copy which
had been a good deal rubbed in transit. So far as possible no
change has been made by the editors in the author s words,
phrasing, or Arabic transliteration. The accompanying map is a
reduction of that supplied by the author, the Survey of Egypt
having redrawn his chart on a scale of 1:1,500,000, omitting
minor place-names in the interest of legibility.
After an interlude of two and a half months since my
departure from Jidda I returned to Basra on March 24, 1918,
with the idea of proceeding via Kuwait to rejoin Ibn Saud
wherever he might be. My plans were however changed at
the last moment by the arrival of messengers from Dhari ibn
Tawala of the Aslam Shammar, who was encamped at A1 Hafar
in the Batin, and I decided to resume my travels by way of the
Batin. Accordingly on March 28, I proceeded to Zubair and on
the following day accompanied by Dhari's messengers and a
scratch escort, provided by Sheikh Ibrahim, I launched out
into the interior. Five days' march down the Batin, now
resplendent with all the flowers of spring, brought me to Dhari's
camp just short of A1 Hafar, whence after a two days' rest I
set out again with Dhari himself and a large escort of sixty
Shammar for Shaib Shauki, where according to report 1 should
find Ibn Saud in his annual camp of exercise. Passing the
wells of A1 Hafar (about 145 miles south-west of Basra) we
proceeded a short way up the Batin and then launched out
southward into the Dibdiba. For the next three days we
pushed on over the vast bare desert plateau now under the
name of Dibdiba, now Juraiba, now Summan and now Hubaida,
each merging imperceptibly into the next and distinguished
from it by some slight difference of soil or vegetation, until on
the evening of the third day we crossed the Manshariha or
main road from Kuwait to Zilfi, and camped a couple of miles
south of it on the edge of the Dahana. The next day was spent