"نجد الجنوبية: رحلة إلى الخرج والأفلاج والسليل ووادي الدواسر في سنة ١٩١٨." [و‎‎٢‎٦] (١٠٠/٥٦)

— 43 —
J ^ v ethnologists, who prefer to class it with the Haqban of the wadi
^ and Hasa and the Mushawiya and Khiyalat of the latter province
% in a separate group designated Abat Dawasir—a name which
,! J" suggests the admission of social affinity but not kinship with
^ the main tribe.
^ The bay in which the oasis is situated is dominated on three
sides by the cliffs of Southern Tuwaiq and I took advantage
^ of the opportunity offered by our second day's halt to explore
11( 1 the top of the plateau, which in truth has few mysteries to
^ divulge, though the summit of the Khashm al Amur headland
ed commanding a wide but wholly uninspiring view over the
be monotonous expanse of sand which extends as far as one can see
i north, south and west and is broken only by the dim green
ed patch of the tamarisks of Kimida. At the foot of the headland
ig, occupying an area about half or three-quarters of a mile in diame-
c- ter lies the plantation of Kabkabiya, uninhabited and dependent
88 entirely on rain, which is retained by the salt-impregnated
i soil sufficiently long after the close of each rainy season to support
re many small patches of none too flourishing palms belonging
st to the people of Tamra.
)f A march of two miles north-west on the morning of May 28
n brought us to Kabkabiya and the gap whence we marched
six miles slightly south of west along the edge of Southern Tuwaiq
to the prominent doubled headland of Farda. From here,
leaving the steep escarpment to recede in echelon of headlands
to the south-west, we steered slightly north of west for nine
miles to Kimida, a miserable palmless oasis in the middle of the
sands with a small walled hamlet of 100 souls belonging to the
Haqban tribe, who eke out their existence of cultivating wheat
and a certain amount of cotton and vegetables under unfavour
able conditions of soil and water. The place is reputed to contain
150 wells, but barely one tenth of that number are actually
going concerns and the only product of the soil which really
flourishes is the tamarisk which is not only extremely plentiful
and of unusual size and girth for Arabia but produces a rich
crop of berries—a phenomenon said to be confined to Kimida
in particular and to the wadi on a limited scale and certainly
not observed by me elsewhere—which are gathered and sold
to dyemakers.
During the journey to this place I searched in vain for
any trace of a wadi bed or depression. The whole country