"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [و‎‎١‎٠‎٥] (٨٦٢/٢١٤)

COASTS OF THE PERSIAN GULF
I 35
plain gradually widens away from the mountains, which trend south.
Between Ras ash Sham and the town of Ras al Khaima, 20 miles
south-west, the coast is low and sandy, with several creeks. Rams is
a small town on the south side of a creek 12 miles south-west of Ras
ash Sham; it is the port of the primitive Shihuh fisher-folk of the
Ruus al Jibal promontory, many of whom migrate to its extensive
date-groves in summer. The shore near by is swampy.
Ras al Khaima, the former Julfa, was the headquarters of the
Jawasmi pirates until 1819 (p. 133). It has been identified with the
Raamah of the Bible (Gen. x. 7; Ezek. xxvii. 22) and with the Regma
Polis of Greek geographers. It is on a sandy spit extending 4 miles
north-east, parallel with the coast, and enclosing a shallow lagoon
which provides sheltered anchorage for native craft. Larger ships
anchor about 3 miles out. The lagoon can also be used as a flying-
boat anchorage, and there is space in the plain for aircraft to land,
but the nearness of the mountains, which rise to more than 3,000
feet 7 miles to the east, makes landing and taking off unpleasant.
Drinking-water is scarce. There are routes inland from Ras al
Khaima, south-east through a pass to Dibba, with a branch to
Fujaira, both on the gulf of Oman, and another south to the Baraimi
oasis at the foot of the Western Hajar.
The cultivated plain of Sir extends for about 7 miles south of Ras
al Khaima. It contains ten villages and many date-groves and gardens,
irrigated from wells; it is muddy after rain. Red sandhills, about 130
feet high, run parallel with the low coast and about if miles inland,
for nearly 14 miles south-west from the southern end of the lagoon.
Umm al Qaiwain is on a low sandy point with a rocky beach west of a
backwater, 28 miles south-west of Ras al Khaima, and Ajman is 13
miles farther south-west near a creek which is accessible to dhows:
they are both unimportant pearl-fishing towns and, like Ras al
Khaima, the headquarters of small tribal principalities, comprised
in the Trucial States. A camel-route leads south-east from Umm al
Qaiwain to Fujaira, on the gulf of Oman; another leads south-east
from Hamriya, a village 8 miles south-west of Umm al Qaiwain, to
Dhaid on the Ras al Khaima-Baraimi route.
Sharja, the headquarters of another Trucial State and formerly a
Jawasmi resort, is the most important town on the coast of Trucial
Oman, and a flying-boat station on the British Overseas Airways
Corporation route to India. It is mainly on the east bank of a narrow
creek which runs south-west, protected by a sand-spit, and opens
into a shallow lagoon about 4f miles long. A ferry crosses the creek