'Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918.' [‎34r] (72/100)

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perennial spring called Shuqaib where we camped for the night
under a solitary palm. The plateau was now out of sight and
we were within the fringe of the ravine tract, the cliffs on either
side of the Maqua being some twenty to thirty feet high and its
bed, partly of sand and partly covered with great outcropping
slabs of limestone rock, about fifty yards in width. The spring
was surrounded by a luxuriant growth of reeds and grasses and
beside it numerous shallow pools of water lay as the result of
recent floods in depressions in the great rock slabs—altogether
a delightful camping place. The next day (June 10) we resumed
our march down the ravine, which from this point turns east
and begins to be known as Dhabahiyya ; from the bend for
a distance of nearly two miles extended a straggling plantation
of palms dotted about the valley in small groups and belonging
to the A1 Hanaish and A1 Suwailim subsections of Wuddain ;
along the storm channel at intervals lay numerous water-pools
of varying size. Having marched some four miles from our
starting point to the confluence of a bhaib called Siri with the
Dhabahiyya we rose out of the latter on to a rough upland
tract and marched in a northerly direction along a ridge (on our
right) called Khurum. Five miles on we entered a ravine
called Mughara draining the plateau, which now began to assert
itself again, northwards and after a midday halt at a group of
pools in its bed pursued our course for four miles in the same
direction (slightly east of north) until we entered the Mahbat,
a third Shaib called Kilawa joining the confluence. The Mahbat,
some 300 yards broad, is a fine valley with a thick undergrowth
of grasses and bushes with scattered remnants at this point
of the palms and buildings of an old abandoned settlement
known as Dilham owned like the settlement of Shutba, about
eight or ten miles downstream, by a Dawasir group called A1
Khadhran, belonging I think to the Wuddain section, ihe
course of the valley at this point is eastward but about two miles
upstream it turns at right angles towards the north between
cliffs not less than 100 feet high. Above and below the con
fluence was water in abundance in numerous pools but such
wells as there are are in ruins and contain only foul water.
We now ascended the steep left bank of the Mahbat on to a
secondary plateau in the middle of the ravine tract, and marching
along the edge of the channel at first gradually diverged from
it until at a distance of about five miles from the confluence