'Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government' [‎114] (156/733)

114
ROUTE FROM HOOFOOF TO KATEEF.
Tradition asserts that a star, falling from heaven, produced this spring-
others maintain that a person named Nujm built a village on this spot'
and that it owes its appellation to this circumstance.
^ Four or five miles to the eastward of Hoofoof are the Gibul Garah.
These hills are destitute of vegetation, of no great height, and are famous
foi the natural caves they contain. The one visited was forty paces in
length, by twenty paces broad ; height about twenty or twenty-five feet.
Another cave was stated to be in these hills, of greater length, but not
so broad. The natives resort to these caves in the hotter months of
the year.
Dates appear to be the chief produce of Lahsa; rice and wheat are
also cultivated in considerable quantities. Water from springs is
eveiywhere extremely abundant, and fruit trees, lucerne, and vege
tables thrive in the date groves in a most luxuriant manner.
ROUTE FROM HOOFOOF TO KATEEF.
Distance.
Remarks.
Miles. Furls, First Day's March.
0 Iloofoof to Kulabiah ; time two hours.—Pass through some date groves.
The road is good. Kulabiah is a small, walled village, the houses of
which are mostly built of date sticks and mats.
From Kulabiah to the Munzil; time two and a quarter hours. — Imme
diately on leaving Kulabiah, you enter the Sandy Desert, which con
tinues all the way to Kateef. The ground is undulating, and in some
places very heavy, but practicable for light artillery. At the Munzil
an encamping ground ; found pits in the sand ; the water good. The
water in these pits becomes brackish after a few days' exposure, when
it becomes necessary to dig others.
Second Day's March.
From,the Munzil to the Water-pits ; time six and a quarter hours.—Sandy,
irregular ground for the first five or six miles, when you enter a desert
plain, which continues over firm ground for four or five miles, after which
for the next three miles the ground becomes more undulating, and very
heavy here and there. Another plain of six miles in length is now
entered, which ends at the water-pits, where we halted for an hour.
From the Water-pits to the Munzil; time two hours.—Undulating ground,
sand pretty firm. Water appears to be generally obtainable in the low
ground between the sand mounds. Encamped for the night near some
water-pits.