'Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918.' [‎21r] (46/100)

huts in a setting of moribund palm-groves watered in the case
of Razaiqiya by wells and in that of Ghauta by the exiguous
stream of Suwaidan.
With my visit to Badia and its surroundings a very pleasant
sojourn in the plain district of the Aflaj province came to an end
and on the morning of May 19 we loaded up and resumed our
travels: but, before proceeding to a description of our journey
and the country traversed, it will not be out of place to make a
few remarks on the climate and the people of the province.
Water, as we have seen, is both abundant and of excellent
quality especially at this season when the floods of winter and
spring have renewed and, what is more important, cleansed the
supply. The climate during my brief stay was unexpectedly
pleasant, the temperature ranging from a minimum of 60° F.
during the hour preceding sunrise to a maximum (recorded in
a double fly forty pound tent thrown open to the prevailing
wind) of 113° F. in the afternoon; these figures were the lowest
and highest recorded during the period from May 13 (evening)
to May 19 (morning), while the average would be a few degrees
higher and lower respectively; at nights a blanket was indis
pensable as the temperature runs down very suddenly from
about 8 p.m. The prevailing wind during these days was
from the south varying occasionally to south-east or south-west
and generally of moderate strength, while on two days the wind
veered round quite suddenly to the north for a few hours from
noon onwards. The late afternoons and nights were generally
windless.
As for the people they are uniformly inert, bigoted and
ignorant though not actively fanatical unless disturbed. The
attitude of the better classes, if one can call them such, to my
visit was one of sullen resignation and passive objection; the
Amir himself, a native of Sulaimiya in Kharj, though "polite
and even cordial in deference to Ibn Baud's injunction, made
little secret of his personal disgust at the intrusion of such as
me among God's people; and finally the common folk and
especially the women and children evinced a certain amount of
awesome curiosity and collected in little groups at a safe distance
to inspect the representative of a race reputed—doubtless
owing to the teachings of the so-called learned men—" to eat
men and ravish women." This fantastic idea apparently
prevails quite seriously throughout Southern Nejd. Only on