'Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918.' [‎22v] (49/100)

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yards, are shallow depressions about two to three feet deep
in the bed of the basin and at any rate at this season contain
excellent water, though their accessibility to sheep, camels, and
other animals probably results in fouling the supply later on.
As already noted a single channel runs from the basin through
the Biyadh, whose cliffs rise to about twenty feet on either side
and are dotted at intervals with prominent knolls of black
volcanic rock. The Maqran which is the most important drainage
outlet between the Sahaba system and Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Dawasir forms the
recognized boundary between the A1 Hasan and A\uddain sections
of the Dawasir, the range of the former extending northward
to the Arma and Dahana and that of the former southwards
to Sulaiyyil and the wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. .
Passing out of the Maqran depression across the bed of the
Dhabahiyya we kept close along the rim of the Biyadh up the
broad valley of Shaib Sahab for about six miles, camping for
the night at the confluence with it of a small Shaib called Abu
Talha from the Biyadh, and the following morning we marched
up the same valley for thirteen miles to a ridge connecting the
Biyadh with the Ibn Muwwash hills and forming the watershed
between the Maqran and the Hamam drainages. The slope
was now southward and our course lay SSW. down a narrow
trough lying between the outer slopes of Tuwaiq and the edge of
the Biyadh now barely three or four miles apart. Having
marched thus for six miles we entered the Shaib Ghudaiyir
coming down from Tuwaiq and for the rest of the day generally
followed its erratic and much broken course, in which we
camped for the night in view of the palms of Hamam, four
miles distant.
Hamam itself, an outlying settlement of the Sulaiyyil
district, we reached early on the following morning. It com
prises a considerable number of ruined qasrs and wells denoting
past prosperity and present decay, one good qasr recently
constructed and occupied by an official appointed by Ibn Saud
to keep the peace, haJf-a-dozen qasvs inhabited by as many
families of the Rashid subsection of Wuddain, about fif ty or
sixty acres of wheat fields and sixteen palms and finally a promi
nent rock of no great height on the top of w'hich are the remains
of an old fort—-the whole situated in the bed of the Hamam
Shaib, which, reinforced by a Shaib called Marran about two miles
upstream of the settlement, flows down from Tuwaiq into the