'Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918.' [‎33v] (71/100)

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excellent and unfailing water called Khanuqa, the largest lying
in a triangular rock-bound fissure of great depth surounded
by luxuriant herbage.
The following morning we skirted the heads of three impor
tant ravines known as Tharar, Nir, and Hifna. The first-named
is waterless but well wooded; at the head of the second lies a
wide, deep pool flanked by high precipitous walls of rock and
called Umm A1 Hisha; while the third is a fine rock-bound
valley containing a number of shallow pools in its boulder-
strewn bed. The sides of the valley are worn into great cave
like hollows of which we took advantage for a siesta during the
middle of the day, having marched some eleven miles from our
starting point. The rest of the day's journey lay alongside a low
ridge on the eastern extremity of the plateau and we halted for
the night near some prominent knolls called Khataiyim al Qurun.
There now remained but a single important ravine belonging
to the Maragha group, namely Shaib Qurun, a broad depression
formed somewhat to the west of our course by a confluence of
smaller depressions and running across our path into the rough
hills on the right. This was about two and a half miles from
our camp of the previous night and a further march of some
seven miles up the course of a shallow depression called Dahlat
al Baqar, which runs down into the Qurun, brought us to a low
ridge extending practically all the way across the plateau and
forming the watershed between the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Dawasir and Maqran
drainages.
The next division of the Tuwaiq barrier extends some
twenty-five miles in length from south to north and perhaps
rather less than that distance across. The whole of this area
drains down towards the Maqran depression through two main
channels, namely the Maqua and Mahbat, as the upper reaches
of tha Dhabahiyya and Shutba respectively are called. From the
watershed we looked down on a broad expanse of plateau to our
left sloping down from the distant rim of the outer escarpment
towards a central bushy hollow, from the eastern edge of which
ran the shallow depression of Maqua down to and along the
outer edge of the low ridge which marked the western extremity
of the ravine tract. Descending into and following this depression
for eight miles in a northerly direction we reached the point
where it falls sharply over a low precipice into a rock-bound
ravine, along whose bed we continued for another mile to a
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