'Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918.' [‎36v] (77/100)

— 64 —
twelve miles downstream of Muwaisil almost at the edge of the
Tuwaiq slope towards the plain stands AVasit, said to be a small
hamlet of 100 souls in a small palm-strip.
It appears that the original occupants of Hamar and the
outlying dependencies above mentioned were the Nutaifat
(Anaza) who were dispossessed by the Swakara subsection of
A1 Hasan (Dawasir) some three generations back when the
grandfather of the present Amir, Hadh Dhal ibn Uqaiyan,
and his followers established themselves in this tract. In those
days Haddar was a more flourishing spot than it now is and its
people claimed and enforced proprietary rights in the grazing
of the Kiriz and the other streams of the Hamar basin ; Uqaiyan
not being strong enough to resist the claims of Haddar entered
into negotiations which resulted in his purchase of all the Haddar
rights, since when the Kiriz and its tributaries have been strictly
preserved against all foreign grazing, such reserved tracts being
known as Hajr or Hima, i.e. protected areas. The Sulaiyyil
basin is another instance of such protection and I shall shortly
have occasion to note yet another in connection with Hilma
and Hauta. This practice of protection is unknown in upper
Nejd except in the solitary instance of the Khafs valley which
is reserved for the grazing of Ibn Baud's own herds and flocks.
In spite of the fact that Ramdhan had already begun—a
month during which it is very unusual for settled elements to
leave their homes—the population of Hamar, on getting wind of
our coming, had for the most part (including the Amir) migrated
down the valley to Wasit to show what they thought of us. The
people of Haddar on the contrary had been unexpectedly cordial
and obliging.
We left Hamar on the morning of June 14 in a NNW.
direction up the valley of the Dhaman with the escarpment
of its high ridge on our right, and when we had gone some six
miles I took advantage of our near approach to the western
edge of the plateau to make a detour to the head of the Juwaifa
gorge down whose gaunt precipitous side runs the Hamar-
Qualiyya road and the Juwaifa torrent, the latter often emerging
from the gorge flowing northward along the slope of the narrow
plain between the Tuwaiq and Nafudh Dahi to join Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Birk.
The exact point at which the slope of this plain begins to run