'Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918.' [‎40r] (84/100)

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neither, being a shaib of no great length called Nasabiya, which,
rising at the end of a blind valley in the Tuwaiq slope about three
miles north-east of the mouth of Birk, runs down to within
half a mile of the latter and for no apparent reason—there being
no visible obstacle in its path—turns sharply to the west into
the heart of the plateau and, changing its name at the same
time to Faria, circles round from west to north-west, from north
west to north and then north-east and uniting with the Majma
to form the Fara turns eastward under its new name, to be crossed
by us later on, and finally runs north-east in two branches into
the plain of Kharj. At this particular point therefore we have
the phenomena of two drainage channels of first-rate importance
running side by side in diametrically opposite directions, the
one (Birk) following the obvious line of least resistance, i.e.
down the slope of the plateau and out on to the plain, while
the other deliberately runs as it were against the grain carving
out for itself a passage through the heart of the massive barrier.
The mouth of Birk lies at an elevation of 2,350 feet above sea-
level while the head of the Nasabiya, in which we halted for
the night is some fifty feet higher.
We were now in the district of A1 Fara,* a district which,
though small in actual superficial area, is the most populous
and prosperous settled tract of Nejd ; is renowned even in a
country so insular as Nejd for the ferocious insularity of its
denizens ; and, incidentally, has during the last half century
played a prominent part in the endless struggles for dominion
which have drenched the country with blood and reduced much
of it to a state of ruin and decay from which it is now only
beginning to recover.
The district comprises a section of the Tuwaiq barely
ten to twelve miles across from north to south and extending
perhaps some twenty-five miles from west to east across the
whole breadth of the plateau. It is bounded on the south by
Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Birk and on the north by the Fara or Majma, as it is called
in its upper reaches, this valley and its tributary, the Faria,
draining the district into the eastern plain and containing within
their precipitous cliffs three of the finest oases in Nejd—
Hauta, the capital, at the confluence of the Majma and Faria ;
Hariq in the upper reaches of the former, and Hilwa in the Faria
* The names Fara, Faria, and Faraa should not be confused with each other—the
vernacular spelling being f- and Acy respectively.
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