'Southern Nejd: Journey to Kharj, Aflaj, Sulaiyyil, and Wadi Dawasir in 1918.' [‎41v] (87/100)

a high standard of efficiency. Wells are abundant but deep
(no less than seventeen fathoms in the Hauta oases) and are
worked almost exclusively by camels, of which the grove owners
possess immense numbers and for whose benefit they jealously
preserve the grazing rights of the Faria, Majma, and Fara from
end to end against all foreign intrusion. The Qubabina, whom
we met at Baaija, had passed Hauta, by the high road on the
plateau, a few days before and in reply to their request for
permission to water at the wells of the town had been told
that they would not be allowed a drop. The churlishness of the
inhabitants is notorious and has even been known to go to the
length of murdering their guest in cold blood, the brother of
a man in my party having been done to death here not many
years ago in the house of his host.
Secure in the impregnability of their mountain valley they
defy the conventions of the land without shame or fear; during
Ibn Rashid's occupation of Nejd one of his officials was beaten
with impunity in the public street of Hilla ; more recently the
district declared for the Araif pretenders against Ibn Saud
himself, but on that occasion Hariq paid a terrible penalty
for its temerity and its example saved Hauta from a similar
fate ; nevertheless, in spite of its timely submission on that
occasion, Hauta still enjoys a greater degree of independence
than any other settlement in Nejd, being allowed by tacit
acquiescence of Ibn Saud the fullest measure of home rule,
limited only by the condition that revenue be promptly paid
and armed contingents furnished without demur to march
under the royal banner. It may be noted that the scrupulous
observance of these conditions since the Araif rebellion -has
up to date saved the district from the intrusion of outside
officials, its administration being entrusted to the local headmen,
each of whom exercises authority only within the limits of the
tribe or section he represents.
A brief march of two miles still to the north took us across
the Sulamiya shaib at a point about one mile above its junction
with the Faria and about the same distance from its source
in the eastern part of the plateau ; another mile and a half in the
same direction brought us to the head of a small well-wooded
ravine called Shaib Umm Hiran. Following this up for rather
more than a mile we entered the sand-choked ravine of Umm
Adyan separated by a very narrow slip of high cliff from the