'Routes in Arabia' [‎673] (704/852)

m
R oute N o . 186 contd.
on Kiepert's map) is about a mile wide and about 200 feet high
On the far right is a vast desert, extending as far as the horizon.
At 13 miles descent begins : it is gradual and easy. At 14 miles
reach the spring of Balalij at the bottom (or nearly the bottom)
of the hill. It is on the right side of, and adjoining, the road.
The water is said to be brackish : it was very scanty and the
ground round was so much befouled that it was impossible to
test the water : unfit for drinking. At 14J miles the descent ends,
the road bends slightly to the left and skirts the reverse slope
of the Jabal Hamrin, which is like a glacis with many wide and
easy nullahs. The road goes up and down these nullahs. There
is said to be a spring on the road 2 or 3 hours beyond Balalij,
but my guide could not find it: 12 hours after, one of my mule
teers said it was on the hills and that we had passed it a long
way back. I think there is probably such a spring, but that it
was now dry ; its water is said to be brackish, and on the whole
I recommend that no reliance be placed on it. At 17 miles
there is rather a difficult nullah for guns or wheels. After this
the road turns slightly to the right, leaving the hills (there 300
feet high) further away on the left. We are now in the
middle of a vast plain, a true desert, along which the road
continues for many weary miles. The want of water was much
felt by men and animals. At 35 miles, this plain is ended by
a sandy river, with a few pools of very salt and dirty water (quite
undrinkable): after crossing the river, the road winds through
some low sandy mounds with a very brackish stream of water on
the left: this water is in pools and is also undrinkable. At
38 miles the road emerges on to the Tigris, which is here in 2
streams, the near one about 150 yards across, sloping banks,
island in the middle about 1 mile long and 1 mile wide. Total
width of Tigris about 2 miles. Camping ground good, flat, hard
and sandy, We are now in a large semicircular plain, radius
about 1 mile, bounded on the left by the Tigris, on the right by
a range of low hillocks about 50 feet high
6 SHARIAT-AL- 15 m. Le a ving Sharamiyah in
HAMRA. a direction south by east,
118 m. the road crosses^a long
sandy plain about|7 miles long and 1 toll^ miles broad.is
elliptical in shape pand on the right arejlow sand?hills 50jfeet
high and about ^ mile from the road, which is sandy and good *