'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎93v] (191/862)

Il8 GEOLOGY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE LAND
A small section of the Dibdibba region known as A 1 Qara or Qaraiat,
in the south-east of the neutral territory and extending to the Dharabin
ridge along the western edge of the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Batin, has a soft, whitish,
stoneless soil, a different surface from the rest, devoid of bushes but
covered with tall feathery grasses known as nissi {Aristida plumosa).
Al Hajara. The remainder of the southern desert as far west as the
Shaib Hisb is known as Al Hajara, ‘the stony desert’. It is a region of
stony flats, shallow grassy depressions, and a confusion of low lime
stone ridges. Rain-water collects in many of these depressions during
winter to form rain-pools mostly of khabra type (p. 124). Numerous
short rocky-sided wadis, the general trend of which is from south
west to north-east, cut the surface, but the streams, which occasionally
flow in them after heavy rain, are prevented from reaching the
Euphrates by a belt of sand, and dissipate in the mud flats bordering
the inner edge of this belt.
Sharp stones and boulders cover parts of the Hajara region and are
liable to lame camels and to damage motor tyres; but satisfactory
routes for cars can be found with care and a little labour even in the
bad areas, such as that between the police posts of Salman and Shabi-
cha, and for 30 miles to the south of these places.
The Euphrates Sand-belt and Ar Rahab. Along the northern border
of the Dibdibba and Hajara regions is a belt of sand varying in width
from 5 to 15 miles and lying parallel to the Euphrates. As a continuous
belt of undulating sand it begins about 10 miles south-west of Shina-
fiya and reaches south-eastwards almost to the Batin until held up by
the ridges of Makhazuma and Matiyaha. North-west of Shinafiya it
breaks up into low isolated dunes separated by hard ground; before
reaching Makhazuma in the south it changes in character and becomes
a level area of soft sand which banks up against every bush to form
numerous small tufted hillocks.
The Section of this belt which separates the Hajara from the
Euphrates is fringed on the Hajara side, from Ain Dhihk to Qasr
Nabaa, by a strip of soft, salt-impregnated soil (sabkha) about 3 miles
across at its widest. This strip is known as Ar Rahab (occasionally as
Al Jufra) and forms an obstacle to wheeled traffic additional to the
sand-belt, especially in winter, when even a few hours’ rain turns it
into a slimy morass. But even without this handicap the sand-belt is
impassable for ordinary wheeled traffic except where crossed by recog
nized routes. These are liable to become obscured by drift sand.
Whether it would be passable elsewhere by tracked vehicles is not
known.