File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎183r] (374/834)

hoof, shod with plates, is allowed to grow long. They scale up
to fifteen hands. Of inferior animals there is no abundance.
Colonel Owen reckons that, in Nejd, not one Bedouin household
in ten possesses a horse.
Colonel Owen seems to have found Kharj a grazing country,
as it had been reported, with much cultivation and appearance of
material prosperity in the Suleimiyah district. Good tracks lead
from one village or town let to another. His outward route lav
through Masani, three quarters of an hour’s march from Riyadh,
from which point he bore south-east away from Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Hanifa
towards the main Toweiq range. He passed through a considerable
foothill tract, in which he saw a good deal of grazing among the
rocks, and reached the crest of the range in about seven hours going
from Masani. The slope is more gradual on the south, where
Suleimiyah lies in a wide plain, about forty miles from Riyadh.
The Farzan stream (see Arabia Handbook, i., p. 360) is blocked
with growths, and the cultivation is irrigated, not from its waters,
but from numerous wells and springs. The Emir’s stables lie
an hour and a half’s walk from Suleimiyah on the Dilam road, and
Yemamah lies an hour distant. Beyond mentioning that there is
irrigated wheat cultivation all round and that cotton, originally
imported from Egypt by Ibrahim Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , is grown, Colonel Owen
unfortunately does not describe either Suleimiyah or Yemamah
in his report. He went from the latter town to Dilam by way of
the Emir’s stables, the journey taking five hours, across wheat
fields at first, then over a vast open plain with scrub, where cattle
were grazing, and finally through hummocky sand-hills to the
date-groves of Dilam. The last he found a prosperous, clean,
well-kept town, the most important place in the district and the
centre of very extensive gardens ; but he is desperately economical
of description !
From Dilam, Colonel Owen went north to Naajan, a poor
village among sand hummocks, and then made towards Hair in
a westerly direction, leaving behind him a southerly offshoot of
the main range, which skirts the Yemamah plain. After Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
Ausat is left, the sand changes to fertile plain, and about four hours
from Dilam the northern foothills begin. The crest of the main
range is passed in another hour and a half. Thence there is a
drop through rocky country in a westerly direction to Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
Hanifa, whose valley is followed up for three hours to Hair.
This is a small settlement in the bed of the wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. , which is there
joined by Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Dhrumah. There are very large date-groves
and abundant water. Crossing a low rocky spur and a plain
Colonel Owen reached Masani again in four and a half hours
march from Hair.
We could have \yished for a good deal more descriptive
detail about this hitherto almost unknown country; but must be
thankful for small mercies.