"نجد الجنوبية: رحلة إلى الخرج والأفلاج والسليل ووادي الدواسر في سنة ١٩١٨." [ظ‎‎٦] (١٠٠/١٧)

- 4
Our course lay southward down the storm channel of the
Sharashiya torrent, the most important of the several streams
which run down from the tumbled masses of low hills round
Riyadh irrigating the palm-groves of the oasis. The latter
consists of three belts of palms namely Riyadh itself, Manfuha
and Masana, separated from each other by narrow strips of bare
ground and situated in the order given from north to south
in a shallow basin bounded on the north and west by the Abu
Makhruq and Mugharrizat hillocks, on the east by the ridge
and slope of Daraibat al Khail* and on the south by the Wadi
Hanifa, which, issuing from a deep gorge in the slope of Tuwaiq
at a point called the Batin about two miles south-south-west of
Riyadh, runs thence south-south-east along the eastern edge of
the gentle slope of Tuwaiq in a valley about one mile broad.
1 he southern extremity of the palms of Masana impinges on the
left bank of the wadi at the point where the Shamshiya torrent
runs into it.
We marched along the eastern edge of the oasis leaving the
modern town of Manfuha on our right at about one and a half
miles out from Riyadh, and thence followed close along the
ruins of the wall of the ancient town, which to judge by the
extent of the area covered by the debris of walls and houses
must at one time have been of very great size, immeasurably
greater than modern Riyadh. Still keeping the oasis on our
right we left the village of Masana buried in its palm-groves
about half a mile to our right and at a distance of about three
and a half miles from the start passed the qasr of Mizal, the
last habitation of the oasis, and entered the valley of Wadi
Hanifa. Our course now lay more or less down the middle
ot the valley, where the going was good, the main storm channel
o t e wadi running parallel to us a short way to the right,
w i e a number of lesser streams flowed down parallel to it
on either side.
About five miles out from Riyadh we passed through a
clump of dwarf palms dotted here and there with the ruins of
e ong fojgotten village of Jiza, one, if tradition speaks true,
o an unbroken series of settlements extending from Ayaina
in t e upper leaches of Wadi Hanifa down the valley of the
cl er to Khaij in the south, but that was in times very remote
w lose piospeiit y was shattered by a divine visitation of plague
W rongly called Mugharrizat in previous report.