"نجد الجنوبية: رحلة إلى الخرج والأفلاج والسليل ووادي الدواسر في سنة ١٩١٨." [ظ‎‎٢‎٨] (١٠٠/٦١)

— 48 —
that same evening the first trickle of water reached Faraa
followed by the distant roar of the flood and for seven days a
flowing stream ran through the oasis destroying the wells and
the only hamlet ( Ilanabija) actually lying in its path and finally
reaching the bush patch of Raka before the flood abated ; and
with the stream floated down the bodies of men and women
and cattle caught unawares in the upper reaches. Thus, for the
first time in living memory, for the first time, it is said, for
three centuries, the Wadi Dawasir resumed its ancient role and
became a living stream. Even so it failed by many miles to
re-unite the broken unity of its channel or to reach the barrier
of Tuwaiq to say nothing of the great desert. There was no loss
of human life or livestock in the oasis itself, but the Qahtan of
the upper reaches are said to have lost 150 human lives, 450
camels, and vast numbers of sheep. In the wadi where great
lakes survived the subsidence of the flood for several months
the effect, apart from the destruction already noted, has on the
whole been beneficial, the bed of the storm channel formerly
bare, being now covered with a carpet of green, while the level
and quality of well-water shows a marked improvement. One re
markable feature resulting from the flood is a considerable outcrop
of the hitherto unknown castor oil plant, whose seeds were doubt
less brought down by the flood, within the limits of the oasis.
Enough has now been said about the channel of Wadi
Dawasir to establish, I think beyond question, firstly, that
Wadi Dawasir arises from the confluence of the Tathlith, Bisha,
and Eanya wadis at the Hajla of Raiyyaniya; secondly, that
from this point its course runs nearly due south-east to the
western extremity of the wadi oasis and thenceforth very slightly
south of east to the point where it loses itself in the first sands
of the great desert; and thirdly, that its existence as a function
ing drainage channel over the greater part of its course must
date back to prehistoric times when the climatic conditions
of the Arabian peninsula must have been vastly different from
what they are now.
The oasis of the wadi extends for about nine miles WNW.
to ESE., between its extremities of Faraa and Sharafa on the
west and east respectively, along the course of the channel which
at this point is bounded on the north side by a high rolling
nafudh, desending to the bed of the channel by an easy slope and
on the south side by a bare stony incline, with a light covering of