"نجد الجنوبية: رحلة إلى الخرج والأفلاج والسليل ووادي الدواسر في سنة ١٩١٨." [و‎‎٤‎٥] (١٠٠/٩٤)

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— 81 —
On the morning of June 24 we broke camp for the last time
and, varying our route, proceeded up Shaib Ha for some two miles,
whence we ascended an unimportant, but extremely tortuous
and difficult boulder-strewn ravine, reaching the top of which
we found ourselves once more on the plateau. To the right lay
the Wadi Hanifa backed in the distance by the Jubeil ridge,
to the left and in front extended, the plateau ending on the west
in a somewhat elevated ridge. We now followed a well-marked
track running slightly west of north and gradually sloping down
wards to the broad valley of Hanifa, which we re-entered soon
after crossing the Shaib Baqra. From this point our route
lay up the valley more or less along the track of our outward
journey, the palms of the Riyadh oasis, of which we had obtained
a first glimpse before descending from the plateau, gradually
emerging again into view as we rose to higher ground. Passing
the ruins of Jiza we reached the Mizal qasr and thence followed
close along the palm-belt rather to the west of our outward
route and past the village of Masana to Manfuha where we
halted until the hour appointed for our entry into the capital.
About 4 o'clock in the afternoon we resumed our march
across the bare ridge separating the two oasis ; an hour later
we rode in through the north-east gate of the Wahhabi capital,
now prostrate under the rigours of the Wahhabi fast, and
alighted before the palace of Ibn Saud.
Exactly fifty days had passed since we rode out of Riyadh,
and in that space we had travelled some 640 miles—331 miles
from Riyadh to Faraa in the wadi and 309 miles back from the
capital of the wadi to the capital of Nejd.
H. St. J. B. Philby.
Riyadh,
July 9, 1918.