'File 35/64 Mineral deposits in Dhofar' [‎1r] (3/126)

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. N0T3 ON THE DHUJAH PaOVINCE .
SOUTHjiIgl »BI.. .
TOPOG1U.EHY.
The Diiufar Province, situated in the western
extremity of the Sultan of Muscat's Southern Arabian territories,
is enclosed by the Indian Ocean on its southern side and by
Jibal Qara, a semi-circular formation of mountains running into
the sea at Ras Hamar and Murbat, which shut it off from the
mountains and deserts to the North, East and West.
South-west monsoon clouds driving up from the Indian
Ocean are here met by winds from the North and East and
buffeted and depressed until they are entrapped by the mountains
over the Dhufar plain. Dhufar is thus unique on the Southern
Arabian coast in that it enjoys monsoon rainfall for some three
months of the year.
The Province contains three distinct physical tracts,
a cultivated coastal belt, Alhafa, divided from the mountains
by a desert plain some 40 miles in length and up to 9 miles in
depth. The mountains enclosing the western end of the plain
are precipitous and inaccessible while those to the East rise
steeply with many sheer cliffs and deep gorges but are capped
by rolling grassy uplands and interspersed with wide park-like
valleys well v/ooded with wild fig, tamarind, acacia, sycamore
and extensive groves of "mishat" and "metan' 1 , unidentified
local trees the latter of close grained black wood too hea^yto
float in water. Varieties of evergreen, privet, babul, wild
olive, jasmine, camel thorn, tamarisk and an abundance of wild
flowers and grasses provide ample grazing during the summer
for herds of milch cattle, camels and goats numbering many
hundreds. For shade there is a remarkable evergreen known
locally as "lathab" of which the spreading branches reseed
themselves to grow smaller trees round the main trunk giving
a vaulted effect. A "lathab" found in Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Darbat provided
shade for an entire camp sufficient for a small tent, guards,
camels and visiting bedouin, some thirty persons in all, to be
accommodated separately.
The uplands rise gently to a height of between 3000
and/