File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎105r] (218/834)

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partial and water still remains sufficient to enable the little village
of perhaps some 500 inhabitants (mostly Dawasir and Suqur
Anaza) to cultivate enough corn and palms to suffice for its
maintenance.
We were now in the centre of the Tuwaiq system of which
one ridge lay to our left, while we skirted the foot of another to
our right, following the continuation of the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Ammariya
which here bends round to the south of west, ever ascending
towards the plateau, which forms the main core of Jebel Tuwaiq
and feeds the ravines subsidiary to the main drainage channel of
Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Hanifa.
The tortuous bed of the wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. , narrowing into a difficult
defile as it neared the edge of the plateau, brought us after a
march of some eight miles to the foot of the Shaib Saqta, a
narrow ravine, up which our path, exceedingly difficult for the
camels, led over large boulders to the edge of the great plateau,
locally known as el-Dhahara and lying at an elevation of about
2,800 feet above sea-level, i.e. over 1,000 feet higher than Riyadh.
Marching for another two miles across the plateau we
camped near the Shaib Makhlab, one of the tributaries of the
Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Ammariya. To the south of us at no great distance ran a
ridge called el-Hamra, while to the north the view extended far
over the undulating plateau towards Haisiya and Sadus. East
ward lay the broken country over which we had travelled during
the day and westward stretched the plateau as far as ej^e could
see, though from the summit of a prominence near by I was able
to obtain a view of the western extremity of the plateau and the
jagged escarpment which terminates it. We had now covered
thirty-one and three-quarter miles from Riyadh.
Next morning a march of two miles in a south-west direction
across the plateau brought us to the edge of the roughly indented
escarpment of Jebel Tuwaiq and to the top of the magnificent
Saqta gorge, which drops down precipitously some 500 feet or
more to the plain below. Here avc dismounted and great
difficulty Avas experienced guiding the camels, especially the
baggage animals, down the steep rocky path, but in three-quarters
of anThour we had negotiated the perilous passage and stood in
the plain below. Looking back I AA^as much struck by the
resemblance of the escarpment to a great natural fortress, with
some dozen massive bastions of sheer rock situated in a wide
semi-circle and connected with each other by the clear cut line of
the rido-e. The projection of the bastions to right and left cut
off the°view of the Tuwaiq ridge, Avhich I afterwards saw
extending into the far distance north and south with occasional
massive "projections into the valley—a long line of sheer
precipitous rock negotiable only in a few places, the easiest
passage of the Tuwaiq range being along the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Hanifa route
debouching into the plain at Haisiya, as already mentioned,
while another pass is said to lie further south of the line Ave