File 756/1917 Pt 1 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 1 to 65’ [‎502r] (1008/1240)

road, for half an hour till we lost the way, and wandered
about the foothills, like Virgil’s erippled snake, till 6.40 p.m.,
just across the watershed of W. Turaa and W. Meseiz. Our
guides were at fault in bringing us (to be near some tents)
too far north from our first entry into the Turaa plain. The
(juickest and best road is straight across to Ain Turaa, and
up the east branch of the wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. direct to the watershed.
Wednesday, March 28.
Hode at 5.5 a.m. past north end of J. Tareif and down W.
Meseiz, which is a steep, loose ramp of shingle and stones, scored
deeply by water, unfit for wheeled traffic, into the great plain of
el-Jurf, across which W. Meseiz cuts its way east to join W.
Gussed, flowing north from J. Agrad. At 6.15 a.m. we were
well into el-Jurf, and going due east, with J. Antar, a castellated
rock with a split head perched on a cone, most conspicuous about
ten miles off to the south. J. Jeddah, a group of needles, lay
about six miles off down W. Gussed beyond Aba el-Hellu. We
rode 90° till 7 a.m. and then 140° till 7.40 a.m., and camped
under a tree in Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Gussed. It is very fertile in a wild
wa y—indeed all the Jurf is. We were camped nearly at the
south end of a tongue of hills, which walls off el-Jurf from
the Hamdh valley. To the south el-Jurf opens into el-Magrah,
up which the railway climbs to a watershed near J. Bueir, and
one comes down to join the Hamdh at Abu el-Xaam ; and our
own Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Guad, rising a little further west, in the foothills of
Azrad (where is water in themail), runs down north to join the
Hamdh near Jedahah, after giving the water-hole of Abu el-Hella
on its passage through the hills. J. Tareif, prolonged by Azrad,
forms a blank wall of hill to Bowat. There is no way up it foi
camels into the valleys beyond, except a difficult pass just south
of our camp.
In the afternoon we went up the Dhula of Abu el-Naam,
just behind the camp, and examined the railway and the station
at 6,000 yards. It has two large basalt and cement two-storeyed
buildings, a circular water-tower, and a small house to the
west; and about the houses were many bell tents and shelter
tents The perimeter was heavily entrenched, but there were no
o-uns’visible, and we only saw about 300 men. A trolley went
off north with only one man on it, to the bridge over W. Hamdh,
which Dakhilallah had attacked. It was a large bridge, of about
twenty arches of white stone, and next to it were some shelters,
and on the top of a coal-black mound just north of the bridge,
some dozen white tents, with Turkish officers lounging m chairs
beside them At 2 p.m. a train (locomotive reversed), came m
from the south. It had four water cisterns (improvised iron
tanks on trucks), and four box-wagons, and after watering, went
off north. The station of Istabl Antar was cleariy viS!!)^ on
the Ras el-Magrah, but Jedahah was behind hills. Reta rn rf to
camp at sunset, after sending snipers to Istabl and Jedahah to