Coll 6/8(1) 'Printed Series: 1929 to 1938.' [‎207r] (418/1062)

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H,™ they to.nd • lump ol mk.t 1»„M pp, b !„“ lit k PMbl
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uhat smullpr. Tb.j orom . gum], miu 8 t,«, of d.irtol ,“i,o 2 ” l.'.'r'S’.'
and their lava-like walls protrude from the surroundW n>, n ra . aius »
side they stand about 30 feet high round at^nT s ClW fra^bottonr ^“d
with slag-heaps. Philby is sure that this is Dbar, although Thomas though
that it might he at about 18’ 50' N. by 52° 25'E. Philby’s companions are
convinced that tie crater-walls are the rums of the famous palaces, but Philby
knows them to be either the lips of extinct volcanoes or else the edo-es of the
pants oi impact of meteorites, he is not sure which. They are vitreous and
clearly the product of great heat The desert for miles around is dotted with
sma 1, quite roiind, lava-like pebbles, which Philby’s Bedouin declared to be the
black pearls of those ancient beauties and collected greedily. Philbv has
brought many such specimens from the site, including the niece of meteorite
Thomas by the way is said to have found a similar smaller piece a hundred or
more miles to the S.S.E. of Farajja.
After “ Ubar ” Philby went southward along a string of wells to Naif a
about 19° 50' N. 51° 25' E.), a well lying some 20 miles due west of Thomas’s
Bainha, and containing water with all the properties of Epsom salts. This well
lies in a horseshoe of high-piled sand, and here Philby, dancing on the crest in
the right kind of wind, made the sands sing. Then tobogganing down with the
falling sand, he drew deep trombone-notes with his hands from the moving sur
face. Pie was intensely pleased, collected samples of the sand, and speaks of
vacunm as a possible cause of the sound. Here, too, he tracked down the Bedouin
myth of the walking stones, stones which lies quiet when a man approaches, but
which leave a tell-tale trail behind them. These Philby found only on sufficient
ly sloping ground.
Around Naifa lay another marked grouping of shallow wells, more deposits
of fresh-water shells, and frequent traces of flint weapons. This area Philby
tentatively connects with the distant Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Dawasir in the west, but unfortunately
his final westward tracks lay well to the north of the supposed ancient line of this
river, which he was consequently unable to check en route. From Naifa, where
he had to abandon one camel, Philby went south again to Thomas’s Shanna
about 19° N. 51 ° 30' E.), and here he prepared for his main objective, the
crossing of Rub’-al-Khali along the longest completely waterless line. This, he
reckoned, lay over the 350 odd mies from Shanna to Sulaiyil in the west
(about 20° 25' N. 45 ° SO 7 E.). On about the 21st February they set out.
Each morning the baggage camels went ahead at 2 a.m. ; the rest followed at 4.
On the fifth day out, and just short of the south of Shuwaikila, about a third of
the way across (say, 19° * 25' N. 49° 25' E.), Philby found the baggage train
halted at midday, the camels sheltered from the sun in tents, the men frightened
and refusing to "move further. The camels had broken down with sunstroke, and
all that could be done was to make back at once to water. They just succeeded
in five more days in reaching Naifa again, helped by two camelions miscarriages,
which they ate, and running out of water twelve hours before reaching the well
on the 1st" March. There they rested, feasting on the two weakest camels, which
they killed, and reorganised.
Philby thereupon decided to make the second attempt light, and sent back to
Riyadh the fourteen weakest camels, all the tents and rice, and the eight worst
men. There was apparently some competition among them to proceed instead
of returning, which Philby attributes to the gratuity at the other end. He was
by then completely disgusted with the company of his companions, whom he fates
as quite the most animal men can be ; he nevertheless valued their stamina and
desert-craft very highly.
Philby set out on the second attempt on about the 5th March, with fifteen
camels, ten men, sundried camel-flesh, two skins of dates, and. six s uns o
Epsom-salty water, with another 10 gallons in petrol tins as an iron-ration. e
also took his instruments and cameras, of course, but sent back his recor s o n
trip to date, in case he failed to reach Sulaiyil. For ten days they moved stent i y
across the emptiest part of the Empty Quarter,, guided by directional in.
checked by the compass, finding practically no sign of life of any •km
one day spending eighteen hours in the saddle. The camels weie
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