ملف ١٩١٧/٧٥٦ الجزءان ٢-٣ "النشرات العربية أرقام ٦٦-١١٤" [و‎‎١‎٢‎٩] (٨٣٤/٢٦٦)

103 —
^ and tb . e Shamiya. a mighty wadi from the north-east so
called because down it comes the great inland pilgrim route from
Fatima ^Afrh" ‘’“'“f ^ ‘ S ^ l 116 U PP er section of the Wadi
j ad “ a ' „ At f ‘i 18 . P 011 ' 6 , we w r ere abou t thirty-three miles nearly
due, north o£ Tait and henceforward our course lay west-south
west with occasional variations down the Wadi Fatima (known in
^ wionssectiomas Wadi Sha,niya, Wadiel-Laimun, Wadi Zubam,
Hai i el-Mun and hnally Wadi Fatima m that order downwards)
' tT® ‘“‘'"ed north-west into the Jiddah hills at Bijadiya.
llie Wadi phamiya varies in breath from 100 to 300 yards
and is lined on both sides by continuous ridges of hills of varying;
height, through which at intervals tributary ravines come down
into the wadi from either side. The storm channel varies in breadth
from about 50 to 100 yards, its course zigzagging from side to
side of the wadi, in which at intervals earth terraces, sometimes
twenty to thirty feet m height, are built up for cultivation
purposes these being entirely dependent on torrent irrigation
and fed by channels into which the flood waters are forced bv
orushwork obstructions in the storm channel itself The culti-
vators of these terraces are generally the wild mountaineers of
the Hud hail tribe who come down from their hills after heavy
tails of ram, but so far as I could gather such cultivation is
extremely precarious and unreliable.
Three miles down the wadi we arrived at a large stretch of
these terraces by the side of which stood a few solitary huts
known as Umm el-Khair. Opposite this place stands a higdi
precipitous hill called Haliana, at the top of which on the other
side is reputed to be a village with palm groves, which, it is said,
can be reached by camel—not by ordinary camels, it is true, but
by those of the small and hardy Hejazi breed trained for moun-
tam work. Here or hereabouts the tributary Wadis Kharan,
Namra, and Umm I akhr discharge into the Shamiya, the first
named from the lelt and the other two from the right.
From Umm el-Khair we marched eleven miles through the
same unvarying scenery of wide wadi bed lined with bare high
crags, through which descended Wadis Glmlwa and Izhal from
the left, Wadi Sammu from the right, on the upper reaches of
which, high-perched on a hill but invisable to us, stands the
village and palms of Sufaiya, and Wadis Qirdha and Qutba from
the left in that order as we descended the wadi.
At this point the Wadi Shamiya comes abruptly to an end,
giving place to the Wadi el-Uaimnn through a narrow gap
formed by the protrusion of a cross ridge from the rocks on Hie
left:. At the head of this gap stood the first palm grove of the
village of Madhiq, and beyond it for about three miles we passed
through the most lovely scenery of palm groves and orange and
banana plantations, lucerne fields and vegetable gardens, occupying
the broad gap between the rough crags on either side, to the
main group of buildings of the village itself situated on a spur of
the hills on the right.