Sat. 24. [24 January 1914] It was 28? this morning, I was very cold. We
went up a side valley and I got a bearing back at 6.16. Then
endlessly winding up till at 8.51 we came upon the brink of the head
valleys of the W. Hedrij [Hadraj, Wadi]. The Gharamil to the left and
straight ahead a small tell with a rijm which Sayyah said was our road
- it was 105?. But presently I found when we had wound a long time up
a side valley that we were going much more to the S. We got up onto
a rijm and I think our way from the wadi must have been about 170.
Here we saw low ground before us, the W. Sahb, and beyond it dimly
the cliffs of the Tor al Tubaiq [Tubayq, At]. Our way on was 168 into
the W. Sahb and then 152 and 153 down the valley, which runs into the
Ga'rah. At 1.55 we passed the Sabia' Biyar in the middle of the valley.
They are filled up with sand (they say da') and are said to be salt.
Stones round them and stones forming watercourse and basin for
watering camels. On the banks of the valley tombs with upright stones
set on them. Outcrops of volcanic rock along the valley banks. We
saw footprints of camels going and coming, in the sand and camel
droppings but the latter not fresh. I had taken my bearing on a high tell
but at 210 we turned off into a little side depression and camped at
2.15 where no one could see our fires. Ali, Sayyah and I went
scouting Arabs up onto the tell. We saw a .... which S. said came from
the Arabs, they must be close. Ali swore that we shd hear their dogs
at night. I said to S. "Are they not the footsteps of your own people?
He replied Wallah ma nidri. We went cautiously onto the shoulder of
the tell and looked through my glasses all over the Gar'ah. There
was no one. So we climbed to the top and took bearings. Back to the
rijm of 11 o'clock was 338. In front was the great mass of broken
rugged hills and table topped tells of the Tor. To the W. the 2 big tells
at the end of the high ground with a very small tell below them, which
mark Umm al Rqubbeh [Khabrat Umm ar Raqabah]. The Arabs drink
from here when they are camped at Helbeh. We were not where al
Hausah was - Sayyah does not know the country from this side.
Ghineh was to the E, a little SE, we could not see it. It is a sandy
bottom between several small valleys ........ together; very good
pasturage. They drink from Umm al Rqubbeh which is a khabra. We
decided not to go to Helbeh, for seeing that there had been no rain
and all the world was dried up, we think that Hathmel must have
moved E, to the W. Sirhan [Sirhan, Wadi] or to the Hamad [Hamad,
Al] beyond. We feared that when we got there we might find it very far
to the water of Hausah tomorrow. The Jafar [Jafr, El] is also a jurah
like the Ga'rah. It lies between Bir Ba'ir and Ma'an, not a dulul day's
journey from Ma'an. The Waqf is N of it. There are no buildings there
or at Waisit but wells in both places. We are rather short of water
tonight. We came in with only 21/2 qurah[?]. I saw the footprints of the
Oryx Beatrix in the sand of the W. Helbij. The sandy plants of the
Nefud [Nafud, An] grow in the sand here. Rusty outcrops of volcanic
stone on the tell near our camp.