Fri. 24. [24 April 1914] It blew and rained a little in the night but I did not
wake. We rode over high plains in gray [sic] rainyish weather and
presently saw something lying on the ground. It was 3 dead mares
and 2 dead zilim said Assaf. A Fed'an ghazzu had met a Ruwalla
ghazzu 10 nights ago. The Ruwalla were manteli[?], but not the
Fed'an. They took the Fed'an mares, killing 3. Then the Fed'an
attacked them with their spears as they rode away, killed 2 men and
took back the mares. F. [Fattuh] went off to see if he could pick up an
asa'i, but I edged away - why should I be haunted by their bloody
ghosts? There was no asa'i - the Slubba must have gathered up
everything. An hour later F. said he saw zuwal - I said it must be
rabbuna the Slubba but Assaf declared he had seen 2 camel riders
making for the valley ahead. He unslung and loaded his rifle. I [sic]
was the Slubba. Assaf said "Gomna beni Kubais!" And the camel
riders were one solitary camel whom we found in the wadi going down
to the Miya [Miyah, Wadi al]. Muhammad the Slubba came up and
said ahalham[?] were near the W. al Butm and wd we not camp with
them that night. We reached the W. al Miya at 10.30 and 10 minutes
lower down came to the qasr, al Tayyar: It was nothing but a rudely
built wall, 10 paces square, enclosing graves. It is a ziyyarat of the
Slubba. But near by there were foundations of house walls on the
ground. On the opposite bank heaps of stones - I went up to look at
them. They may have been only rijm or they may have been remains
of houses. We crossed the valley, bearing 260, and at 11.20 came to
2 birs, hayyat, living. The water is 6 ba' deep in spring and 10 in
summer, always there. Then we followed down the valley and at 12
came to a mound round which there were foundations of square
rooms arranged apparantly [sic] on the caravanserai plan - at any
rate I saw an angle thus: [sketch of ground plan] Here the W. al Butm
joins the Miya - I did not take the bearing but we fell into the Butm later.
Higher up the Miya is Umm al Salabiq with the same sort of
foundations. At 12.10 we left the main valley going 120 and followed
up a side valley, 2.10. A tributary came in, 185, and at 12.17 we left our
tributary going 240 and crossed over to the Butm which we reached at
12.40. It flowed down at 65 and we followed it till 2.10 and left it going
265. It was full of water pools. At 2.5 there was a ruin heap with a bir in
the valley and at 2.10 another. The valley was extremely rich in
grass[?]. In all these ruin heaps the Slubba dig and find antiqat, ibriq,
said Assaf. At 2.10 we turned up a shallow side valley and came out
at 2.35 onto an extraordinarily flat barren plain. At 2.46 we saw far
away the long line of the J. al 'Ulub, too far off to get a bearing on the
whole length of them - I took what I could. We hurried in order to get to
a nugrah and ma'asha and finally found a very shallow valley with
naitun in it where we camped at 3.28. Windy but bright and sunny. Not
hot. Terrible plague of s... flies.