Feb 13. [13 February 1914] We have marched for 2 days in the Nefud
[Nafud, An], and are still camping within its sands. It is very slow
going, up and down in deep soft sand, but I have liked it; the plants
are interesting and the sand hills are interesting. The wind driving
through it hollows out profound cavities, ga'r they are called. You
come suddenly to the brink and look down over an almost precipitous
wall of sand. And from time to time there rises over the ga'r a head of
pale driven sand, crested like a snow ridge and devoid of vegetation.
These are the tu'us. At midday yesterday we came to a very high
ta's up which I struggled - it is no small labour - and saw from the top
the first of the Nejd [Najd], mountains, Irnan, and to the W. the hills
above Taimah [Tayma'] and all round me a wilderness of sandbanks
and tu'as. When I came down I learnt that one of my camels had
been siezed with a malady and had sat down some 10 minutes away.
Muhammad and the negro boy, Fellah, and I went back to see what
could be done for her but when we reached her we found her in the
death throes. "She is gone" said Muhammad "Shall we sacrifice
her?" "It were best" said I. He drew his knife, out "Bismillah - allaha
akbar!" and cut her throat. All that day the ground was covered with
the tracks of the wild cow and my rafiqs saw 3, but could not get near
them. When we camped we spied camels grazing on the tops of the
sand hills. The rafiqs went off to see who they were and came back
with one of them, 'Audeh ibn Habrun, a shaikh of the Awajeh. He was
ready to come with us, for the other 3 had heard that the Shammar
were near at hand and dared not go further. Their fear was born of the
raid of Audeh abu Tayy. They, being friends of the Shammar had yet
given the Shammar no notice of his coming; and for the same reason
Masuid, the Sherari, trembled, for he had been in the tents of the
Howaitat when Audeh set forth and he might have been accused of
supplying information as to Shammar camping grounds. Therefore I
paid them all off and sent them away - with no regret on my part - and
we have now as rafiq Audeh ibn Habrun who seems to be very
agreeable. The Howaitat raid came to very little - we have met
stragglers of Audeh's band on their way home and heard the tale.
They fell by night upon the Swaid, who are Shammar, and drove off
their camels. But when dawn came and they say the brands on the
camels, the wasms, they found that they belonged to Ibn al Rummal,
another Shammar shaikh, who had been camping with the Swaid.
Now Ibn al Rummal is a friend of 'Audeh's, and his father-in-law
foreby, and he therefore returned all the camels. But a band of the
Sukhur, who had raided with Audeh, were untrammelled by any ties of
friendship, and they kept the camels they had taken. So the net result
was that 'Audeh got nothing and his father-in-law was looted by the
Sukhur - a typical episode, if you will believe me. We have a
wonderfully peaceful camp tonight in a great horsehoe of sand, with
steep banks enclosing us. It is cloudy and mild - last night it froze like
the devil - and I feel as if I had been born and bred and in the Nefud
and had known no other world. Is there any other?