Page 292 - A Hand Book of Arabia Vol 2_Neat

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ROUTE 21 : HADlYAH—HATL 149

miles.
total, stages.
overgrown with ddm palms and other trees ;
after rain in w'inter water sometimes comes
down in violent spate; fish are plentiful
in some of the tarns, or ghadrdn as they are
locally called.
43 43 KHEEBAR, town; see I, p. 119 f.
Dir. NE. by E. For about 45 minutes the route
leads along low fenny lands where the going is
easy. Then it mounts steeply up to the Kheibar
Harrah; the going is very bad, over large rough
blocks of basalt, where the track is only lightly
marked on the hard stone even after centuries
of wear. The road, as far as Hayat, is known
as the Serdeb el-Yaliud or Senleb el-Kuffar
(‘ infidels ’).
Cm. Rujum el-Yahud, twenty cairns of stones,
separated by distances of from 20-30 metres,
to one or other of which every passer-by
adds a stone.
9 m. Jebel Fckah, about 2 miles S. Wadi Suweis
soon reached ; route crosses this wadi two
or three times, passing five craterous depres­
sions which sometimes hold water.
16 in. Ghadir el-MegeiJa, camping-place ; a cra­
terous depression with more or less water
according to the rains. On leaving this
place, the track (here called El-'Abir)
becomes ‘ a frightful path over rocking
boulders of scoriae and lava ’. The route is
only traceable by the droppings of camels,
which, in this region, every Bedouin treads
into the scoriae ; this adheres to the rocks
for many years, and is the only indication
of the direction of the route.
I
85 42 Meghriniyah, a camping-place in a small natural grotto
(2x3xl-i metres high), between the two main
peaks, Jebel Ghaindt and Jebel Ghaneim, of
the long Abyadh (or Beidha) mountain chain,
which runs N. and S. and forms the watershed
between the Hamdh and the Rummah wadi-
systems.

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