Page 160 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 4,5

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DISTRICTS AND TOWNS 175

• connected by a short cable. The station, consisting of a few
!l 18 e3 stands on the west side of a small promontory and about
i'* e miles from a fort, built at the point where the Anglo-Turkish
rentier (see p. 179) between the Aden Protectorate and Yemen
r°ets the sea. The port consists of an inlet running about 2 miles
"viand, 50 yards broad at the mouth and widening to nearly a mile ;
there is a good landing-place just south of Cape Sheikh Sa‘Id.

8. The Kamaran Quarantine Station, for pilgrims on their way
to and from Mecca, lies on the eastern side of Kamaran Island,
which belongs to Turkey. The pilgrims are segregated in enclosed
camps and kept there for a number of days that varies with
circumstances. There is a well-equipped hospital and a number
!
of houses for the accommodation of the medical staff. The adminis­
tration is in the hands of the international quarantine board, and
the doctors and other officials are very cosmopolitan. The station
has a short tramway, an ice-making plant, and a distillery, and is
connected by telegraph with the mainland by a branch of the
Hodeidah-Loheia line. On the other side of Kamaran there is a
small native village in a palm-grove; elsewhere the island is prac­ ;
tically devoid of vegetation. I
i

2. Jauf and Nejrdn

Stretching away some 160 miles NNE. of Yemen, and separated
from the plateau of San‘a by the arid downs of Nehm and Beled
hhaulan, is an extensive hollow1—or, more precisely, a broken chain
of hollows. This great irregular depression runs north and south,
allmg away from the tableland of Yemen and Asir, and having
on the east the high sands of the great eastern desert. The southern
part of the depression is Jauf (known more particularly as Jauf
lift the old centre of Sabaean civilization ; the northern
the ' dlv^e<^ from the first by a sandy swell, a protruding arm of
°f Crtern .^n?e Ahqaf, is Nejran, famous as the last refuge
from ?Stl^nity *n Arabia. The depression may be approached {
a rnnJi ai^ ^ way of the Kharid valley from the south, or by

Jauf Vla .amir and Sa'dah from the north.
aothorir°m^Ses ^PPer and Lower Jauf (or, according to some
include tlf’ ^PP.er> Middle, and Lower), and may be considered to
its \Vate he contiguous oases of Khab and Marashi. The tract gets
said to b'SuPply, in the main, from the Kharid, a remarkable stream
.iiu| has 6 Per®nnial in parts, which takes its rise in the San‘a plateau
il s,»ddenl n?rth'north-easterly course till reaching the oasis, when
y bends SE., leaves the oasis, and is then either lost in