Page 36 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 4,5

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DISTRICTS AND TOWNS 113

I ,,l<cd fiutnaras, with none but very scanty desert vegetation.
Te'plateau behind the escarpment is a vast plain of red sand
jth isolated outcrops of rock and is known generally as Hisma.
t* js about 50 miles broad and on the S. and E. is enclosed by

ncrcred barren ground capped with lavas whose level is about
.{(To ft- higher than the western plain. When this ridge is passed,
lierc is a steep fall eastward to the sandy steppe of West-Central
iiabia through which the Hejaz Railway is laid at a distance of
bout 100 miles from ijie Midian coast. Route No. 30, from
luweilah to TebCik (q.v.), passes through country typical of Midian.
The littoral as far S. as Wadi Hamdh was regarded as Egyptian
crritory under Ottoman suzerainty until 1886.
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i
B. Wadi Hamdh

Under this name may be included for convenience all northern
Icjaz from N. lat. 27° to N. lat. 24°, because throughout all that
>ng stretch of nearly 200 miles the hinterland drains ultimately
.
o the Red Sea through the single channel of Wacli Hamdh‘which
lobouches about 30 miles south of Wejh.
The country between the coast-line and the Hejaz Railway (here
aid about 150 miles inland), is very ill known to us, and the Wadi
lamdh itself has never been followed by any explorer. It can only
>e said that the coastal plain and range of Midian are continued
hroughout, the former becoming if anything more barren, and the
utter declining in elevation, but remaining abrupt and rising again
o great height in Jebel Radhwah, north of Yambo‘. Wadi Hamdh
tself cuts through this coastal range, coming from the ‘Aweiridh
'(irrah on the one hand and the Kheibar harrah on the other (see
. II we may judge by the experience of travellers on the
''0.Inf^n caravan tracks which cross this district, that from Wejh
s1 | ',^a an(I that from Yambo‘ to Medina, the coastal range
acj^e(I by a rougher but less elevated tract than in Midian,
contains some scattered hamlets of the Billi tribe in

,jpM..uI)Per range of the Juheinah towards the south. The chief
in;7[^m froute from Mecca to Medina crosses the south-eastern
•anilct ^trict diagonally, and has caused more permanent
Mhino- t0 ex*st there than elsewhere ; but there is practically
loi \7 ^L'v°rthy to be called a village between the Tihamah and the
Ror H aihvay, or between El-‘Ala and Medina, ;
ind uholetC°uast °* Tihamah see Route No. 34. The principal,
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4. Weih °n^ Permanent, settlements in it are the following :
AUAUI.V i * a Slnalf town, including a few stone houses, on the N.
H
t.