Page 80 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 6 -10

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218 THE HADHRAMAUT

Physical Character
Physically the Hadhramaut may be divided into four main hori­
zontal belts : (a) the lowland belt of littoral flats and foot-hills ; (b)
a broad belt of downs or plateaux (jell) diversified by a few out­
standing peaks ; (c) a belt of deep-cut wadis sloping north and
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north-eastward into a great main depression; , and (d) a naked
sea rped ridge which skirts, and merges into, the great central
sands.
(a) The coastal belt varies in width, rarely, however, extending
much more than ten miles inland, and is an arid waste of plain
and low sand-hills with a gentle rise towards the southern spurs of
the plateau belt. The coastline itself, which runs in a generally
east-north-easterly direction, is fairly regular, but has a number of
projecting points with small intervening bays without deep inden­
tations to form good natural harbours, and here and there longer
stretches of unbroken line of low sand. The chief promontories
are Ras el-AsIda, Ras el-Ivelb, Ras Makalla, Ras Baghashwah, Ras
Atabr, Ras Sharwein, and Ras Fartak.
(b) The plateau, which is calcareous in character and extremely
arid, presents a more or less abrupt escarpment towards the sea
and is, in fact, only a continuation of the great Yemen shelf or
plateau and is penetrated in step-like stages by a number of rapidly
ascending and burnt-pp, arid, or sand-covered valleys. The crest
line of the plateau lies generally some 30 miles from the coast and
attains an average height of from 4,000-5,000 ft., the highest part
being the Haj Bal Qabrein near the head of Wadi el-Aisar (or ‘Aisar),
one of the many tributaries of the main Wadi Hadhramaut. The
surface of the plateau, which has a general slope towards the north
and north-east, is comparatively uniform, with here and there
a prominent peak. There are, however, very numerous shallow
depressions where cultivation becomes possible, the water being
supplied from artificial tanks that have been constructed to collect
the surface water.
.. .
(c) The deeply sunk wadis, by which the plateau is intersected,
have a generally north or north-easterly trend, until they lead into
the main wadi, which makes an immense easterly to south-easterly
curve of over 500 miles before it debouches at the coast. The wadis
in parts have almost the character of canyons, so abrupt and pre­
cipitous are their sides, and they look much as if they had been cut
out of the plateau ‘ like slices out of a cake ’. The descents into them
are exceedingly sudden, but in the wadis themselves there is' very
little slope. Like those of the Yemen, they are in great part ex-

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