Page 26 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 1,2

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14 PHYSICAL SURVEY \

ranges, is a strictly oasis settlement—i.e. an uiban centio in a dis­
trict isolated by desert. . * , C ,
2 Qasim, situated beyond the steppe in the south of Jebel
Shammar, is divided into two main parts. The lowpr owes
fertility to constant- ground-water and occasional surface-now
in the middle course of the great Wadi Rummah (see above). * As
is to be expected in a wadi-basin where the level of ground-
*. -
• •# water varies, Qasim is rather a string of oases lying SSW. and
NNE. than a continuously fertile tract. The string is something
less than a hundred miles in length. Tonghes of nefv.d od steppe
divide its component oases, of which the two cejitro*. and principal
support the urban settlements of Ancizah and Boreidah, the largest
and most commercial towns of Central Aiyibia. Besides these „
towns, there are some fifty settlements, large and snIaH. Upper
Qasim (Q. el-A‘la) is the steppe to north of Lower Qasim. It is a
pastoral tract, dependent on wells, which support some forty- small
settlements. • * ,
3. Nejd. This, by- far the most extensive group, covers, with its
steppe intervals, some 10,000 square miles, and is, geographically-,
not so homogene'ous as the other two groups. It consists, princi- •
pally, of a more or less continuous chain of oases, lying either upon,
or under the flanks of, the plateau of Jebel Tow-eiq. A series of
urban settlements and large villages reaches from the Sedeir (or
Sudeir) district in the north to that of Hariri (generally pronounced
Harij or Harlg) in the south. The present chief town, Riy-adh, lies
in ‘Aridh,'' the central oasis. On this central chain depend also
certain detached oasis-districts, west and south.

The whole Nejd group has dahanah east and south of it, ?!efud and
steppe on the north, and steppe on the west, the last probably
interrupted, after a certain distance, by more than one fertile wadi
descending from the watershed in the SW. of the peninsula. Such,
for example, is the still unexplored Wadi Dawasir, which is believed
to provide a chain of watering-places between Nejd and Yemen or
Asir.
Outer Ring of Oases, «Scc.—The other fertile tracts of the peilinsula
form a discontinuous outer ring on or near the sea-coasts, the zone
of fertility being widest on the Red Sea side and on the south-east.
On the east, this ring is at first very thin and interrupted by wide
intervals. For about a third of the Gulf Coast, from Koweit as far as
Qatlf, both shore and hinterland are almost continuous steppe-desert.
Thereafter, while a series of springs at some distance inland creates
a chain of oases which forms the settled part of Hasa, thefe are only
small spots of fertility on the shore, at rare wadi-mouths, until the
#* •
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• * •