region of eastern Nejd is,
perhaps, rather a rolling down country than truly mountainous, in
which high pastures alternate with deep fertile valleys, supporting
numerous villages with a large agricultural population. The W. Hanifa
is its principal watercourse; its course is marked by an almost
continuous series of palm groves and settlements, among which Deraiya
the former, and Riad the present, capital of the Ibn Saud kingdom are
the most extensive. Its lower course is uncertain, but it probably
continues in a south-east direction to the districts of El Harik and
Yemama when, joined by the drainage from Aflaj and the W. Dawasir, it
runs eastward till it disappears in the belt of sandy desert 100 m. in
width that forms the eastern boundary of Nejd, to reappear in the
copious springs that fertilize El Hasa and the Bahrein littoral.

Unexplored region of S. Nejd.

As regards the unexplored southern region, Palgrave's informants in
Aflaj, the most southerly district visited by him, stated that a day's
march south of that place the Yemen road enters the W. Dawasir, up
which it runs for ten days, perhaps 200 m., to El Kura, a thinly
peopled district on the borders of Asir; this accords with the
information of the French officers of the Egyptian army in that
district, and with that of Halevy, who makes all the drainage from
Nejran northward run to the same great wadi. Whether there be any
second line of drainage in southern Nejd skirting the edge of the
great desert and following the depression of the W. Yabrin must remain
a matter of conjecture. Colonel Miles concluded, from his enquiries,
that the low salt swamp, extending inland for some distance from Khor
ed Duwan, in the bay east of El Katr, was the outlet of an extensive
drainage system which may well be continuous with the W. Yabrin and
extend far into the interior, if not to Nejran itself.

El Hasa.

East of Nejd a strip of sandy desert 50 m. in width extends almost
continuously from the great Nafud to the Dahna. East of this again a
succession of stony ridges running parallel to the coast has to be
crossed before El Hasa is reached. This province, which skirts the
Persian Gulf from the mouth of the Euphrates to the frontiers of Oman,
is low and hot; its shores are flat, and with the exception of Kuwet
at the north-west corner of the gulf, it possesses no deep water
port. North of Ka