This Plain Terminates
To The S. Near Akaba, On The Syrian Hadj Route, By A Steep Rocky
Descent, At The Bottom Of Which Begins The Desert Of Nedjed, Covered,
For The Greater Part, With Flints.
The same descent, or cliff, continues
westward towards Akaba on the Egyptian Hadj road, where it joins the
Djebel Hesma (a prolongation of Shera),
MAAN
[p.436] about eight hours to the N. of the Red sea. We have thus a
natural division of the country, which appears to have been well known
to the ancients, for it is probably to a part of this upper plain,
together with the mountains of Shera, Djebal, Kerek, and Belka, that the
name of Arabia Petrĉa was applied, the western limits of which must have
been the great valley or Ghor. It might with truth be called Petrĉa, not
only on account of its rocky mountains, but also of the elevated plain
already described, which is so much covered with stones, especially
flints, that it may with great propriety be called a stony desert,
although susceptible of culture: in many places it is overgrown with
wild herbs, and must once have been thickly inhabited, for the traces of
many ruined towns and villages are met with on both sides of the Hadj
road between Maan and Akaba, as well as between Maan and the plains of
Haouran, in which direction are also many springs. At present all this
country is a desert, and Maan (Arabic) is the only inhabited place in
it.
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