Above The Station Of Dzat-Irq There
Rise Ridges Called Irq; Up These Ridges The Regular Baghdad Road
Ascends To The High-Plateau, And They Are Therefore Considered By Early
Geographers As The Western Limit Of Nejd.
Omara apud Yacut, vol.
Iv. p.
746, says: “All the country in which the water flows in an Easterly
(North-easterly) direction, beginning from Dzat-Irq as far as
Babylonia, is called Nejd; and the country which slopes Westwards, from
Dzat-Irq to Tihama (the coast), is called Hijaz.” The remarks of Arabic
geographers on the Western watershed, and those of Burton, vol. ii. pp.
142 and 154, illustrate and complete each other most satisfactorily. It
appears from Yacut that the Fiumara in which Burton’s party was attacked
by robbers takes its rise at Ghomayr close to Dzat-Irq, that there were
numerous date-groves in it, and that it falls at Bostan Ibn camir into
the Nakhla, wherefore it is called the Northern Nakhla. The Southern
Nakhla, also called simply Nakhla, a term which is sometimes reserved
for the trunk formed by the junction of the Southern and Northern
[p.406] Nakhla from Bostan Ibn camir downwards, is on account of its
history one of the most interesting spots in all Arabia; I therefore
make no apology for entering on its geography. In our days it is called
Wady Laymun, and Burckhardt, vol. i. p. 158, says of it: “Zeyme is a
half-ruined castle, at the eastern extremity of Wady Lymoun, with
copious springs of running water.
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