In Most Parts A Soft Sand Overlying Hard Loam, Like
Work _En Pise_, Limestone And Coralline; It Shows Evidences Of Inundation:
Water-Worn Stones Of A Lime Almost As Compact As Marble, Pieces Of Quartz,
Selenite, Basalt, Granite, And Syenite In Nodules Are Everywhere Sprinkled
Over The Surface.
[19] Here and there torrents from the hills had cut
channels five or six feet below the level, and a thicker vegetation
denoted the lines of bed.
The growth of wild plants, scanty near the
coast, became more luxuriant as we approached the hills; the Arman Acacia
flourished, the Kulan tree grew in clumps, and the Tamarisk formed here
and there a dense thicket. Except a few shy antelope, [20] we saw no game.
A ride of seven or eight miles led us to the dry bed of a watercourse
overgrown with bright green rushes, and known to the people as Dubar Wena,
or Great Dubar. This strip of ground, about half a mile long, collects the
drainage of the hills above it: numerous Las or Pits, in the centre of the
bed, four or five feet deep, abundantly supply the flocks and herds.
Although the surface of the ground, where dry, was white with impure
nitre, the water tasted tolerably sweet. Advancing half a mile over the
southern shoulder of a coarse and shelly mass of limestone, we found the
other rushy swamp, called Dubar Yirr or Little Dubar. A spring of warm and
bitter water flowed from the hill over the surface to a distance of 400 or
500 yards, where it was absorbed by the soil.
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