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Updated: May 23, 2025
We are now at a Bada <Arabic> which fulfils all the conditions required by the centre and head-quarters of "Thamuditis." The site of the Bujat Bada, "the Wide Plain of Bada," as it is distinguished by the Arabs, represents, topographically speaking, a bulge in the Wady Nejd, before it becomes the Wady Abu Daumah, between the Shafah Mountains to the east and the Tihamah range seawards.
At Bada old Shaykh 'Afnan, whose tents are now pitched one day ahead of us, was taken into consultation upon the subject. He confirmed these statements of the Wakil, adding that the Shafah Mountains are a mere ridge, not the seaward walls of a plateau, and that the land east of them is exactly that which we have already traversed.
Riding down the Wady Damah to the southwest, Lieutenant Amir came upon a spring in a stone-revetted well near the left bank: this Ayn el-Bada' is not to be confounded with the Badi' water, or with the Bada plain, both of which we shall presently visit. A strew of broken quartz around it showed the atelier, and specimens of scattered fragments, glass and pottery, were gathered.
I did not learn till too late that a single day's march southwards from the Wady Shuwak, along the old main line of traffic, leads to the Wady Nejd, upon whose upper course is the plain of Bada; and which, after assuming four different names, falls, as will be seen, into the sea about thirty-five miles north of El-Wijh.
The view down the regular and tree-dotted slope of the Wady el-Marwat, as far as the flats of Bada, was charming, an Argelez without its over-verdure. From the Col two roads lead to our day's destination. The short cut to the right was reported stony: as most of our mules were casting their irons and falling lame, I avoided it by the advice of Furayj, thereby giving huge offence to old 'Afnan.
Free gold in paillettes was noticed by the Expedition in the micaceous schists veining the quartz, and in the chalcedony which parts the granite from the gneiss. The argentiferous Negro quartz everywhere abounds, and near the ruins of Bada lie strews of spalled "Maru," each fragment showing its little block of pure lead.
He had been on the hill-shoulder and looked into the cleft. There was no sign of men there, but he had heard the sound of men, though where he could not tell. Far down the cleft there was a gleam of fire, but no man near it. "That's a Bada dodge," said Andover promptly. "Now I wonder if Marker trusted too much to these gentry, and they have done us the excellent service of misleading him.
The Bada plain is backed by a curtain so tall that we seemed, by a common optical delusion, to be descending when we were really ascending rapidly. Anxiety to begin our studies of the spot made the ride across the basin, soled with rises comfortably metalled, and with falls of sand unpleasantly loose and honeycombed, appear very long.
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