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The following notes upon the ruins of the Wady Hamz were supplied to me by the Baliyy Bedawin and the citizens of El-Wijh. Six stages up the lower valley, whose direction lies nearly north-east, lead to El-'Ila, Wallin's "Ela," which belongs to the 'Anezah.
Knobby hills were scattered over the plain; and on our right rose El-Juwayy, a black mound with white-sided and scarred head, whose peculiar shape, a crest upon a slope, showed us once more the familiar Secondary formation of North-Western Arabia. Thus the gypsum has been traced from the Sinaitic shore as far south as the Wady Hamz.
The Wady Laylah, draining both the Shafah and the Tihamah ranges, including the block El-Ward, assumes, as usual, various names: we shall follow it till it is received into the mighty arms of the Wady Hamz, some three miles from the sea. After riding eight hours, we sighted the long line of Daum-palms which announce the approach to El-Birkah, "the Tank."
The line is continued, after a considerable break, by the two blue and conical peaks in the Tihamat-Jahaniyyah, known as the Jebelayn el-Ral. They are divided and drained to the Wady Hamz by the broad Wady el-Sula'; and the latter is the short cut down which the Egyptian Hajj, returning northwards from El-Medinah, debouches upon the maritime plain of South Midian.
We rode sharply forwards, impatient to see the classical ruins, leaving the caravan to follow us. At half-past seven we crossed a winding and broad-spreading track, the upper Hajj-road, by which the Egyptian Mahmal passes when returning from El-Medi'nah via the Wady Hamz.
Both tribes are unsafe, and they will wax worse as they go south. Yet there is no difficulty in travelling up the Hamz, at least for those who can afford time and money to engage the escort of Shaykh Mutlak.
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