Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

cii. XXIII.] Desert Villages. i ; j
as Deyr and Ana speak with terror and almost
under their breath of the Choi.
The Euphrates was so accurately surveyed by
Colonel Chesney, that nothing is wanted by the
modern traveller beyond a revision of the names
of places. These, if they were ever correctly given,
have now nearly all been altered, and since the
Turkish occupation of the valley new places of importance,
military or otherwise, have sprung up
requiring notice on the map. The Tigris survey is
far less accurate, but for that Colonel Chesney
was not responsible, while his map of the desert
is entirely useless. He places Tudmur fifty miles
south, and El Haddr thirty miles west of their real
positions.
Except on the line of the two rivers Northern
Arabia possesses nothing which can be called a town,
and only a few villages which are in fact oases. In
the south these are surrounded by palmgroves ;
in
the north by gardens or open fields of corn, whose
acreage is dependent exactly on the amount of water
apphcable to irrigation. Those described by Mr.
Palgrave as existing in the Jof seem to be fairly
flourishing, but further north there is nothing till
w^e come to the line of hills dividing the upper from
the lower plains. Along the foot of these a few
miserable villages are scattered, occupying the site
each one
of a scanty spring, and owning from fifty
to a hundred acres of irrio-able land. These are
usually surrounded by a mud wall, pierced with