Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/227

 were crushed, and my notebook with various inscriptions disappeared. Finally, at six o’clock in the evening, we were able to leave the camp of the Sḥama’, who gave us a young man as a guide. He was to accompany us to the nearest camp of the Beli on the road to al-Ḥeǧr.

The ancient tribe of the Beli encamps to the south of the Ḥwêṭât at-Tihama. To the east its territory extends as far as the railway station of Dâr al-Ḥamra’. Its chief clans are:

The family of the great chief Eben Refâde is a scion of the clan of al-Maʻâḳle and dwells at the harbor of al-Weǧh. The oases of Bada’ and Šaṛab belong to the clan of the Wâbṣe.

At 6.30 P. M. we left the valley of al-Ǧizel. Al-Hamdâni, Ṣifa (Müller), p. 170, says that the territory of the Beli contains the places Haǧašân, al-Ǧazl, as-Suḳja’, ar-Ruḥba. Maʻden Farân, as well as the settlements of Šaṛb and Bada’ between the oasis of Tejma and al-Medîna. On the coast the station of Nabk forms the frontier between the Beli and the Ǧuḏâm.—According to these particulars, an-Nabk, situated in the valley of aš-Šaʻaf, was the first halting place in the Beli territory on the Pilgrim Route from Egypt to al-Medîna. The settlement of Šaṛb belonged to the Beli tribe, as did also a part of the plain of ar-Raḥaba and the whole of the valley of al-Ǧizel, which I identify with the ancient al-Ǧazl. In the time of al-Hamdâni the valley of ad-Dâma would then have formed the actual frontier between the Ǧuḏâm, who guarded the halting places of al-ʻWejned, and the Beli, who protected Nabk. This frontier still exists between the Beli and the Ḥwêṭât at-Tihama, and, just as in the time of al-Hamdâni, the valley of al-Ǧizel as well as Šaṛb, Bada’, and Suḳja’, belong to the Beli. Ar-Ruḥba, or ar-Raḥaba, in the upper part of Wâdi ad-Dâma belongs to both.Ibn Ḥabîb (al-Bekri, Muʻǧam [Wüstenfeld], p. 789; Jâḳût, Muʻǧam [Wüstenfeld], Vol. 4, pp. 702 f.) locates the place Majâser, which is mentioned by the poet Kuṯejjer, between ar-Ruḥba and Suḳja’-l-Ǧazl, not far from the valley of al-Ḳura’.This Suḳja’-l-Ǧazl must be distinguished from the settlement of as-Suḳja’ situated near al-Ǧuḥfa, to the southwest of al-Medîna. It was in Suḳja’-l-Ǧazl, according to Jâḳût, that the singer Ṭwejs died, but according to Abu-l-Faraǧ (Aṛâni [Bûlâḳ, 1285 A. H.], Vol. 2, p. 172), he died under Caliph al-Walîd ibn ʻAbdalmalek at as-Swejda, two night halts from al-Medîna on the road to Syria.—As the valley of al-Ǧizel joins the valley of al-Ḳura’, the settlement of Suḳja’-l-Ǧazl can be included among the settlements in the latter. It seems, moreover, that Suḳja’-l-Ǧazl is identical with Suḳja Jazîd, referred to by al-Muḳaddassi, Aḥsan (De Goeje), p. 84.

On the east of al-Ǧizel the hills of al-Maʻêḳel separate the šeʻîb of al-Ṛoṣon from the šeʻîb of Ṛubaṯa with the Ṛadîr al-Lâwi. Farther to the east the rocks of al-Ḥṯân and al-ʻAmâra are penetrated by the šeʻibân of Ḥalfa and Enḳêʻ, the latter of which contains the springs al-Aʻâl and al-Asfal, and also by the šeʻîb of aẓ-Ẓuma’. Below the latter the valley of al-Ǧizel is joined on the east by the šeʻibân of Enšejfe and al-Ǧîfe, which come down from the ope of aš-Šmejḥṭa near the volcano of an-Neǧme and