JABRIN	103
also of Majann, of which Salih ibn 'Aziz spoke in tones of
admiration as being situated near the mouth of Wadi Sahba.
Therefore, as in later Turkish times, it was against the
great tribes of Central Arabia that the folk of Jabrin had to
be on their guard, while it seemed to me at the time—though
such a supposition is now unnecessary—that the southerly
aspect of Umm al Nussi possibly indicated a source of danger
in what is now the Great South Desert. Wabar, I thought on
the strength of the legend above mentioned, may have been
the capital of a rival southern principality or kingdom with
Maqainama as its northern outpost. But we were now to
proceed in that direction to disprove such a theory.
Enough therefore of the topography of Jabrin. As already
stated I did not arrive at our camp over against Umm Ramad
until after dark on the day following our arrival in the Juba
basin. I was then surprised to hear that we had a visitor
in our midst, whose acquaintance I made in due course at
our frugal board. Jabir ibn Fasl, a son of Salim of the
Jarraba clan, had come up from the south, where he had been
summering with various elements of the Ghafran, on receipt
of the good news that the Hasa had been blessed with copious
rains during the autumn. His entry into the Juba tract had
coincided with ours and he had crossed the tracks of our
baggage-train in the neighbourhood of Umm Ithila. A
glance had told him that we were no ordinary party of
grazing Badawin or normal visitors. He had seen that all
our camels were of the sand class and he had assumed from
our numbers and the fact that we were travelling with more
than ordinary impedimenta that we constituted a Govern-
ment force bound for the south on business. His mind could
envisage no reasonable business but tax-gathering or war and
he had, as a matter of fact, heard from Saif ibn Tannaf the
chief of the Manahil that, when he left the Hasa only a few
days before ourselves, Ibn Jiluwi had been busy collecting
the personnel and superintending the other necessary ar-
rangements for such an expedition.
Saif had come up in December from the borders of Hadhra-
maut for no other purpose than to make his peace with Ibn
Jiluwi, whom he had offended the previous spring fey keeping