MAQAESTAMA 121

if that spot was to be equated with ancient Maganna. It
was, therefore, disappointing to find at first sight nothing
suggesting the existence of any source of rocks suitable for
the attention of sculptors though, undaunted by an initial
reverse of this kind, I spent the period of our sojourn at the
well in scouring the Summan uplands to a depth and breadth
of several miles in search of enlightenment. The Summan in
this neighbourhood, as also at many points within my ken
further north, is of a whitish sandy limestone overlying
sandstone, and the possibility of its containing anything in
the nature of granite must, I think, be dismissed from our
minds.

In a bushy depression of the Summan, a little way off the
broad camel-tracks—doubtless partly an old caravan-route
between Maqainama and the Aflaj province and partly the
pathways of grazing camels going to and from the water—I
found a single, delightful bronze arrow-head of ancient man.
But otherwise there was no trace whatever anywhere of the
human handiwork of antiquity—not even the sherds and
bangles of Jabrin and 'Uj—to support the supposition that
Maqainama might formerly have been the site of a town or
city or even village. I came therefore to the conclusion that
it never was, never could have been more than it is to-day—a
desert well.

Its great depth—I found by measurement that the dis-
tance from the mouth to the water-level was no less than
171 feet (33 fathoms according to local reckoning)—pre-
cluded the idea that it might be the work of modern or even
comparatively recent Badawin. It was obviously dug by the
representatives of a more serious civilisation. The arrow-
head, fired from an ancient bow perchance at a gazelle,
proved conclusively that ancient man had frequented these
parts. And the caravan-tracks to the Aflaj were evidently
part of an old route which, linked up in due course with the
deep well of Bir Fadhil to the east, suggested to my mind an
ancient east-west trade route running from Gerrha or Majann
on the Persian Gulf to the important mart of Mecca.

I had thus to my own satisfaction placed the problem of
Maqainama in something like a proper perspective. Salih