CHAPTER II

FORGOTTEN RIVERS

' From Maqainama onwards there is nought more but the Rub6
al Khali until you come to the settlements. There is water to
the right of it and water to the left of it, but that is the Rub' al
Khali.*

WE had, as I reckoned, entered the Great South Desert when
we passed out of the Juba basin at Hafair. Now we were
properly embarked on the sands as we set our course roughly
eastward from Maqainama for Bir Fadhil. And Suwid swept
his arm comprehensively round to south and west as he
imparted to me the information with which I have opened
this chapter.

I have no doubt whatever in my own mind that, while the
Arabs in general know and use the term c Rub' al Khali' to
indicate the vast, vague, unknown wilderness of the Great
South Desert extending between Jabrin and the Hadhramaut
in one direction and between Oman and Najran in the other,
the actual denizens of the area—the Badawin tribes—are
perfectly familiar with the term and use it in two senses, the
one more comprehensive and vague than the other but both
definitely geographical in import and contrasting with such
descriptive terms as Madhma1 (land of thirst) and Mahmal1
(bare region).

Apart from the fact that the Badawin have a limited
application of the term—this was perhaps not appreciated
before—as well as its common and wider connotation, my
view as here stated accords with the traditional acceptation
of the name * Rub* al Khali * both in Arabia and beyond its

1 These terms, as applied to the Empty Quarter and similar wastes, are
more often used in the plural forms Madhami and Mahcaml, but excep-
tions are frequent and the latter word is also used geographically, e.g.
Mahmal (a district in Central Najd), Hand (part of Jafura) and Maham.il
(desert between Wadi Dawasir and Bisha).

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