136 THE EMPTY QUARTER

descended to clear out the accumulated rubbish, which was
hauled up by the others as he filled the leather bucket with
fragments of sandstone rock, bits of wood and, of course,
much sand. When it was cleared a camel was harnessed to
the long rope and the watering began. I measured the depth
with my tape and found it to be no less than 126 feet, while
the drawing incline of the parent well was as much as 58
paces, say 143 feet. The latter's mouth was, however,
situated in a raised mound, about 10 feet high and represent-
ing the accumulated mixture of sand, moisture and camel-
dung through generations or centuries, while the mouth of
the one we used was flush with the ground level. The extra
depth of the older shaft, therefore, represents a fortuitous
addition, and I saw the grooves scored by well-ropes in the
stone blocks lining the shaft at its original mouth level. The
other two wells (one excavated in 1930 and since abandoned)
were completely buried but it seemed strange to me that the
Badawin should be capable of such works. By further en-
quiry, however, I elicited the fact that the actual shafts have
existed from time immemorial, while the ' digging ' of our
well, for instance, by the Ghafran meant no more than its
rediscovery and clearing. The shafts seemed to be sunk
through a ruddy sandstone.

In this well area I came upon a small cemetery, the first
seen in Murra territory and containing 10 graves in a rough
circle round one of greater dimensions, probably that of a
Shaikh. Each was marked at the head by a block of white
stone. It is indeed strange that one does not see in these
desert tracts more frequent reminders of the vanity of life,
but the explanation is simple enough. At Jabrin bodies
committed to the saline mud are soon reduced to nothing,
while in the desert the sand conveniently veils the passing of
man. I picked up a small fragment of basaltic scoria which
Hasan assured me was of the * walking stone ' type he knew,
but it was also suggested that it might have been brought
here to be ground into a powder they use for the eyes. Or it
might, according to others, have been used as a pounding stone1

1 Called Haid al Rawah. No one could say where such fragments might
have come from. See Appendix.