RECUPERATION 291

be in our place, if they only knew of this water. And when
the King asked me at Mecca whether we had found anything
of practical significance in the desert I told him that at Naifa
(and presumably in the whole tract of Al Khiran) he had all
the makings of an attractive health-resort if he was minded
to develop its possibilities. By a curious coincidence the
very name Naifa is an exact palindrome of Afian, the usual
Arabic form of the name of another famous source—Evian.
A sample of the water was in due course analysed in the
Research Laboratory of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company at
Sunbury-on-Thames and was found to contain a high per-
centage of salts l in solution, to wit Chlorides and Sulphates
of Sodium, Calcium and Magnesium. * It is not surprising/
wrote Dr. G. M. Lees to me in this connection, ' that the
water had the effect which you described. ... I have looked
up analyses of various European mineral waters, but there
are none that correspond. It has too much chloride to be
considered potable in this part of the world. It is like, say,
Baden water with additional ordinary salt and less sulphate
in proportion. Its origin is probably from rocks rich in
gypsum and magnesium sulphate and salt.'

Having set apart the meat required for our more im-
mediate needs, my companions did not neglect the require-
ments of the future. Previous experience had shown us that
the salting of meat to preserve it was liable to create diffi-
culties where abundance of water could not be counted on
to slake the resultant^thirst. It was accordingly agreed that
the surplus meat of the slaughtered camel—and the quantity
it provided was indeed astonishing—should be dry-cured in
sun and wind without salt. The raw meat was accordingly
carved in wide thin slices, which were spread out on every
convenient Abal thicket for the drying. For & white the

1 The details of the actual analysis, dated 8th August, 1032, are as follows :
Total solids dried at 110° C. 861 pte./100,000
Calcium (Ca) - - 61*5 »

Magnesium (Mg)
Sodium (Na) -
Sulphate (SO4) -
Chloride (O2) -
Carbonate (COS)
Bicarbonate

20-4
170
274
209

19
abeent.