The plentiful sweet water of the well in the Wâdi al-Ubaiḍ makes it a trysting-place for raiding parties, and after four or five days’ sojourn it is best to be gone, lest the news that a foreigner is lodged within the palace walls should run too temptingly among the tribes. In 1911, the date of my last visit, I came to Ukhaiḍir from Shethâthâ, having ridden straight across the desert from Ramâdi, skirting the Ḥabbâniyyeh Lake and the east side of the Ḥabbâniyyeh depression. When I left I did not follow the usual way, by Abû Dibs to Kerbelâ, but rode almost due east, to the foot of a cliff of sand and rock, which is the western limit of a flat desert plateau that stretches eastward to the Hindiyyeh. An abrupt rise of this nature is called in colloquial Arabic a ṭâr.[10] From Ukhaiḍir the ground dropped gradually. After two hours’ riding (about six miles) we reached the khabrâ of Wizikh. A khabrâ is a hollow bottom where rain water lies and stagnates till it evaporates. The khabrâ of Wizikh, which was dry and sandy, appeared to stretch along the foot of the ṭâr, northward to Abû Dibs, and also southwards. My Arab guide, a sheikh of the Zaqârît, which is a sub-tribe of the Shammar, informed me that there were wells of brackish water in the khabrâ further to the south, the Biyâr Slâm. The khabrâ was about a fifth of a mile wide. At the further side we rode up the sandy gulleys of the ṭâr and in ten minutes reached a well, the Bir Sbai’i, the water of which was brackish but drinkable. From here to the Hindiyyeh there is no water of any kind. Another ten minutes brought us to the summit of the ṭâr, whence we could see Ukhaiḍir on the one hand and the tower of Mudjḍah on the other. The bearings here were as follows: Ukhaiḍir (south-east angle of the castle) 300°, Mudjḍah 97°, central point of the Djebel Ḍaba’ 244°. Mudjḍah is a solitary tower without any provision for the storage of water, or any ruins round it. I think it can have served no other purpose than that of a landmark on the line of the caravan track, which must have passed this way from the great city of Kûfah to the oasis of Shethâthâ, or ‘Ain al-Tamr, to give it its earlier name. From the top of the ṭâr to the modern Kerbelâ-Nedjef road the desert is absolutely flat and featureless, and we ourselves came near to losing our way across it. The existence of a former caravan track across this waste is assured by the ruined khân of ‘Aṭshân, half-way between Mudjḍah and the modern Khân Ḥamâd.