The least inaccurate description of Ukhaiḍir is furnished by an anonymous Englishman, quoted by Niebuhr.[5] ‘Ich habe’, says he, ‘in dem Tagebuch eines Engländers, der von Haleb nach Basra gereiset war, gefunden, dass er 44 Stunden nach Osten von Hêt eine ganz verlassene Stadt in der Wüste angetroffen habe, wovon die Mauer 50 Fuss hoch und 40 Fuss dick war. Jede der vier Seiten hatte 700 Fuss, und in der Mauer waren Thürme. In dieser Stadt, oder grossem Castell, findet man noch ein kleines Castell. Von eben dieser verlassenen Stadt hörte ich nachher, dass sie von den Arabern el Khader genannt werde und um 10 bis 12 Stunden von Meshed Ali entfernt sei. Sie ist ohne Zweifel gleichfalls wegen Mangel an Wasser verlassen worden: und da man hier gar keine Städte oder Dörfer in der Nähe findet, so ist dies wohl die Ursache, dass man davon nicht alle brauchbare Steine weggebracht hat, wie von Kufa und Basra, wo fast nichts mehr übrig ist.’ In the same volume (p. 236) Niebuhr gives the route from Baṣrah to Aleppo through the desert and mentions therein Ukhaiḍir under the name of el Chäder, remarking that it is the castle to which the Englishman referred. This Englishman I conjecture to have been Mr. Carmichael, whose route is shown in a map published by Ives,[6] and there called ‘the common route of the caravans from Aleppo to Bassora over the great desert of Arabia, as described in a journal kept by Mr. Carmichael in the year 1751’. Ukhaiḍir appears upon it as ‘Alkader, the ruins of a most magnificent building’. Major John Taylor saw it in June 1790 and dismissed it with short shrift.[7] He too was following the desert road from Aleppo to Baṣrah. On leaving Shethâthâ he says: ‘The camels being loaded at half past 6 this morning, we set forward over a barren flat desert. We crossed the bed of a river and at 11 a.m. we passed to our left the ruins of a small square fort, distant about half a mile, which the Arabs call Ula Kayder.’ Ritter[8] gives a summary of all these notices by early travellers, including that of Teixeira, which he accepts unquestioned, in spite of the fact that Teixeira’s palace lies, according to his own account, at least seven days’ journey to the south of the site of Ukhaiḍir.