27- Well-waters from the Hadhramaut, Arabia 



By Davtd Hoopkh, K.C.8. 



Travellers in Southern Arabia have noticed the great fertility 

 of lands irrigated with miner-al water Issuing from subteiranean 

 lakes. The rainfall in that part of the country is so scarce and 

 irregular, and can never be depended upon, that the princij^al 

 means of obtaining water for drinking purposes as well as for 

 cultivation is by sinking wells. A gliail^ a running stream or rill, 

 is a rare phenomenon in Arabia ; but they are occasionally met 

 with when a rock bed is not far below the sand. Ghail Omr and 

 Al Ghail, however, are important supplies ; the first comes from 

 Wadi Loban and is considerable, and the second rises at an alti- 

 tude of 2,000 feet at the head of the Wadi Howeri. 



The Hadhramaut is a broad valley running for 100 miles or 

 more parallel to the coast, and collects under the sand any water 

 derived from the high Arabian tableland, very little, if any, reach- 

 ing tlie sea towards which it slopes. In this vallev a few wells 



occur which are important from an agricultural point of view, and 



around which one or two villages have grown. 



that the villages are prosperous, 

 with outbuild 



It cannot be said 



They are walled strongholds 



J belonging to the proj^rietors of the land. The 



fear of the Bedouin prevents an extensive population* 



Mr, F. Noel-Paton, Director- General of Commercial Intelli- 

 gence, during a visit to Southern Arabia a few years ago, was 

 struck with the fertilising properties of the mineral water of 

 Hadhramaut, and especially with the fact that some of the finest 

 tobacco in the world is grown in that region. His valuable re- 

 marks on the supply may here be reproduced* He says: ** The 

 sources appear to be so much parts of one system that I should 

 be surprised to find any difference in the analyses of the waters. 

 The 'rivers' are aqueducts cut down into the solid rock to a 

 very considerable depth. They extend over considerable distances, 

 and are so well executed, that they represent an enormous expen- 

 diture of labour over a long period of time ; but they are of such 

 an age that no one in the country was able to relate even a tra-» 

 dition as to how they came into existence. The workmanship is 

 apparently identical with that seen at the tanks at Aden and the 

 rock-temples in Egypt, and it indicates considerable engineering 

 skill, for arches in the rock are left at regular intervals to prevent 

 the sides of the channel from falling in. Historically the works 

 are very suggestive. There appears to be a great subtermnean 

 volume of water, and in two places, where the crust of the desert 

 has fallen in, there are lakes of mineral water which sliowed no 

 discoverable signs of a fall of level, although no rain had fallen 

 in that country for five years. The water is so rich in salts that 



