Note 11 — Chapter I · UKHAIḌIR

When I was there in March 1911 many of the palm-trees had been killed, and the rest severely damaged by the snow which had fallen in January and February. In the memory of no living man had snow fallen in Shethâthâ, and the inhabitants, when they woke to find the ground covered with white, were at a loss to know what the strange substance could be. Some took it to be flour. Snow fell as far south as Nedjef, and in the desert round ‘Aṭshân, between Ukhaiḍir and the Kerbelâ-Nedjef road, it lay for some days. When I passed I saw each abandoned camping ground of the Bani Ḥasan marked by a ring of dead animals, donkeys, sheep, and goats, which had perished in the unwonted cold.