noun
definition
A valley, gully, or stream bed in northern Africa and southwest Asia that remains dry except during the rainy season.
Examples of wadi in a Sentence
The village of Wadi Haifa is 3 m.
A tribe living on the banks of the Nile between Wadi Halfa and Assuan are called Barabra.
The citadel occupies a separate hill on the other side of the wadi.
The place is called Jiljulieh, and its position north of the valley of Achor (Wadi Kelt) and east of Jericho agrees well with the biblical indications above mentioned.
The caravan route to the Red Sea was superseded in 1906 by a railway, which leaves the Wadi Halfa-Khartum line at the mouth of the Atbara.
South-east of the city, along the valley of the Wadi Melain, are hundreds of large stone arches, magnificent remains of the Roman aqueduct from Zaghwan to Carthage.
Fifty miles to the north-west of Muscat this interior region may again be reached by the transverse valley of Semail, leading into the wadi Munsab, and from thence to Tyin.
It was supposed that Moab, having expelled the aboriginal giants, was in turn displaced by the Amorite king Sihon, who forced Moab south of the Arnon (Wadi MOjib, a natural boundary) and drove Ammon beyond the Jabbok.
Here in one portion of the desert, named Cellia, the monks lived a purely eremitical life; but in Nitria (the Wadi Natron) they lived either alone, or two or three together, or in communities, as they preferred.
Wadi Haifa is a general designation including the native village of that name, the camp, founded by the British in 1884 as their base in the operations for the relief of General Gordon, and the civil cantonment established at the same time.
This important work, essential for the welfare of the northern territories, was begun under the superintendence of Sir Percy Girouard,' the builder of the Wadi Halfa-Khartum railway.
South of Siwa the frontier, according to the Turkish firman of 1841, bends eastward, approaching the cultivated Nile-land near Wadi Halfa, i.e.
South of the Wadi Natron, and parallel to it, is a sterile valley called the Bahr-bela-Ma, or River without Water.
The salt obtained from Lake Mareotis at Meks, a western suburb of Alexandria, supplies the salt needed for the country, except a small quantity used for curing fish at Lake Menzala; while the lakes in the Wadi Natron, 45 m.
The turquoise mines of Sinai, in the Wadi Maghara, are worked regularly by the Arabs of the peninsula, who sell the stones in Suez; while there are emerald mines at Jebel Zubara, south of Kosseir.
At Wadi HaIfa the figures in each case are one degree lower.
At Assuan the mean value for the year is only 38%, that for the summer being 29%, and for the winter 51%; while for Wadi Haifa the mean is 32%, and 20% and 42% are the mean values for summer and winter respectively.
From the few observations that exist, it seems that farther south the southern winter winds decrease rapidly, becoming westerly, until at Assuan and Wadi Haifa the northerly winds are almost invariable throughout the year.
Another line connects at Wadi Haifa with the Sudan system, affording direct telegraphic communication via Khartum and Gondokoro with Uganda and Mombasa.
On the 7th of August 1897 Colonel Hunter surprised and annihilated a weak Dervish garrison at Abu Hamed, to which place, by the 31st of October 1897, a railway had been laid across the Nubian desert from Wadi Haifa, a distance of 230 m., the record construction of 5300 yds surveyed, embanked and laid in one day having been attained.
Here are the temples of Debfld, the temple and quarries of Kertassi, the temples of Kalabsha, Bet el Wali, Dendr, Gerf Husn, Dakka, Maharaka, Es-Seba, Amgda and Derr, the grottos of Elles ya, the tombs of Aniba, the temple of Ibrim, the great rock-temples of Abu-Simbel, the temples at Jebel Adda and Wadi Halfa, the forts and temples of Semna, the temples of Amgra (Meroitic) and Soleb.
A hard and fine-grained quartzite sandstone was quarried at Jebel Ahmar behind Heliopolis, and basalt was found thence along the eastern edge of the Delta to near the Wadi Tumilat.
Red granite was obtained from the First Cataract, breccia and diorite were quarried from very early times in the Wadi Hammamat, on the road from Coptos to the Red Sea, and porphyry was brought, chiefly in Roman times but also in the prehistoric age, from the same region at Jebel Dokhn.
A secondary road branched off through the Wadi Tumilat, whence the ways ran northwards to Syria and southwards to Sinai.
Elsewhere are but few other monuments; at Wadi Maghara in Sinai is a rock sculpture of Semcrkhet of the 1st Dynasty in perfect state, at Giza is a group of tombs of a prince and retinue of the 1st Dynasty, and at GIza and Bet Khallaf are two large brick mastabas with extensive passages closed by trap-doors, of kings of the IIIrd Dynasty.
The principal remaining buildings are part of a court at Memphis, the second temple at Abydos, and the six Nubian temples of Bet el-Wgli, Jerf Husein, Wadi es-Sebtia, Derr, and the grandest of allthe rock-cut temple of Abu Simbel, with its neighboring temple of Hathor.
He built a temple far up the Nile at Wadi Haifa and there set up a stela commemorating his victories over the tribes of Nubia.
We next hear that correspondence with Tirhaka was intercepted, and that Necho, together with Pekrflr of Psapt (at the entrance to the Wadi Tumilat) and the Assyrian governor of Pelusium, was taken to Nineveh in chains to answer the charge of treason.
Nechos reign a Phoenician ship despatched from Egypt actually circumnavigated Africa, and the attempt was made to complete a canal through the Wadi Tumilat, which connected the Mediterranean and Red Seas by way of the Lower Egyptian Nile.
The practical result was that the khedives authority was limited to the Nile valley north of Wadi Haifa.
In April 1886 the frontier was drawn back to Wadi Haifa, a fortified camp at the northern end of the desolate defile, Batn-el-Hagar, through which the Nile tumbles amid black, rocky hills in a succession of rapids, and debouches on a wide plain.
The railway up the right bank of the Nile was continued to Kerma, in order to evade the difficulties of the 3rd cataract; but the sirdar had conceived the bold project of cutting off the great angle of the Nile from Wadi Haifa to Abu Hamed, involving nearly 600 m.
Early in 1897 this new line of railway was commenced from Wadi Haifa across the great Nubian.
Another depression, entirely barren, the Wadi Rayan, covering 280 sq.
The chief valleys of this region are the Nahr Na'aman and its branches, which runs into the sea south of Acre, and the Wadi Mukatta`, or Kishon, which joins the sea at Haifa.
It is a large triangle, having its corners at Jenin, Jebel et-Tur, and the outlet of the Wadi Mukatta`, by which last it communicates with the sea-coast.
East of the watershed are a number of valleys running to the Ghor; the most remarkable of these are the Wadi el-Bireh and the Wadi Jalud, the latter containing the river that flows from the fine spring called 'Ain Jalud.
On the eastern side of the watershed the most important feature is perhaps the great valley system that connects the Mukhnah (the plain south of Nablus) with the Ghor - beginning with the impressive Wadi Bilan and proceeding through the important and abundantly watered Wadi Far`a.
Among these the most important are the Wadi Selman (Valley of Aijalon) which seems to have been the principal route to Jerusalem in ancient times; the Wadi Isma`in south of this, along which runs the modern carriage road from Jaffa to Jerusalem; and the Wadi es-Surar, a higher section of the bed of the Nahr Rubin, along which now runs the railway line; farther to the south we may mention the Wadi es-Sunt, which opens up the country from Tell es-Safi (Gath?) eastward.
It descends to the level of the Ghor by terraces, deeply cut through by profound ravines such as the Wadi es-Suweinit, Wadi Kelt, Wadi ed-Dabr, Wadi en-Nar (Kedron) and Wadi el `Areijeh.
They are generally concealed by later deposits, but are exposed to view along the eastern margin of the Wadi Araba, at the foot of the plateau of Edom.
In the midst of this series there is an inconstant band of fossiliferous limestone, which has been found in the Wadi Nasb and at other places on the southern border of et-Tih, and also along the western escarpment of the Edom plateau.
A century later, in the time of Alexander 11 Yakut gives the name Sal' to a fortress in Wadi Musa, Noldeke, ZDMG.
Moslim, having met the expelled Omayyads at Wadi 'l-Qora, encamped near the city (August 683) and gave the inhabitants three days in which to return to obedience, wishing to spare the city of the Prophet and to prevent the shedding of blood.
We have here the Hebraized form of the Egyptian Petom "House of (the sun-god) Etom," in Greek, Patumos, capital of the 8th nome of Lower Egypt and situated in the Wadi Tumilat on the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea.
In 1899 the railway from Wadi Halfa was completed to Khartum, and in 1906 through communication by rail was established with the Red Sea.
The site is indicated by ruins of a temple, aqueducts, &c., and inscriptions on the banks of the river Barada at Suk Wadi Barada, a village called by early Arab geographers Abil-es-Suk, between Baalbek and Damascus.
Mecca in fact lies in the heart of a mass of rough hills, intersected by a labyrinth of narrow valleys and passes, and projecting into the Tehama or low country on the Red Sea, in front of the great mountain wall that divides the coast-lands from the central plateau, though in turn they are themselves separated from the sea by a second curtain of hills forming the western wall of the great Wadi Marr.
This is the way to Wadi Fatima and Medina, the Jidda road branching off from it to the left.
It leads through the straggling village of Mina, occupying a long narrow valley (Wadi Mina), two to three hours from Mecca, and thence by the mosque of Mozdalifa over a narrow pass opening out into the plain of Arafa,which is an expansion of the great Wadi Naman,through which the Taif road descends from Mount Kara.