Dabba. Hill, Heap, or Place Abounding in Sand. Hence the proverb, Such a One Fell into a Place Abounding in Sand, Meaning, a Camel in Such a Place Suffers Fatigue.
-Lane’s Lexicon, entry for the root D-B-B
KhairAllah is now living in al-Dabba. I sent his son a link to the Library of Congress holding of a digitized British colonial map in 1:250000 scale, 4 miles per inch, of that Nile-side town and its environs. On it I see the village of Khuleiwa, 3 inches north of Dabba, where we watered the Dabouka after coming in from the Wadi al-Milk. KhairAllah told Soliman to remind me of Khuleiwa’s biggest camel merchants from those days, Muhammad Salih al-Dawayd and Muhammad Wad al-Nūr, two more names for someone else’s memory hole.