The Hadhramout

Chapter VI

Makalla

After our journeys in South Africa and Abyssinia, it was suggested to my husband that a survey of the Hadhramout by an independent traveller would be useful to the Government; so in the winter of 1893-94 we determined to do our best to penetrate into this unknown district, which anciently was the centre of the frankincense and myrrh trade, one of the most famed commercial centres of 'Araby the Blest,' before Mohammedan fanaticism blighted all industries and closed the peninsula to the outer world.

In the proper acceptation of the term, the Hadhramout at the present time is not a district running along the south-east coast of Arabia between the sea and the central desert, as is generally supposed, but it is simply a broad valley running for 100 miles or more parallel to the coast, by which the valleys of the high Arabian table-land discharge their not abundant supply of water into the sea at Saihut, towards which place this valley gradually slopes.

There is every reason to believe that anciently, too, the Hadhramout meant only this valley; we learnt from Himyaritic inscriptions that five centuries b.c. the name was spelt by the Himyars as it is now (namely, t m r d h [Symbol: See page image]), and meant in that tongue 'the enclosure or valley of death,' a name which in Hebrew form corresponds exactly to that of Hazarmaveth of the tenth chapter of Genesis, and which the Greeks, in their usual slipshod manner—occasioned by their inability, as is the case still, to pronounce a pure h—converted into Chatramitæ, a form which still survives in the Italian word catrame, or 'pitch.'

Owing to the intense fanaticism of the inhabitants, this main valley has been reached only by one European before ourselves—namely, Herr Leo Hirsch, in 1893. In 1846 Von Wrede made a bold attempt to reach it, but only got as far as the collateral valley of Doan. My husband and I were the first to attempt (in the latter part of 1893 and the early part of 1894) this journey without any disguise, and with a considerable train of followers, and I think, for this very reason, that we went openly, we made more impression on the natives, and were able to remain there longer and see more, than might otherwise have been the case, and to establish relations with the inhabitants which, I hope, will hereafter lead to very satisfactory results.

Having arrived at Aden with letters of recommendation to the Resident from the Indian Government and the India Office, besides private introductions, we were amazed at all the difficulties thrown in our way. It quite appeared as if we had left our native land to do some evil deed to its detriment, and we were made to feel how thoroughly degrading it is to take up the vocation of an archæologist and explorer.

Many strange and unexpected things befell us, but the most remarkable of all was that when a certain surgeon-captain asked for leave to accompany us, it was refused to him on the ground that 'Mr. Theodore Bent's expedition was not sanctioned by Government,' in spite of the fact that the Indian Government had actually placed at my husband's disposal a surveyor, Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur. We had no assistance beyond two very inferior letters to the sultans of Makalla and Sheher, which made them think we were 'people of the rank of merchants,' they afterwards said.

Imam Sharif has travelled much with Englishmen, so he speaks our language perfectly, and having a keen sense of humour, plenty of courage and tact, and no Mohammedan prejudices, we got on splendidly together. He was a very agreeable member of the party. My husband paid all his expenses from Quetta viâ Bombay, with three servants, including their tents and camp equipage, and back to Quetta.

Our party was rather a large one, for besides ourselves and our faithful Greek servant Matthaios, who has accompanied us in so many of our journeys, we had with us not only the Indians, but a young gardener from Kew, William Lunt by name, as botanist, and an Egyptian named Mahmoud Bayoumi, as naturalist, sent by Dr. Anderson, whose collections are now in the British Museum of Natural History at South Kensington.

The former was provided with all the requisites for digging up forest trees, and Mahmoud had with him all that was necessary for pickling and preserving large mammals, for no one knew what might be found in the unknown land; and many were the volunteers to join the party as hunters, who promised to keep us in game, whereas if they had come they would only have found reptiles.

As interpreter was recommended to us by the native political agent at Aden, Saleh Mohammed Jaffer, Khan Bahadur—a certain Saleh Hassan. He proved to be a fanatical Moslem, whose only object seemed to be to terrify us and to raise enemies against us, in order to prevent our trampling the holy land where Mohammed was born. Throughout our journey he was a constant source of difficulty and danger.

Our starting-point for the interior was Makalla, which is 230 miles from Aden, and is the only spot between Aden and Maskat which has any pretensions to the name of port. The name itself means 'harbour.' It is first mentioned by Ibn Modjawir; Hamdani calls it El Asa-Lasa, and Masudi gives the name as Lahsa. The harbour is not available during the south-west monsoon, and then all the boats go off to Ras Borum or the Basalt Head.

Here we were deposited in December 1893 by a chance steamer, one which had been chartered and on which for a consideration we were allowed to take passage. I took turns with the captain to sleep in his cabin, but there was nothing but the deck for the others.

Immediately behind the town rise grim, arid mountains of a reddish hue, and the town is plastered against this rich-tinged background. By the shore, like a lighthouse, stands the white minaret of the mosque, the walls and pinnacles of which are covered with dense masses of sea-birds and pigeons; the gate of this mosque, which is really nearly in the sea, is blocked up by tanks, so that no one can enter with unwashed feet. Not far from this rises the huge palace where the sultan dwells, reminding one of a whitewashed mill; white, red, and brown are the dominant colours of the town, and in the harbour the Arab dhows, with fantastic sterns, rock to and fro in the unsteady sea, forming altogether a picturesque and unusual scene.

Beyond the Bab Assab are huts where dwell the Bedouin who come from the mountains. They are not allowed to sleep within the town. There is a praying-place just outside the gate. In the middle of the town is a great cemetery full of tamarisks, and containing the sacred tomb of the sainted Wali Yakoub in the centre.

We were amused by a dance at a street corner to the beating of drums. It consisted of a hot, seething mass of brown bodies writhing about and apparently enjoying themselves.

Stone tobacco pipes are made here of a kind of limestone, very curly silver powder-flasks, rather like nautilus shells, and curious guns without stocks. The Bedou women wear tremendously heavy belts and very wide brass armlets. Their faces are veiled with something like the yashmak of Egypt, but it is of plain blue calico, a little embroidered.

Makalla is ruled over by a sultan of the Al Kaiti family, whose connection with India has made them very English in their sympathies, and his majesty's general appearance, with his velvet coat and jewelled daggers, is far more Indian than Arabian. Really the most influential people in the town are the money-grubbing Parsees from Bombay, and it is essentially one of those commercial centres where Hindustani is spoken nearly as much as Arabian. The government of the country is now almost entirely in the hands of the Al Kaiti family, which at present is the most powerful family in the district, and is reputed to be the richest in Arabia.

About five generations ago the Seyyids of the Aboubekr family, at that time the chief Arab family at the Hadhramout, who claimed descent from the first of the Khalifs, were at variance with the Bedou tribes, and in their extremity they invited assistance from the chiefs of the Yafei tribe, who inhabit the Yafei district, to the north-east of Aden. To this request the Al Kaiti family responded by sending assistance to the Seyyids of the Hadhramout, putting down the troublesome Bedou tribes, and establishing a fair amount of peace and prosperity in the country, though even to this day the Bedouin of the mountains are ever ready to swoop down and harass the more peaceful inhabitants of the towns. At the same time the Al Kaiti family established themselves in the Hadhramout, and for the last four generations have been steadily adding to the power thus acquired. Makalla, Sheher, Shibahm, Haura, Hagarein, all belong to them, and they are continually increasing, by purchase, the area of their influence in the collateral valleys, building substantial castles, and establishing one of the most powerful dynasties in this much-divided country. They get all their money from the Straits Settlements, for it has been the custom of the Hadhrami to leave their own sterile country to seek their fortunes abroad. The Nizam of Hyderabad has an Arab regiment composed entirely of Hadhrami, and the Sultan Nawasjung, the present head of the Al Kaiti family, is its general: he lives in India and governs his Arabian possessions by deputy. His son Ghalib ruled in Sheher, his nephew Manassar, who receives a dollar a day from England, ruled in Makalla, and his nephew Salàh ruled in Shibahm, and the governors of the other towns are mostly connections of this family. The power and wealth of this family are almost the only guarantee for peace and prosperity in an otherwise lawless country.

The white palace of the Sultan Manassar is six stories high, with little carved windows and a pretty sort of cornice of open-work bricks, unbaked of course, save by the sun. It stands on a little peninsula, and like Riviera towns, has pretty coast views on either side. The sultan received us with his two young sons, dressed up in as many fine clothes as it was possible to put on, and attended by his vizier, Abdul Kalek; no business was done as to our departure, but only compliments were paid on both sides. After we had separated presents were sent by us, loaves of sugar being an indispensable accompaniment.

The so-called palace in which we were lodged was next to the mosque and close to the bazaar; the smells and noise were almost unendurable, so we worked hard to get our preparations made, and to make our sojourn here as short as possible. This 'palace' was a large building; a very dirty staircase led to a quantity of rooms, large and small, inhabited in rather a confusing manner, not only by our own party, but by another, and to get at our servants we had to pick our way between the prostrate forms of an Arabian gentleman and his attendants. We were the first arrivals, so we collected from the various rooms as many bits of torn and rotten old matting as we could find, to keep the dust down in our own room, which was about 40 feet long by 30 feet wide, so very much covered with dust that no pavement could be seen without digging. It would have been necessary to have 'seven maids with seven brooms to sweep for half a year' before they could have cleared that room. Windows were all round, unglazed of course, and quite shutterless. We set out our furniture and had plenty of room to spread the baggage round us. An enormous packing case from Kew Gardens had little besides a great fork in it, so that case came no farther. Another case, to which the botanist had to resort constantly, had always to be tied up with rope, as it had neither lock nor hinges.

We were six days at Makalla arranging about camels and safe conduct, and wondering when we should get away; so of course we had plenty of time to inspect the town, which on account of the many Parsees had quite an Indian air in some parts. Sometimes one comes upon a deliciously scented part in the bazaars where myrrh and spices, attar of roses, and rose leaves are sold in little grimy holes almost too small to enter; but for the part near the fish market, I can only say that awful stenches prevail, and the part where dates and other fruits are sold is almost impassable from flies.

For our journey inland we were entrusted by the sultan to a tribe of Bedouin and their camels. Mokaik was the name of our Mokadam or head-man, and his tribe rejoiced in the name of Khailiki. They were tiny spare men, quite beardless, with very refined, gentle faces; they might easily have been taken for women, so gentle and pretty were they. They were naturally dark, and made darker still by dirt and indigo. Their long shaggy hair was twisted up into a knot and bound by a long plaited leather string like a bootlace, which was wound round the hair and then two or three times round the head, like the fillet worn by Greek women in ancient times. They were naked save for a loin-cloth and the girdle to which were attached their brass powder flasks, shaped like a ram's horn, their silver cases for flint and steel, their daggers, and their thorn extractors, consisting of a picker and tweezers, fastened together. They are very different from the stately Bedouin of Syria and Egypt, and are, both as to religion and physique, distinctly an aboriginal race of Southern Arabia, as different from the Arab as the Hindoo is from the Anglo-Saxon.

Our ideas as to Bedouin and Bedawi, which latter word we never heard while we were in Southern Arabia, were that they were tall, bearded men, not very dark in colour, and our imaginations connected them with hospitality and much clothes. None of these characteristics are found among the Bedouin of this district. Bedouin is not a word in use, but Bedou for both singular and plural. They speak of themselves as el Bedou, and when they have seen us wondering at some strange custom, they have said apologetically, 'Ah! Bedou, Bedou!' I have heard them address a man whose name they did not know 'Ya Bedou.' I mean to use Bedou for singular and Bedouin for plural.

Besides the Bedouin we were accompanied by five soldiers, Muofok-el-Briti, Taisir-i-Fahari, Bariki, and an old man. For the twenty-two camels we paid 175 dollars to Hagarein, a journey, we were told, of twenty days.

It would have been useless to have had riding camels, as one could get no faster than the baggage and soldiers, and travelling so far daily, and up such rocks, one had to go at foot-pace. We should have had to wait longer at Makalla while more camels were collected, and the more camels you have the farther they stray when food is scarce, and the more chance there is of the annoyance of waiting for lost camels to be found, and sometimes found too late to start that day. We need not have had twenty-two camels, and once, later, all the baggage was sent on ten, but this was to suit the purposes of the Bedouin.

Before proceeding further with our journey, I will here say a few words concerning the somewhat complex body politic of this portion of Arabia, the inhabitants of which may be divided into four distinct classes.

Firstly, there are numerous wild tribes of Bedouin scattered all over the country, who do all the carrying trade, rear and own most of the camels, and possess large tracts of country, chiefly on the highlands and smaller valleys. They are very numerous and powerful, and the Arabs of the towns are certainly afraid of them, for they can make travelling in the country very difficult, and even blockade the towns. They never live in tents, as do the Bedouin of Northern Arabia; the richer ones have quite large houses, whilst the poorer ones—those in Shabwa and the Wadi Adim, for instance—dwell in caves.

Secondly, we have the Arabs proper, a decidedly later importation into the country than the Bedouin. They live in and cultivate the lands around the towns; many of them carry on trade and go to India and the Straits Settlements, and some of them are very wealthy. They also are divided into tribes. The chief of those dwelling in the Hadhramout are the Yafei, Kattiri, Minhali, Amri, and Tamimi. The Bedouin reside amongst them, and they are constantly at war with one another, and the complex system of tribal union is exceedingly difficult to grasp.

Thirdly, we have the Seyyids and Sherifs, a sort of aristocratic hierarchy, who trace their descent from the daughter and son of the Prophet. Their influence in the Hadhramout is enormous, and they fan the religious superstition of the people, for to this they owe their existence. They boast that their pedigree is purer than that of any other Seyyid family, even than those of Mecca and Medina. Seyyids and Sherifs are to be found in all the large towns and considerable villages, and even the Arab sultans show them a marked respect and kiss their hands when they enter a room. They have a distinct jurisdiction of their own, and most disputed points of property, water rights, and so on, are referred to their decision. They look with peculiar distrust on the introduction of external influence into their sacred country, and are the obstructionists of the Hadhramout, but at the same time their influence is decidedly towards law and order in a lawless land. They never carry arms.

Lastly, we have the slave population of the Hadhramout, all of African origin, and the freed slaves who have married and settled in the country. Most of the tillers of the soil, personal servants, and the soldiers of the sultans are of this class.

Chapter VII

Our Departure Into the Interior

Never shall I forget the confusion of our start. Mokaik and ten of his men appeared at seven in the morning of the day before in our rooms, with all the lowest beggars of Makalla in their train, and were let loose on our seventy packages like so many demons from Jehannam, yelling and quarrelling with one another. First of all the luggage had to be divided into loads for twenty-two camels, then they drew lots for these loads with small sticks, then they drew lots for us riders, and finally we had a stormy bargain as to the price, which was finally decided upon when the vizier came to help us, and ratified by his exchanging daggers with Mokaik, each dagger being presented on a flat hand. In the bazaars bargains are struck by placing the first two fingers of one contractor on the hand of the other. All that day they were rushing in and weighing, and exhorting us to be ready betimes in the morning, so we were quite ready about sunrise.

We felt worn and weary when a start was made at two o'clock, and our cup of bitterness was full when we were deposited, bag and baggage, a few hundred yards from the gate, and told that we must spend the night amidst a sea of small fish drying on the shore, and surrounded on all sides by dirty Bedou huts. These fish, which are rather larger than sardines, are put out to dry by thousands along this coast. Men feed on them and so do the camels; they make lamp-oil out of them; they say the fish strengthens the camel's back, and they consider it good for camels to go once a year to the sea. Large sacks of them are taken into the interior as merchandise; they are mixed with small leaves like box, and carried in palm-leaf sacks, about 3 feet wide and 1½ feet high, and the air everywhere is redolent of their stench.

At this point we had the first of many quarrels with our camel-men; we insisted on being taken two miles farther on, away from the smells; nothing short of threats of returning and getting the sultan to beat them and put them in prison enabled us to break through the conventional Arab custom of encamping for the first night outside the city gates. However, we succeeded in reaching Bakhrein, where white wells are placed for the benefit of wayfarers, and there beneath the pleasant shade of the palm-trees we halted for the remainder of the day and recovered from the agonies of our start. Among the trees was a bungalow belonging to the sultan where we had hoped to have been able to sleep, but it was pervaded by such a strong smell of fish that we preferred to pitch our tents.

Between this place and Makalla all is arid waste, but near the town, by the help of irrigation, bananas and cocoanut trees flourish in a shallow valley called 'the Beginning of Light.' There are numerous fortresses about Bakhrein, so the road is now quite safe for the inhabitants of Makalla; the sultan has done a good deal to repress the Bedouin who used to raid right into the town. He crucified many of them.

We took a couple of hours over our start next day, the Bedouin again quarrelling over the luggage, each trying to scramble for the lightest packages and the lightest riders. They tried to make me ride a camel and give up my horse to my husband. As he was so tall, he could obtain neither a horse nor a donkey, so had perforce to ride a camel.

He had been able to buy a little dark donkey for Imam Sharif and the sultan gave me a horse, but all the rest were on camels. I thought I should enjoy riding by the camels and talking to everyone, but my hopes were not carried out.

The difficulty of passing the strings of camels was enormous. The country was so very stony that if you left the narrow path it took a long time to pick your way.

I used to start first with Imam Sharif, and then my horse, at foot-pace, got so far ahead that the soldiers said, 'We cannot guard both you and the camels.' I had then to pull in the horse with all my might. Sometimes I went on with Imam Sharif, one soldier and a servant carrying the plane-table. He used to go up some hill to survey, and I, of course, had to climb too for safety. I had to rush down when I saw our kafila coming and mount, to keep in front. If I got behind, the camels were so terrified that they danced about and shed their loads, and I was cursed and sworn at by their drivers.

We stopped three hours at Basra (10 miles), where there are a few houses, water, and some cultivation, and where the camels were suddenly unloaded without leave, and there was a great row because we moved the soldiers' guns from the tree, the shade of which we wished to have ourselves. We again threatened to return, but at last, as Taisir fortunately could speak Hindustani, he could make peace, and they ended by kissing hands and saying salaam (peace).

The sun was setting when we reached a sandy place called Tokhum (another 5 miles on), where we camped near some stagnant water. We had to wait for the moon, to find our baggage and get out the lantern. We had travelled over almost leafless plains save that they had little patches of mesembryanthemum, and the inevitable balloon-shrub (madhar). Rising and starting by moonlight on Christmas morning, we stopped in Wadi Ghafit (madhar), a very pretty side valley, with warm water and palm-trees, and what looked like a grassy sward near the water, but which really consisted of a tiny kind of palm. The camel-men wanted to pass this place and camp far away on the stones, sending skins for water, but somehow my husband found this out after we had passed Wadi Ghafit, and managed to carry off the camels, tied tail after tail to his own camel, so the Bedouin had to follow unwillingly. We gave them some presents, saying it was not an everyday occurrence, but that this was a great feast with us; so we made friends.

The Bedouin were very unruly about the packing. We could not get our most needful things kept handy, and they liked to pack our bread with their fish, and the waterskins anywhere among our bedding.

Mokaik did not seem to have much authority over the various owners of the camels, and they were always quarrelling among themselves, robbing each other of light loads and leaving some heavy thing, that no one wished for, lying on the ground; this often occasioned re-packing. They had for each camel a stout pair of sticks with strong ropes attached, and having bound a bundle of packages to each stick, two men lifted them and wound the ropes round the sticks over a very tiny pack-saddle and a mass of untidy rags. When we arrived they liked to simply loose the ropes from the sticks and let the baggage clatter to the ground and lead away the camels. As they would not be persuaded to sort the things, and as twenty-two camels cover a good deal of space, it was like seeking the slain on a battlefield when we had to wander about having every bundle untied.

Three days' camel-riding up one of the short valleys which lead towards the high table-land offered little of interest beyond arid, igneous rocks, and burnt-up, sand-covered valleys, with distorted strata on either side. Here and there, where warm volcanic streams rise out of the ground, the wilderness is converted into a luxuriant garden, in which palms, tobacco, and other green things grow. One of the scrub trees which clothe the wilderness is called by the Arabs rack, and is used by them for cleaning their teeth. It amused us to chew this as we went along: it is slightly bitter, but cleans the teeth most effectually.

There is also a poisonous sort of cucumber, called by the Arabs madakdak. They clean out the inside and fill the skin with water, which they drink as a medicine. At Sibeh, which we reached after a very hot ride of twelve or thirteen miles, we found water with scores of camels lying round it, for there were two or three other kafilas, or caravans, beside our own. It was dreadfully cold that night, and we could not get at our bag of blankets.

Next we entered the narrow, tortuous valley of Howeri, which ascends towards the highland, in which the midday heat was intense; and at our evening halts we suffered not a little from camel-ticks, which abound in the sand, until we learnt to avoid old camping-grounds and not to pitch our tents in the immediate vicinity of the wells.

We encamped in a narrow, stony river-bed, between walls of rock, near a little village called Tahiya. There is a good deal of cultivation about. The closeness of the situation made the smell of the dried fish we carried for the camels almost unbearable.

These sacks are stretched open in the evening and put in the middle of a circle of camels, their masters often joining in the feast. One of the men was attacked by fever, so he was given quinine, and his friends were told to put him to bed and cover him well. When we went to visit him later we found him quite contented in one of these fish sacks, his head in one corner and his legs all doubled up and packed in; only a bare brown back was exposed, so we had a few of the camel's rags thrown on his back, and he was well next day.

We went on ten miles to Al Ghail, rising to an altitude of 2,000 feet above the sea-level. This word ghail begins with the Arabic ghin, which is a soft sound between r and g.

There are two villages near the head of the Wadi Howeri, where there is actually a ghail—that rare phenomenon in Arabia, a rill or running stream. Here the Bedou inhabitants cultivate the date palm, and have green patches of lucerne and grain, very refreshing to the eye.

We had come up one of the narrowest of gorges, but with hundreds of palm-trees around Al Ghail, the first of the two villages, which is in the end of the Wadi Howeri. It is an uninteresting collection of stone huts, with many pretty little fields, and maidenhair fern overhanging the wayside. There are little enclosures with walls round them, and small stones in them, on which they dry the dates before sending them to Aden. The rocky river-bed itself is waterless, the ghail being used up in irrigation.

At Al Bat'ha, which is just above the tableland, we actually encamped under a spreading tree, a wild, unedible fig called luthba by the Arabs, a nickname given to all worthless, idle individuals in these parts. Bedou women crowded around us, closely veiled in indigo-dyed masks, with narrow slits for their eyes, carrying their babies with them in rude cradles resembling hencoops, with a cluster of charms hung from the top, which has the twofold advantage of amusing the baby and keeping off the evil eye. After much persuasion we induced one of the good ladies to sit for her photograph, or rather to sit still while something was being done which she did not in the least understand.

There is very good water at Al Bat'ha, and so much of the kind of herbs that camels like that we delayed our departure till eight, shivering by a fire and longing as ardently for the arrival of the sun as we should for his departure. The road had been so steep and stony that the camel-riders had all been on foot for two days. I am sure that, except near a spring, no one dropped from the skies would dream he was in Arabia the Happy. It is hard to think that 'the Stony' and 'the Desert' must be worse.

Chapter VIII

The Akaba

Having left these villages behind us, we climbed rapidly higher and higher, until at an elevation of over 4,000 feet we found ourselves at last on a broad, level table-land, stretching as far as the eye could reach in every direction. This is no doubt the 'Maratha Mountains' of Ptolemy, the Mons Excelsus of Pliny, which shuts off the Hadhramout, where once flourished the frankincense and the myrrh.

Words cannot express the desolate aspect of this vast table-land, Akaba or the 'going-up,' as the Arabs call it. It is perfectly level, and strewn with black lumps of basalt, looking as though a gigantic coal-scuttle had been upset. Occasionally there rises up above the plain a flat-topped mound or ridge, some 80 feet high, the last remnant of a higher level which is now disappearing. There is no sign of habitation. Only here and there are a few tanks, dug to collect the rain-water, if any falls. These are protected or indicated by a pair of walls built opposite one another, and banked up on the outer side with earth and stones, like shooting butts. The Akaba is exclusively Bedou property, and wherever a little herbage is to be found, there the nomads drive their flocks and young camels.

Of the frankincense which once flourished over all this vast area, we saw only one specimen on the highland itself, though it is still found in the more sheltered gullies; and farther east, in the Mahri country, there is, I understand, a considerable quantity left. We were often given lumps of gum arabic, and myrrh is still found plentifully; it is tapped for its odoriferous sap. It is a curious fact that the Somali come from Africa to collect it, going from tribe to tribe of the Bedouin, and buying the right to collect these two species, sometimes paying as much as fifty dollars. They go round and cut the trees, and after eight days return to collect the exuded sap.

In ancient times none but slaves collected frankincense and myrrh. This fact, taken probably with the meaning of the name Hadhramout (the later form of the ancient name Hazarmaveth), gave rise to the quaint Greek legend 'that the fumes of the frankincense-trees were deadly, and the place where they grew was called the valley or enclosure of death.'

From personal observation it would appear that the ancients held communication with the Hadhramout almost entirely by the land caravan-route, as there is absolutely no trace of great antiquity to be found along the coast-line, whereas the Wadi Hadhramout itself and its collateral branches are very rich in remains of the ancient Himyaritic civilisation.

Though we were always looking about for monuments of antiquity, the most ancient and lasting memorial of far past ages lay beneath our feet in that little narrow path winding over Akaba and Wadi, and polished by the soft feet of millions of camels that had slowly passed over it for thousands and thousands of years.

We found the air of the table-land fresh and invigorating after the excessive heat of the valleys below. For three days we travelled northwards across the plateau. Our first stage was Haibel Gabrein. This is, as it were, the culminating point of the whole district; it is 4,150 feet above the sea. From it the table-land slopes gently down to the northward towards the main valley of the Hadhramout, and eastwards towards the Wadi Adim. After two days more travelling we approached the heads of the many valleys which run into the Hadhramout; the Wadis Doan, Rakhi, Al Aisa, Al Ain, Bin Ali, and Adim all start from this elevated plateau and run nearly parallel. The curious feature of most of these valleys is the rapid descent into them; they look as if they had been taken out of the high plateau like slices out of a cake. They do not appear to have been formed by a fall of water from this plateau; in fact, it is impossible that a sufficient force of water could ever have existed on this flat surface to form this elaborate valley system. In the valleys themselves there is very little slope, for we found that, with the exception of the Wadi Adim, all the valley heads we visited were nearly of uniform height with the main valley, and had a wall of rock approaching 1,000 feet in height, eaten away as it were out of the plateau. We were, therefore, led to suppose that these valleys had originally been formed by the action of the sea, and that the Hadhramout had once been a large bay or arm of the sea, which, as the waters of the ocean receded, leaving successive marks of many strands on the limestone and sandstone rocks which enclosed them, formed an outlet for the scanty water-supply of the Southern Arabian highlands. These valleys have, in the course of ages, been silted up by sand to a considerable height, below which water is always found, and the only means of obtaining water in the Hadhramout for drinking purposes, as well as for cultivation, is by sinking wells. The water of the main valley is strongly impregnated with salt, but is much sweeter at the sides of the valley than in the centre. No doubt this is caused by the weight of the alkaline deposits washed down from the salt hills at Shabwa, at the head of the main valley.

The steep, reddish sandstone cliffs which form the walls of these valleys are themselves almost always divided into three distinct stories or stratifications, which can be distinctly seen on the photographs. The upper one is very abrupt, the second slightly projecting and more broken, and the third formed by deposit from above. The descent into the valley is extremely difficult at all points. Paths down which camels can just make their way have been constructed by the Bedouin, by making use of the stratified formation and the gentler slopes; but only in the case of the Wadi Adim, of all the valleys we visited, is there anything approaching a gradual descent.

It appears to me highly probable that the systematic destruction of the frankincense and myrrh trees through countless generations has done much to alter the character of this Akaba, and has contributed to the gradual silting up of the Hadhramout and its collateral valleys, to which fact I shall again have occasion to refer. The aspect of this plateau forcibly recalled to our minds that portion of Abyssinia which we visited in 1892-93; there is the same arid coast-line between the sea and the mountains, and the same rapid ascent to a similar absolutely level plateau, and the same draining northwards to a large river-bed in the case of Abyssinia, into the valleys of the Mareb and other tributaries of the Nile, and in the case of this Arabian plateau into the Hadhramout. Only Abyssinia has a more copious rainfall, which makes its plateau more productive.

It had not been our intention to visit the Wadi Al Aisa, but to approach the Hadhramout by another valley called Doan, parallel and further west, but our camel-men would not take us that way, and purposely got up a scare that the men of Khoreba at the head of Wadi Doan were going to attack us, and would refuse to let us pass. A convenient old woman was found who professed to bring this news, a dodge subsequently resorted to by another Bedou tribe which wanted to govern our progress.

The report brought to us, as from the old woman, was to this effect: A large body of sheikhs and seyyids having started from Khoreba to meet and repel us, Mokaik's father had left home to help us. As we had now abandoned Khoreba, Mokaik said he was anxious to hurry off to meet his father and prevent a hostile collision. Mokaik was told he could not go as he was responsible for our safety, but that some others might go. 'No,' said Mokaik, 'they cannot be spared from the camels; we will get two men from the village.' My husband agreed to this, but when Mokaik proposed that my husband should at once pay these men, he told Mokaik that he must pay them himself, as he was paid to protect us. This attempt at extortion having failed, we passed a peaceful night and subsequently found Mokaik's father, Suleiman Bakran, safe at home, which he had never thought of leaving.

Our first peep down into the Wadi Al Aisa, towards which our Bedouin had conducted us, was striking in the extreme, and as we gazed down into the narrow valley, with its line of vegetation and its numerous villages, we felt as if we were on the edge of another world.

The descent from the table-land to the Wadi is exactly 1,500 feet by a difficult, but very skilfully engineered footpath. The sun's rays, reflected from the limestone cliffs, were scorchingly hot. The camels went a longer way round, nearer the head of the valley, but, so difficult was our short cut that they arrived before us, and the horse, and the donkey.

Having humbly descended into the Wadi Al Aisa, because we were not allowed to go by the Wadi Doan, we found ourselves encamped hard by the village of Khaila, the head-quarters of the Khailiki tribe, within a stone's throw of Mokaik's father's house and under the shadow of the castle of his uncle, the sheikh of the tribe. These worthies both extorted from us substantial sums of money and sold us food at exorbitant prices, and so we soon learnt why we were not permitted to go to Khoreba, and why the old woman and her story had been produced.

We thought Mokaik and his men little better than naked savages when on the plateau, but when we were introduced to their relatives, and when we saw their castles and their palm groves and their long line of gardens in the narrow valley, our preconceived notions of the wild homeless Bedou and his poverty underwent considerable change.

We climbed up the side of the valley opposite Khaila to photograph a castle adorned with horns, but were driven away; too late, for the picture had been taken.

During the two days we encamped at Khaila we were gazed upon uninterruptedly by a relentless crowd of men, women, and children. It amused us at first to see the women, here for the most part unmasked, with their exceedingly heavy girdles of brass, their anklets of brass half a foot deep, their bracelets of brass, their iron nose rings, and their massive and numerous earrings which tore down the lobe of the ear with their weight. Every Bedou, male or female, has a ring or charm of cornelian set in base silver, and agates and small tusks also set in silver.

The root with which the women paint themselves yellow is called shubab. It is dried and powdered. It only grows when there is rain. The whole of the poultry at Khaila was carried about in the arms of the women and children who owned them, all the time of our sojourn, in the hopes of selling them. They, at least, were glad of our departure.

Not far from Khaila, we saw a fine village which we were told was inhabited by Arabs of pure blood, so we sent a polite message to the seyyid, or head-man of the place, to ask if we might pay him our respects. His reply was to the effect that if we paid thirty dollars we might come and pass four hours in the town. Needless to say we declined the invitation with thanks, and on the morrow when we marched down the Wadi Al Aisa we gave the abode of this hospitable seyyid a wide berth, particularly as the soldiers told us it was not safe, for the Arabs meant to kill us.

Leaving Khaila, where we remained two nights and saw the New Year in, we passed a good many towered villages: Larsmeh was one, Hadouf another, also Subak and others. We passed the mouth of the Wadi Doan, which runs parallel to Wadi Al Aisa, and has two branches, only the largest having the name Doan. The mouth is about three miles below Khaila; five miles more brought us to Sief, where we halted for a night. It is also inhabited by pure Arabs, who treated us with excessive rudeness. It is a very picturesque spot, perched on a rock, with towers and turrets constructed of sun-dried brick; only here, as elsewhere in these valleys, the houses being so exactly the same colour as the rocks behind them, they lose their effect. The rich have evidently recognised this difficulty and whitewash their houses, but in the poorer villages there is no whitewash, and consequently nothing to make them stand out from their surroundings.

One can pretty well judge of the wealth of the owners of the various towers and castles by the amount of whitewash. Some have only the pinnacles white, and some can afford to trim up the windows and put bands round the building.

At Sief several men came once or twice and begged my husband to let me go out that the women might see me, but when I went out they would not allow me to approach or hold any intercourse with the Arab women, using opprobrious epithets when I tried to make friendly overtures, with the quaint result that whenever I advanced towards a group of gazing females they fled precipitately like a flock of sheep before a collie dog, so we discovered that it was the men themselves who wished to see me. These women wear their dresses high in front (showing their yellow-painted legs above the knee) and long behind; they are of deep blue cotton, decorated with fine embroidery, and patches of yellow and red sewn on in patterns. It is the universal female dress in the Hadhramout, and looks as if the fashion had not changed since the days when Hazarmaveth the Patriarch settled in this valley and gave it his name. The tall tapering straw hat worn by these women when in the fields contributes with the mask to make the Hadhrami females as externally repulsive as the most jealous of husbands could desire.

I am pretty sure that this must be the very same dress which made such an unfavourable impression upon Sir John Maundeville, when he saw 'the foul women who live near Babylon the great.' He says: 'They are vilely arrayed. They go barefoot and clothed in evil garments, large and wide, but short to the knees, long sleeves down to the feet like a monk's frock, and their sleeves are hanging about their shoulders.'

The dress is certainly wide, for the two pieces of which it is composed, exactly like the Greek peplos, when the arms are extended, stretch from finger-tip to finger-tip, so when this dress is caught into the loose girdle far below the waist, it hangs out under the arms and gives a very round-backed look, as is the case with the peplos.

There are a great many Arabs at Sief, a most unhealthy, diseased-looking lot. They are of the yellow kind of Arab, with Jewish-looking faces.

Saleh retired into Sief on our arrival, and we saw him no more till we started next day. He was a very useless interpreter. He used to like to live in the villages, saying he could not bear to live in the camp of such unbelievers as we were, and used to bring his friends to our kitchen and show them some little tins of Lazenby's potted meat, adorned with a picture of a sheep, a cow, and a pig, as a proof that we lived on pork, whereas we had none with us. He always tried to persuade the people that he was far superior to any of us, and when places had to be made amongst the baggage on the camels for my husband and the servants to ride, he used to have his camel prepared and ride on, leaving some of the servants with no seat kept on the camels for them. My husband cured him of this, for one morning, seeing Saleh's bedding nicely arranged, he jumped on to the camel himself and rode off, leaving Saleh an object of great derision.

Once we got down into the valley we had to ride very close together for safety, and I found it most tiresome making my horse, Basha, keep pace with the camels.

The people at Sief were so disagreeable that I told Saleh to remind them that, if our Queen wanted their country, she would have had it long before we were born, and that they were very foolish to fear so small an unarmed party, who had only come to pass the winter in a country warmer than their own; at the same time, unless we had been quite confident that our safety was well secured from behind, such a party, with a woman among them, would never have come.

We set off early next morning for Hagarein. We passed after one hour Kaidoun, with its own private little valley to the west, a tributary of the main one, which in this part is called Wadi Kasr. There is the grave of a celebrated saint, and a very pious seyyid, called Al Habid Taha Ali al Hadad, abides near it. He never goes out of his house, but is so much revered that many thousands of dollars are sent him from India and other parts, and when his son visited Aden he was received with great honour by the merchants there. Then we passed several other villages, including Allahaddi and Namerr. It was at the ziaret or pilgrimage to the grave in Kaidoun that Herr von Wrede, who was disguised, was discovered to be a Christian and forced to turn back.

The town of Hagarein or Hajarein is the principal one in the collateral valleys, and is built on a lofty isolated rock in the middle of the Wadi Kasr, about twenty miles before it joins the main valley of the Hadhramout. With its towers and turrets it recalled to our minds as we saw it in the distance certain hill-set, mediæval villages of Germany and Italy. Here a vice-sultan governs on behalf of the Al Kaiti family, an ill-conditioned, extortionate individual, whose bad reception of us contributed to his subsequent removal from office. Internally Hagarein is squalid and dirty in the extreme; each street is but a cesspool for the houses on either side of it, and the house allotted to us produced specimens of most smells and most insects. The days of rest we proposed for ourselves here were spent in fighting with our old camel-men who left us here, in fighting with the new ones who were to take us on to the main valley, and in indignantly refusing to pay the sultan the sum of money which our presence in his town led him to think it his right to demand.

Chapter IX

Through Wadi Kasr

When we reached the foot of the hill on which Hagarein stands we dismounted; there was tremendous work to get out the sword of the oldest soldier; he had used it so much as a walking-stick that it was firmly fixed in the scabbard. The scabbards are generally covered with white calico. A very steep, winding, slippery road led us to the gate, where soldiers received us and conducted us to a courtyard, letting off guns the while. There stood the Sultan Abdul M'Barrek Hamout al Kaiti, a very fat, evil-looking man, pitted by smallpox. After shaking hands he led us down the tortuous streets to his palace, and then took us up a narrow mud staircase, so dark that we did not know whether to turn to the right or left; we sometimes went one way and sometimes the other. At length we reached a small room with some goat-hair carpets and we and the sultan, the soldiers (his and ours), the Bedouin and my groom, M'barrek, all seated ourselves round the wall, and after a long time a dirty glass of water was handed round as our only entertainment. As we had had nothing to eat since sunrise, and it was about two o'clock, we did not feel cheerful when the sultan abruptly rose and said he must pray. Praying and sleeping are always the excuses when they want to get rid of guests or say 'not at home,' and indeed the sleeping excuse prevails in Greece also.

Some time after, our four chairs were brought, so we sat till near four o'clock homeless, and getting hungrier and hungrier, when the sultan reappeared, telling my husband all our things were locked up in a courtyard and giving him a great wooden key. We hastened to our home, up a long dark stair, past many floors, all used as stalls and stables, &c., only the two top floors being devoted to human habitation. Each floor consisted of one fair-sized room and one very tiny den, a kitchen. The whole Indian party had the lower room, and three of our soldiers the den. I cannot think how they could all lie down at once, and they had to cook there besides. Above that, we had the best room, the botanist and naturalist the den, and Matthaios made his abode on the roof, where he cooked. The Bedouin, having unloaded the camels in the courtyard across the street, refused to help us, and, as no one else could be got, my husband and all his merry men had to carry up the baggage, while I wrestled with the beds and other furniture in our earthy room. The instant the baggage was up the Bedouin clamoured for payment, and it was trying work opening the various packages where the bags of money were scattered, and to begin quarrelling when we were so weary and hungry. We had been told that our journey to Hagarein would take twenty days, whereas it only took thirteen, and that we must take two camels for water, which had proved unnecessary; besides the camels had been much loaded with fish and other goods belonging to the Bedouin. My husband said he would pay for the twenty days and they would thus have thirty dollars as bakshish. But, in the end, the soldiers from Makalla said we must pay bakshish: it would be an insult to their sultan if we did not and they would go no further with us. The local sultan also insisting, fourteen more dollars had to be produced. Our own soldiers soon came shouting and saying they must have half a rupee a day for food, which my husband thought it wise to give, though the wazir at Makalla had said he was to give nothing.

They were hardly gone when the sultan came back personally conducting two kids and saying we need think of no further expense; we were his guests and were to ask for what we wished. All my husband asked for was daily milk. We got some that day, but never again. My groom, M'barrek, then came, saying he must have food money; that being settled, he returned saying the sultan said he must have half a rupee a day for my horse, which became very thin on the starvation he got.

All this time we could get no water, so not till dark could Matthaios furnish us with tea, cold meat, bread, and honey.

We were fortunate in having plenty of bread. We had six big sacks of large cakes of plain bread dried hard, and of this we had learnt the value by experience. We kept it sheltered, if there was any fear of rain, as in Abyssinia, for instance, and before a meal soaked it in water, wrapped it in a napkin a few minutes, and then dried it up to the consistency of fresh bread. We were often obliged to give it to the horses, for the difficulty as to forage makes them unfit to travel in such barren places.

We also took charcoal and found that, with it and the bread, we had our meals long before the Indian party, who had a weary search for fuel before they could even begin with 'pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man.' The making of chupatties also causes delay in starting. As to the honey it is most plentiful and tastes like orange flowers, but really it is the date-flower which imparts this flavour. It is much more glutinous than ours. It is packed, for exportation and to bring as tribute, in large round tin boxes, stopped up round the edges with mud. It is used in paying both taxes and tribute.

We were quite worn out with this day. The sultan received a present next morning of silk for a robe, a turban, some handkerchiefs, two watches, some knives, scissors, needle-cases, and other things, but he afterwards sent Saleh to say he did not like his present at all and wanted dollars. He got ten rupees and was satisfied.

We again visited him with our servants and soldiers and were given tea while we talked over the future, and all seemed fair. Later the sultan came to visit us and talk about the escort. He said we must take five soldiers, bargained for their wages, food, and bakshish, and obtained the money. My husband inquired about some ruins near Meshed, three hours by camel from Hagarein, and said that if the sultan would arrange that we should dig safely, he should have forty dollars, and he settled to go with my husband next day to see the place. Accordingly next day the sultan came with eight soldiers, singing and dancing all the way, and some men of the Nahad tribe as siyara, as we were then in their land.

The sultan showed us two letters in which it was said that we were to have been attacked between Sief and Kaidoun, and we remembered having seen a man on a camel apparently watching for us, but instead of coming forward he galloped away; and thus it appears we got past the place from which they meant to set upon us, before the attacking party could arrive.

During the days we were at Hagarein several weddings were celebrated. To form a suitable place for conviviality they cover over a yard with mats, just as the Abyssinians do, and the women, to show their hilarity on the occasion, utter the same gurgling noises as the Abyssinian women do on a like occasion, and which in Abyssinia is called ulultà. From our roof we watched the bridegroom's nocturnal procession to his bride's house, accompanied by his friends bearing torches, and singing and speechifying to their hearts' content.

On our return from the ruins near Meshed, Taisir (our soldier) came to us and was very indignant about the price the sultan charged for his soldiers. He was given ten rupees to attach himself to us, as an earnest of the good bakshish he would get at the coast, as he said all the other soldiers would go back from Shibahm, and really in that case I think he would have been glad of our escort.

Then Saleh, who had 100 rupees a month and ate with everyone, came to demand half a rupee a day for food; this was granted, as we thought it could come off his bakshish, and he soon appeared to make the same request for Mahmoud, the naturalist. Matthaios was furious, as Mahmoud ate partly with him, and no one was angrier with him than Saleh. It was settled that we should give him tea, bread, and four annas, and they all went off bawling. Afterwards we heard Saleh had said, 'Mr. Bent is giving so much money to the sultan, why should we not have some?'

We really thought at first that we should be able to encamp at Meshed and dig, for there was a seyyid who had been in Hyderabad and was very civil to us, but this happiness only lasted one hour. The sultan said it would really not be safe unless we lived in Hagarein, so we had to give it up as it was an impossibility to dig in the heat of the day, with six hours' journey to fatigue us; besides we must have paid many soldiers and we were told no one would dig for us. So much was said about the dangers of the onward road that Saleh was sent with the letters for Shibahm and Sheher and told to hold them tight, and say that if we could not deliver these in person we should return to the wali of Aden and say that the sultan of Hagarein would not let us go on. This frightened him, so he made a very dear bargain for fifteen camels, and we were to leave next day.

We were glad enough to depart from Hagarein, which is so picturesque that it really might be an old, mediæval, fortified town on the Rhine, built entirely of mud and with no water in its river. All the houses are enormously high, and have a kitchen and oven on each floor. The bricks of which they are built are about one foot square and with straw in them. They have shooting holes from every room and machicolations over the outer doors and along the battlements, and what makes the houses seem to contain even more stories than they do, is that each floor has two ranges of windows, one on the ground so that you can only see out if you sit on the floor, and another too high to see out of at all; below every lower window projects a long wooden spout. The narrow lanes are mere drains, and the whole place a hotbed of disease; the people looked very unhealthy: when cholera comes they die like flies. As a wind up to this last evening Mahmoud came into our room and soon began to say his prayers; we could not make out why, but it turned out he had no light in his room.

Altogether we had not a reposeful time in Hagarein. We were told early next day that fourteen men of the Nahad tribe had come as our siyara, though we had been told two would be sufficient; so we had to agree to take four. Then we were asked to pay those who had come unbidden. The sultan came himself about it, and his children came to beg for annas. At last the sultan, who had often said he felt as if he were our brother, obtained twelve rupees which he asked for to pay his expenses for the kids and honey, and said my horse had eaten the worth of twice as much money as he had asked before.

When we finally got off we found the old rascal had only sent half the Nahadi and had only sent two soldiers, and so had really made forty dollars out of us over that one item. The Nahad men had ten dollars each. They are not under the sultan of Makalla, but independent. The Nahad tribe occupy about ten miles of the valley through which we passed, and the toll-money we paid to this tribe for the privilege of passing by was the most exorbitant demanded from us on our journey. When once you have paid the toll-money (siyar), and have with you the escort (siyara) of the tribe in whose territory you are, you are practically safe wherever you may travel in Arabia, but this did not prevent us from being grossly insulted as we passed by certain Nahad villages. Kaidoun, where dwells the very holy man so celebrated all the country round for his miracles and good works, is the chief centre of this tribe. We had purposely avoided passing too near this town, and afterwards learnt that it was owing to the influence of this very holy seyyid that our reception was so bad amongst the Nahad tribe.

All about Hagarein are many traces of the olden days when the frankincense trade flourished, and when the town of Doan, which name is still retained in the Wadi Doan, was a great emporium for this trade. Acres and acres of ruins, dating from the centuries immediately before our era, lie stretched along the valley here, just showing their heads above the weight of superincumbent sand which has invaded and overwhelmed the past glories of this district. The ruins of certain lofty square buildings stand upon hillocks at isolated intervals; from these we got several inscriptions, which prove that they were the high 'platforms' alluded to on so many Himyaritic inscribed stones as raised in honour of their dead. As for the town around them, it has been entirely engulfed in sand; the then dry bed of a torrent runs through the centre, and from this fact we can ascertain, from the walls of sand on either side of the stream, that the town itself has been buried some 30 feet or 40 feet by this sand. It is now called Raidoun. The ground lies strewn with fragments of Himyaritic inscriptions, pottery, and other indications of a rich harvest for the excavator, but the hostility of the Nahad tribe prevented us from paying these ruins more than a cursory visit, and even to secure this we had to pay the sheikh of the place nineteen dollars, and his greeting was ominous as he angrily muttered, 'Salaam to all who believe Mohammed is the true prophet.'

We were warned 'that our eyes should never be let to see Meshed again;' we might camp before we got there, or after, as we wished, so were led by a roundabout way to Adab, and saw no more of the leprous seyyid who told such wondrous tales about the English king who once lived in Hagarein, and how the English, Turks, and Arabs were all descended from King Sam. Also he told the Addite fable of how the giants and rich men tried to make a paradise of their own, the beautiful garden of Irem, and defied God, and so destruction came upon the tribe of Ad, the remnant of whom survive at Aden on Jebel Shemshan, in the form of monkeys. This is the Mohammedan legend of the end of the Sabæan Empire.

We were much amused with what Imam Sharif said to this seyyid. Imam Sharif is himself a seyyid or sherif, a descendant of Mohammed, his family having come from Medina, so he was always much respected. He said to him: 'You think these English are very bad people, but the Koran says that all people are like their rulers; now we have no spots or diseases on our bodies, but are all clean and sound, which shows plainly that our ruler and the rest of us must be the same. Now you, my brother, must be under the displeasure of God, for I see that you are covered with leprosy.' This was not a kind or civil speech, I fear, but not a ruder one than those addressed to us. This leprosy shows itself by an appearance as if patches of white skin were neatly set into the dark skin.

At Adab they would not allow us to dip our vessels in their well, nor take our repast under the shadow of their mosque: even the women of this village ventured to insult us, peeping into our tent at night, and tumbling over the jugs in a manner most aggravating to the weary occupants. The soldiers had abandoned us and gone to sleep in the village.

A dreary waste of sand led past Kerren to Badorah. I arrived first with Imam Sharif, a servant, and a soldier. We dismounted, as there was some surveying to be done. The people were quite friendly, we thought, though they crowded round me shouting to see the 'woman.' I went to some women grouped at a little distance, and we had no trouble as long as we were there. We had left before the camels came and heard that the rest of the party had been very badly received, stones were thrown, and shouts raised of 'Pigs! Infidels! Dogs! Come down from your camels and we will cut your throats.' We attributed this to Saleh Hassan, for he made enemies for us wherever we went. At this village they were busy making indigo dye in large jars like those of the forty thieves. We were soon out of the Nahad country.

Our troubles on the score of rudeness were happily terminated at Haura, where a huge castle, belonging to the Al Kaiti family, dominates a humble village, surrounded by palm groves. Without photographs to bear out my statement, I should hardly dare to describe the magnificence of these castles in the Hadhramout. That at Haura is seven stories high, and covers fully an acre of ground beneath the beetling cliff, with battlements, towers, and machicolations bearing a striking likeness to Holyrood; but Holyrood is built of stone, and Haura, save for the first story, is built of sun-dried bricks, and if Haura stood where Holyrood does, or in a rainy climate, it would long ago have crumbled away.

Haura is supposed to be the site of an ancient Himyaritic town. We were told that the sultan of Hagarein is not entirely under Makalla, but that he of Haura is.

The castle of the sultan is nice and clean inside, and it was pleasant, after some very reviving cups of coffee and ginger, and some very public conversation, to find our canvas homes all erected on a hard field—a pleasant change from our late dusty places. Mahmoud obtained a fox, which was his first mammal, saving a bushy-tailed rat. We were sent a lamb and a box of honey, and soon after the governor arrived to request a present. He asked thirty rupees but got twenty, and the new soldiers in place of the Nahadi men were to have five rupees on arrival at Koton. We were now nearing the palace of Sultan Salàh-bin-Mohammad al Kaiti of Shibahm, the most powerful monarch in the Hadhramout, who has spent twelve years of his life in India, and whose reception of us was going to be magnificent, our escort told us.

As we were leaving Haura, just standing about waiting to mount, I felt something hard in one finger of my glove which I was putting on. I thought it was a dry leaf and hooked it down with my nail and shook it into my hand. Imagine my terror on lifting my glove at seeing a scorpion wriggling there. I dropped it quickly, shouting for Mahmoud and the collecting-bottle, and then caught it in a handkerchief. This was the way that Buthia Bentii introduced himself to the scientific world, for he was of a new species. It turned out that the 'oldest soldier' was father to the sultan of Haura. He went no farther with us.

The next day, three miles after leaving Haura, we quitted the Wadi Kasr and at last, at the village of Alimani, entered the main valley of the Hadhramout. It is here very broad, being at least eight miles from cliff to cliff, and receives collateral valleys from all sides, forming, as it were, a great basin. Hitherto our way had been generally northward, from Makalla to Tokhum, north-east, and then north-west; now we turned westward down the great valley, though still with a slight northward tendency.

We passed Ghanima, Ajlania on a rock to the right, and Henan and the Wadi Menwab behind it on our left. Wellsted, in his list of the Hadhramout towns, mentions Henan as Ainan, and as a very ancient town, on the hill near which are inscriptions and rude sculptures.

For seven hours we travelled along the valley, which from its width was like a plain till we were within a mile of the castle of Al Koton, where the sultan of Shibahm resides. Thus far all was desert and sand, but suddenly the valley narrows, and a long vista of cultivation was spread before us. Here miles of the valley are covered with palm groves. Bright green patches of lucerne called kadhlb, almost dazzling to look upon after the arid waste, and numerous other kinds of grain are raised by irrigation, for the Hadhramout has beneath its expanse of sand a river running, the waters of which are obtained by digging deep wells. Skin buckets are let down by ropes and drawn up by cattle by means of a steep slope, and then the water is distributed for cultivation through narrow channels; it is at best a fierce struggle with nature to produce these crops, for the rainfall can never be depended upon. We had intended to push on to Al Koton, but Sultan Salàh sent a messenger to beg us not to arrive till the following morning, that his preparations to receive us might be suitable to our dignity, as the first English travellers to visit his domains. So we encamped just on the edge of the cultivation, about a mile off, at Ferhud, where under the shade of palm-trees there is a beautiful well of brackish water, with four oxen, two at each side to draw up the water.

Outside the cultivation in its arid waste of sand the Hadhramout produces but little; now and again we came across groups of the camelthorn, tall trees somewhat resembling the holm oak. It is in Arabic a most complicated tree. Its fruit, like a small crab apple, is called b'dom, very refreshing, and making an excellent preserve; its leaves, which they powder and use as soap, are called ghasl, meaning 'washing'; whereas the tree itself is called ailb, and is dearly loved by the camels, who stretch their long necks to feed off its branches.

We wondered what kind of reception we should have, for people's ideas on this point vary greatly. In order not to offend the sultan's prejudices too much, we determined to dissemble, and I decided not to wear my little camera, and Imam Sharif packed the plane-table out of sight. We settled that he should have the medicine chest in his charge and be the doctor of the party, and addressed him as Hakim. Even Saleh feared so much what the future might hold in store, that he removed his drawers and shoes, and advised Imam Sharif to do the same, as Mohammed had never worn such things. Imam Sharif refused to take these precautions, saying that if Mohammed had been born in Cashmere he would have assuredly worn both drawers and shoes. Imam Sharif wore a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers and a turban when on the march, but in camp he wore Indian clothes. However, we were soon visited by the sultan's two wazirs on spirited Arab steeds: magnificent individuals with plaided turbans, long lances, and many gold mohurs fixed on their dagger handles, all of which argued well for our reception on the morrow by the sultan of Shibahm.

We were a good deal stared at, but not disagreeably, for all the soldiers were on their best behaviour. At Khaila and Sief we had to be tied up, airless, in our tents, as if we left them open a minute when the crowd, tired of seeing nothing, had dispersed, and one person saw an opening, the whole multitude surged round again, pressing in, shouting and smelling so bad that we regretted our folly in having tried to get a little light and air. We saw among others a boy who had a wound in his arm, and therefore had his nostrils plugged up; bad smells are said not to be so injurious as good ones. Some women came and asked to see me, so I took my chair and sat surrounded by them. They begged to see my hands, so I took off my gloves and let them lift my hands about from one sticky hand to another. They looked wonderingly at them and said 'Meskin' so often and so pityingly that I am sure they thought I had leprosy all over. Then they wished to see my head, and having taken off my hat, my hair had to be taken down. They examined my shoes, turned up my gaiters, stuck their fingers down my collar, and wished to undress me, so I rose and said very civilly, 'Peace to you, oh women, I am going to sleep now,' and retired.

Arab girls before they enter the harem and take the veil are a curious sight to behold. Their bodies and faces are dyed a bright yellow with turmeric; on this ground they paint black lines with antimony, over their eyes; the fashionable colour for the nose is red; green spots adorn the cheek, and the general aspect is grotesque beyond description.

We stayed in bed really late next morning, till the sun rose, and then prepared ourselves to be fetched.

The two young wazirs, Salim-bin-Ali and Salim-bin-Abdullah, cousins, came again at 7.30 with two extra horses, which were ridden by my husband and Saleh, as Imam Sharif stuck to the donkey which we named Mahsoud (Happy).

Chapter X

Our Sojourn at Koton

Like a fairy palace of the Arabian Nights, white as a wedding cake, and with as many battlements and pinnacles, with its windows painted red, the colour being made from red sandstone, and its balustrades decorated with the inevitable chevron pattern, the castle of Al Koton rears its battlemented towers above the neighbouring brown houses and expanse of palm groves; behind it rise the steep red rocks of the encircling mountains, the whole forming a scene of Oriental beauty difficult to describe in words. This lovely building, shining in the morning light against the dark precipitous mountains, was pointed out to us as our future abode. My horse, Basha, seemed to have come to life again and enjoy galloping once more, for we had left the servants, camels, &c. to follow.

As we approached feux de joie announced our arrival, and at his gate stood Sultan Salàh to greet us, clad in a long robe of canary-coloured silk, and with a white silk turban twisted around his swarthy brow. He was a large, stout man, negroid in type, for his mother was a slave, and as generous as he was large, to Arab and European alike. He looked about fifty-five or sixty, but said his age was 'forty-five or forty.' At first, on being seated in his reception-room, we were very cautious in speaking of our plans, as we were surrounded with all sorts and conditions of men.

He placed at our disposal a room spread with Daghestan carpets and cushions, furnished with two tables and three chairs, and not a mouthful of our own food would he allow us to touch, a hospitality which had its drawbacks, for the Arab cuisine is not one suited to Western palates.

We were very glad of this hospitality at first as it would give Matthaios a holiday, which he could devote to the washing of clothes, water being so plentiful. I will describe one day's meals, which were invariably the same. At eight o'clock came several cups, all containing coffee and milk, honey, eggs, hard boiled and peeled, and a large thin leathery kind of bread made plain with water, and another large thin kind made with ghi, and like pastry.

About 2.30 came two bowls like slop-bowls, one containing bits of meat, vegetables, eggs and spices in sauce, under about an inch of melted ghi, the other a kind of soup. They were both quite different, but at the same time very much alike, and the grease on the top kept them furiously hot. There were little pieces of boiled lamb, and little pieces of roast lamb; tiny balls of roast meat and also of boiled; a mound of rice and a mound of dates; and upon requesting some water we were given one large glassful. Identically the same meal came at 9.30, an hour when the bona-fide traveller pines to be in his bed. These things were laid on a very dirty coloured cotton cloth, but no plates or knives, &c. were provided.

At several odd times through the day a slave walked in and filled several cups of tea, a few for each of us. The cups were never washed by him.

After struggling for a few days, many of the party having had recourse to the medicine-chest, we were at length compelled humbly to crave his majesty to allow us to employ our own cook. This he graciously permitted, and during the three weeks we passed under his hospitable roof, our cook was daily supplied by the 'sultanas'—most excellent housewives we thought them—with everything we needed.

One of the most striking features of these Arabian palaces is the wood-carving. The doors are exquisitely decorated with it, the supporting beams, and the windows, which are adorned with fretwork instead of glass. The dwelling-rooms are above, the ground floor being exclusively used for merchandise and as stables and cattle stalls, and the first floor for the domestic offices. The men-servants lie about in the passages. We lived on the second floor, the two next stories were occupied by the sultan and his family, and above was the terraced roof where the family sleep during the summer heat. Every guest-room has its coffee corner, provided with a carved oven, where the grain is roasted and the water boiled; around are hung old china dishes for spices, brass trays for the cups, and fans to keep off the flies; also the carved censers, in which frankincense is burnt and handed round to the guests, each one of whom fumigates his garments with it before passing it on. It is also customary to fumigate with frankincense a tumbler before putting water into it, a process we did not altogether relish, as it imparts a sickly flavour to the fluid.

We found the system of door-fastening in vogue a great nuisance to us. The wooden locks were of the 'tumbler' order. The keys were about 10 inches long, and composed of a piece of curved wood: at one end were a number of pegs stuck in irregularly, to correspond with a number of the tumbling bolts which they were destined to raise. No key would go in without a tremendous lot of shaking and noisy rattling, and you always had to have your key with you, for if you did not lock your door on leaving your room there was nothing to prevent its swinging open; and if you were inside you must rise and unbolt it to admit each person, and to bolt it behind him for the same reason.

We got very friendly with Sultan Salàh during our long stay under his roof, and he would come and sit for hours together in our room and talk over his affairs. Little by little he was told of all our sufferings by the way, and was very angry. We also consulted him as to our plans, and told him how badly Saleh was behaving.

We used sometimes to think of dismissing Saleh, but thought him too dangerous to part with. It was better to keep him under supervision, and leave him as much in the dark as possible about our projects.

The sultan took special interest in our pursuits, conducting us in person to archæological sites, and manifesting a laudable desire to have his photograph taken. He assisted both our botanist and naturalist in pursuing their investigations into the somewhat limited flora and fauna of his dominions, and was told by Imam Sharif that his work with the sextant was connected with keeping our watches to correct time.

He would freely discourse, too, on his own domestic affairs, giving us anything but a pleasing picture of Arab harem life, which he described as 'a veritable hell.' Whenever he saw me reading, working with my needle, or developing photographs, he would smile sadly, and contrast my capabilities with those of his own wives, who, as he expressed it, 'are unable to do anything but painting themselves and quarrelling.' Poor Sultan Salàh has had twelve wives in his day, and he assured us that their dissensions and backbitings had made him grow old before his time; his looking so old must be put down to the cares of polygamy. At Al Koton the sultan had at that time only two properly acknowledged wives, whom he wisely kept apart; his chief wife, or 'sultana,' was sister to the sultan of Makalla, and the sultan of Makalla is married to a daughter of Sultan Salàh by another wife; in this way do Arabic relationships get hopelessly confused. The influence of the wife at Al Koton was considerable, and he was obviously in awe of her, so much so that when he wanted to visit his other wife he had to invent a story of pressing business at Shibahm. 'Our wives,' said he one day, 'are like servants, and try to get all they can out of us; they have no interest in their husband's property, as they know they may be sent away at any time.' And in this remark he seems to have properly hit off the chief evil of polygamy. He also told us that, having got all they can from one husband, they go off to a man that is richer, though how they make these arrangements, if they stick to their veils, is a mystery to me.

Then again, he would continually lament over the fanaticism and folly of his fellow-countrymen, more especially the priestly element, who systematically oppose all his attempts at introducing improvements from civilised countries into the Hadhramout. The seyyids and the mollahs dislike him; the former, who trace their descent from the daughter of Mohammed, forming a sort of hierarchical nobility in this district; and on several occasions he has been publicly cursed in the mosques as an unbeliever and friend of the infidel. But Sultan Salàh has money which he made in India, and owns property in Bombay; consequently he has the most important weapon to wield that anyone can have in a Semitic country.

The sultan told us a famous plan they have in this country for making a fortune. Two Hadhrami set out for India together, a father and son, or two brothers. They collect enough money before starting to buy a very fine suit of clothes each, and to start trade in a small way. They then increase the business by credit, and when they have got enough of other people's money into their hands, one departs with it to the inaccessible Hadhramout, while the other waits to hear of his safe arrival, and then he goes bankrupt and follows him.

Sultan Salàh had not a high opinion of his countrymen, and told us several other tales that did not redound to their credit.

'Before I went to India I was a rascal (harami) like these men here,' he constantly asseverated, and his love for things Indian and English is unbounded. 'If only the Indian Government would send me a Mohammedan doctor here, I would pay his expenses, and his influence, both political and social, would be most beneficial to this country.' It is certainly a great thing for England to have so firm a friend in the centre of the narrow habitable district between Aden and Maskat, which ought by rights to be ours, not that it is a very profitable country to possess, but in the hands of another power it might unpleasantly affect our road to India, and in complying with this simple request of Sultan Salàh's an easy way is open to us for extending our influence in that direction.

Likewise from a humane point of view, this suggestion of Sultan Salàh's is of great value, for the inhabitants of the Hadhramout are more hopelessly ignorant of things medical than some of the savage tribes of Africa. Certain quacks dwell in the towns, and profess to diagnose the ailments of a Bedou woman by smelling one of her hairs brought by her husband. For every pain, no matter where, they brand the patient with a red-hot iron (kayya); to relieve a person who has eaten too much fat, they will light a fire round him to melt it; to heal a wound they will plug up the nostrils of the sufferer, believing that certain scents are noxious to the sore; the pleasant scents being the most harmful. Iron pounded up by a blacksmith is also a medicine.

On an open sore they tie a sheet of iron, tin, or copper with four holes in the corners for strings. We heard of the curious case of a man who for a wager ate all the fat of a sheep that was killed at a pilgrimage. He lay down to sleep under a shady tree and all the fat congealed in his inside. The doctor ordered him to drink hot tea, while fires were lit all around him, and thus he was cured and was living in Shibahm when we were there.

We had a crowd of patients to treat whilst stationed at Al Koton, and I have entered quantities of quaint experiences with these poor helpless invalids in my note-book.

We had many an interesting stroll round the sultan's gardens at Al Koton, and watched the cultivation of spices and vegetables for the royal table, or rather floor; the lucerne and clover for his cattle, the indigo and henna for dyeing purposes, and the various kinds of grain. But on the cultivation of the date-palm the most attention is lavished; it was just then the season at which the female spathe has to be fructified by the male pollen, and we were interested in watching a man going round with an apron full of male spathes. With these he climbed the stem of the female palm, and with a knife cut open the bark which encircles the female spathe, and as he shook the male pollen over it he chanted in a low voice, 'May God make you grow and be fruitful.' No portion of the palm is wasted in the Hadhramout: with the leaves they thatch huts and make fences, the date stones are ground into powder as food for cattle, and they eat the nutty part which grows at the bottom of the spathes, and which they called kourzan. On a journey a man requires nothing but a skin of dates, which will last him for days, and, when we left, Sultan Salàh gave us three goat-skins filled with his best dates, and large tins of delicious honey—for which the Hadhramout was celebrated as far back as Pliny's time—which he sent on camels to the coast for us, as well as a large inscribed stone that I now have in my house.

Innumerable wells are dotted over this cultivated area, the water from which is distributed over the fields before sunrise and after sunset. The delicious creaking noise made by heaving up the buckets greeted us every morning when we woke, delicious because it betokened plenty of water: and these early morning views were truly exquisite. A bright crimson tinge would gradually creep over the encircling mountains, making the parts in shade of a rich purple hue, against which the feathery palm-trees and whitewashed castles stood out in strong contrast. All the animals belonging to the sultan are stabled within the encircling wall, and immediately beneath the palace windows; the horses' stable is in the open courtyard, where they are fed with rich lucerne and dates when we should give corn. Here also reside the cows and bullocks, which are fed every evening by women, who tie together bunches of dried grass and make it appetising by mixing therewith a few blades of fresh lucerne; the sheep and the goats are penned on another side, whilst the cocks and hens live in and around the main drain. All is truly patriarchal in character.

The sultan only possesses four horses, and one of these, a large white mare, strangely enough came from the Cape of Good Hope, viâ Durban and Bombay. The sultan of Makalla had three. The 'Arab courser' lives farther north.

As for the soldiers, they sent, as if it were a matter of course, for some money to buy tobacco and were given two or three dollars each, and we gladly parted from them friends. The sultan of Makalla had paid them for a fortnight's food, and had written to Sultan Salàh to pay what was owing. My groom was dismissed also without bakshish: he was only a rough fellow taken from the mud brick works at Makalla, and my poor Basha would have fared ill if really dependent on M'barrek for care. My entreaties alone saved him from being publicly bastinadoed, as the sultan wished, when he heard of all his rudeness and disobedience.

The sultan was most anxious to arrange for our onward journey, and wrote seven letters to different sheikhs and sultans, and sent them to us to read, but we could not read them ourselves, and would not let Saleh, so we were none the wiser. The sultans of Siwoun and Terim are brothers, of the Kattiri tribe, but have no real authority outside their towns. We were anxious to proceed along the Hadhramout valley and to reach the tomb of the prophet Houd. The sultan also went to Shibahm to meet some of the arbiters of our fate, and the sultan of Siwoun agreed to let us pass: but others said we had five hundred camels loaded with arms, and all sorts of other fables, and they all quarrelled dreadfully about us, so the sultan returned to Al Koton to await replies to his letters.

The day the sultan was absent, the women were determined to have a little enjoyment from our presence themselves, so a great many servants came bringing the sultan's ten-year-old daughter Sheikha, a rather pretty little girl, with long earrings all round her ears, which, like all the other women's, hang forward like fringed bells. An uneven number is always worn, and a good set consists of twenty-three. They are rings about two inches in diameter, with long drops attached. Her face was painted with large dots, stripes, and patterns of various colours, and she had thick antimony round the eyes. Her neck, arms, and shoulders were yellow, and her hands painted plain black inside and in a pattern like a lace mitten on the back, the nails being red with henna.

I was also asked to pay a visit to the ladies. I went upstairs. Every floor is like a flat, with its bath-room containing a huge vase called kazbah, and the bath is taken by pouring over the person, from a smaller utensil, water which runs away down drain-holes to the wooden spouts. I found myself in some very narrow passages, among a quantity of not over-clean women, who all seized me by the shoulders, passing me on from one to the other till I reached a very large carpeted room, with pillows round it, some very large looking-glasses and a chandelier.

I advanced across the room amid loud exclamations from the seated ladies, and was pointed out a position in front of the two principal ones, who were seated against the wall—one was the chief wife of the sultan, and the other a daughter married to a seyyid, whose hand his father-in-law must always kiss. He is a very disagreeable-looking man, who was much offended because Imam Sharif would neither kiss his hand, being a seyyid himself, nor let his own be kissed. I squatted down, and round me soon squatted many more ladies—they were certainly not beautiful, but one, who was nearest to me and seemed to be my guardian or showman, had a very nice, kind, clever face. Her lips were not so large as most.

We seemed all to be presided over, as we literally were, by a kind of confidential maid, who sat on the little raised hearth in the corner, amongst all the implements for the making of coffee and burning of incense, chanting constantly: 'Salek alleh Mohammed' and something more, of which I can only remember that it was about the faith. Sometimes she was quiet a little, and then, above all the din, she raised her shout, accompanying it with an occasional single loud blow with a stone pestle and mortar. There was no difficulty about seeing the gold anklets the ladies wore, for their clothes, as they sat, were well above their knees. Their feet were painted like fanciful black slippers with lace edges. Their examination of me was very searching, even reaching smelling point, and I feel sure I was being exorcised, for so much was being said about Mohammed. At last an old lady said to me, 'There is no god but God!' with which I agreed, and murmurs of satisfaction went round, while she nodded her head triumphantly. Later on she pointed to the ceiling, and asked if I considered this was the direction in which Allah dwells, and seemed glad when I agreed. Of course no infidel would, she thought.

Presently the woman who had prepared the frankincense brought it down in a small chafing dish, continuing the same chant and handing it round. I wondered if I should be left out, or left till the last, but neither happened, and when my turn came, like the rest, I held my head and hands over the fumes, and we were all fumigated inside our garments. I may have been partaking in some unholy rite, but my ignorance will be my excuse, I hope.

I was then told I might go, which I was glad of, as I had been afraid to offend them by going too soon. I was asked, as I left, if I should like to see their jewellery; of course I said 'Yes,' and had hardly got home and recovered from the deafening row, when I was fetched again.

There were crowds more women of all classes, clean and dirty, and as they came trooping in to see me, the room seemed to resound with the twittering sound of their kisses, for the incoming visitor kissed the sitter's hand, while the sitter kissed her own, and there was kissing of foreheads besides.

Numerous little baskets were brought in with immense quantities of gold ornaments, some very heavy, but with few gems in them—absolutely none of value. They consisted of coral, onyx, a few bad turquoises, crooked pearls, and many false stones. Everything was of Indian work. Sheikha came in in a silk dress with a tremendous, much-alloyed silver girdle, and loaded with chains and bracelets of all sorts, clanking and clashing as she came.

We had very good coffee with ginger and cloves in it, and at this time there was a very great deal of religious conversation and argument, and as they were exciting themselves I thought I would go, for I did not feel very comfortable; but the chief lady said to me, in a very threatening and dictatorial voice:

'La illaha il Allah! Mohammed resoul Allah.' I looked as much like an idiot as I could, and pretended neither to notice nor understand, but I was patted and shaken up by all that were near-enough neighbours to do so, and desired to look at that lady.

Again she said 'La illaha il Allah' in the same tone, and I was told I must repeat it. So she said the first part again in a firm tone, and I cheerfully repeated after her, 'There is no god but God.'

Then she continued, 'Mohammed is his prophet.' I remained dumb. Then the name of Issa (Jesus) went round, and I bowed my head.

The coffee woman then called out, 'Issa was a prophet before Mohammed.'

They then asked me if Issa was my prophet. I could only say that He is, for my Arabic would not allow of a further profession of my faith.

I gladly departed and gave Sheikha afterwards two sovereigns for her necklace.

They said they would show me their clothes, but they never did. I have described the shape of these dresses, but I omitted to say that they are gaily trimmed with a kind of ribbon about two inches wide, made of little square bits of coloured silks and cottons sewn together. This is put round the armholes, over the shoulder, and down to the hem of the garment over the seam, where a curious gusset or gore runs from the front part to the corner of the train. The dress is trimmed round the neck, which is cut square and rather low, and generally hangs off one shoulder, and, across the breast it is much embroidered, beads and spangles being sometimes introduced. These women seem to live in a perpetual noise: they gurgled loudly when we arrived, and we could always hear them playing the tambourine.

Tiny girls wear, as their only garment, a fringe of plaits as in Nubia, and their heads are shaven in grotesque patterns, or their hair done in small plaits. Boys have their heads shaven also, all except locks of long hair dotted about in odd places. I never saw such dreadful objects as the women make of themselves by painting their faces. When they lift their veils one would hardly think them human. I saw eyes painted to resemble blue and red fish, with their heads pointing to the girl's nose. The upper part of the face was yellow, the lower green with small black spots, a green stripe down the nose, the nostrils like two red cherries, the paint being shiny. Three red stripes were on the forehead, and there was a red moustache, there being also green stripes on the yellow cheeks.

There was a delightful, tiny room on the roof, just a little place to take and make coffee in, and we were allowed to clamber up to this, but not without calling a slave and assuring ourselves that there was no danger of my husband meeting any of the ladies, for it commanded the roof, to which we had not access. We liked going up there very much, for the views were splendid, and we could see down into the mosque, which is built like cloisters, open in the middle. I took some photographs from there, and also, with the greatest difficulty, managed to get one of the room itself by tying my camera, without its legs, of course, with a rope to the outside of the fretwork frame of the little window, which was on a level with the floor. It was hard work not to be in the way myself, as I had to put both arms out of the next window to take out the slides, and to guess at the focus.

The sultan, though his Hindustani was getting a trifle rusty, said he greatly liked the company of Imam Sharif, whose uncle had in some way befriended him in India. Intelligent conversation he had not enjoyed for a long time. He was certainly a little scandalised at Imam Sharif's lax ways in religion, for he was one day sitting without his turban when some coffee was brought. The sultan put his hands up to cover Imam Sharif's head, saying:

'My brother, you are drinking with a bare head, and this is contrary to the Koran.' The same remark was often made in camp by people who looked into his tent. They said, 'Look! he is a Christian, his head is bare.' At the same time no one thought anything of the Bedouin's bare heads.

During this period of uncertainty we made several little explorations of the surrounding valleys.

One day we started out with the sultan, who had on his long coat, which made him look like a huge, sulphur-coloured canary. It was lined with light blue. He, my husband, Saleh, and a groom rode the four horses; Imam Sharif and I had our Basha and Mahsoud, and a camel most smartly decorated carried the Wazir Salim-bin-Abdullah and a soldier; other soldiers followed on foot. We went about five miles to Al Agran to see some ruins perched on a rock beneath the high wall of the plateau, prettily situated with palms, gardens, and wells. The ruins, which are those of a well-built fortress, consist of little more than the foundation, but all embedded in modern houses, so that excavations would be impossible. It must once have been a place of considerable importance. There was a scrap of very well cut ornament, which looked as if it might have belonged to a temple. It was from Al Agran or Algran that we obtained a stone with a spout to it, with rather a long Sabæan inscription on it, a dedication to the god Sayan, known to have been worshipped in the Hadhramout. We were given coffee in a very dirty room, which we were all the time longing to tear down that we might dig under it.

Chapter XI

The Wadi Ser and Kabr Saleh

On January 17 we started from Al Koton with only seven of our camels and two of the sultan's packed with forage, to be away several days. The sultan wished to lend his horses, but my husband refused. However, he had to ride one, a grey, for fear of giving offence, and this was given to him as a present afterwards, and he rode it whenever the rocks allowed till we reached the coast. We eventually sent this horse, Zubda (butter), and my Basha back to their respective donors, though they really expected us to take them to Aden. We had two men of the Nahad tribe as our siyara.

Our start took a very long time, for the sultan, attended by many people, came a mile on foot. We travelled four hours and a half, partly through land that would have been cultivated had there been rain, and partly through salt desert, till we turned north-west into the Wadi Ser, where there is a sandy desert. From the entrance to Wadi Ser we could see Shibahm in the distance, an unpromising looking spot among sandhills. We were all able to find shelter at Hanya under an enormous thorny b'dom tree covered with fruit, and we felt like birds out of a cage, for we never could walk out at Al Koton without a crowd, and the greasiness and spiciness of the food was beginning to pall. We had a delightful camp, but had to be very careful not to drop things in the sand, as they so quickly disappeared. We had a new man called Iselem, who was to take care of the horses, pluck chickens, and help in pitching the camp. His wonder at the unfolding and setting up of the beds, chairs, &c., was great. There was also an old man called Haidar Aboul. He and one of the soldiers could talk Hindustani, so with Imam Sharif's help we were somewhat independent of Saleh, though we had thought it necessary to bring him, to keep him from working us harm.

We continued our way up the Wadi Ser for about five hours and camped at Al Had in a field near a house, close to some high banks which radiated intense heat, and suffered the more that we had to wait a long time for the tea that we always had with our luncheon, as our water had been stolen in the night. We always tried to save some to carry on and start with next day, fearing we might fare worse in the next place we came to.

The well at this spot is the last water in this direction, for we were reaching the confines of the great central desert. Wadi Ser, being such a waste of sand, is very sparsely populated. The Bedouin here, like the Turkomans, live in scattered abodes, little groups of two or three houses dotted about, and solitary homesteads. It belongs to the Kattiri tribe, who are at war with the Yafei. They once owned Sheher and Makalla and took Al Koton, but in a war in 1874 the Yafei were supported by the English; hence their friendship for England. The animosity still continues and there is little intercourse between Siwoun and Shibahm, though only twelve miles apart. The Kattiri have more of the Bedou about them and the Yafei have more of the Arab. Our siyar was twenty-five dollars.

The people were preparing for rain, which may never come; they had had none for two years, but if they get it every three years they are satisfied, as they get a sufficient crop. As it comes in torrents and with a rush, each field is provided with a dyke and a dam, which they cut to let the water off. This dyke is made by a big scraper, like a dustpan, called mis'hap, harnessed by chains to a camel or bullocks. The camel goes over the existing bank and when the dustpan reaches the summit the men in attendance upset the surface sand or soil, that has been scraped off, and carry the scraper down. When this is done the field is lightly ploughed; there is nothing more to do except to sit and wait for rain. We saw signs of great floods in some parts.

Whenever we found ruins still visible in or near the Hadhramout we found them on elevated spots above the sand level, from which we may argue that all centres of civilisation in the middle of the valleys lie deeply buried in sand, which has come down in devastating masses from the highland and the central desert. The nature of the sand in this district is twofold. Firstly we have the loess or firm sand, which can be cultivated; and secondly the disintegrated desert sand, which forms itself into heaps and causes sandstorms when the wind is high.

The mountains diminish in height the farther north one goes. The character of the valleys is pretty much the same as that of those to the south of the main valley, only they are narrower and much lower, and thus the deep indenture of the valley system of the Hadhramout gradually fades away into the vast expanse of the central desert.

The wazir had been given a bag of money to buy fowls and lambs for us, but Saleh came and said, 'The wazir wants some money for a lamb,' so it was sent and returned. It had not been asked for and caused some offence, but that odious little wretch only wished to make mischief.

The Bedouin are rather clever at impromptu verses, and when we were in Wadi Ser they made night hideous by dancing in our camp. The performers ranged themselves in two rows, as in Sir Roger de Coverley; time is kept by a drum and by perpetual hand-clapping and stamping of the feet, whilst two men execute elaborate capers in the centre, singing as they do so such words as these: 'The ship has come from Europe with merchandise; they shot at the minaret with a thousand cannon.' Bedouin women also take part in these dances, and the Arabs think the dances very impious; it was very weird by the light of the moon and the camp-fire, but wearisome when we wanted to sleep, particularly as they kept it up till after we were all astir in the morning, yelling, bawling, singing, and screeching, Iselem being the ringleader. The ground was shaken as if horses were galloping about. A Bedou was playing a flute made of two leg-bones of a crane bound together with iron.

At a distance of half an hour from our camp there is a stone with an inscription. This was visited on the day of our arrival, but we went again next day that I might photograph it, very difficult in the position in which it is. It is a great rough boulder about 10 feet high, that has slipped down from the mountain, with large rough Sabæan letters just punched on the surface, of no depth, but having a whitish appearance. The letters run in every direction—sometimes side by side, sometimes in columns.

The central and most important word which my husband was able to make out, with the help of Professor Hommels' admirable dictionary of hitherto ascertained Himyaritic words, is Masabam or Caravan road. The stone seemed to be a kind of sign-post; for as the old Bedou sheikh who was with us said, there was in olden days, about 500 years ago, a caravan road this way to Mecca, before the Bahr-Safi made it impassable. The Bahr-Safi is a quicksand, north of Shabwa, but none of those present had been there, and they all laughed at Von Wrede's story of King Safi and his army being engulfed in it.

The Bedou sheikh with his retinue came to see that we took no treasure out of the stone. There are a good many old stones built into the side of the stream-bed. Having taken a copy and a photograph, which my husband sent later to Dr. D. H. Müller, in Vienna, to decipher, we departed. We were told that the Wadi Ser goes four hours from that stone to the great desert.

We then turned back and followed our kafila to Alagoum, at the junction of Wadi Ser and the Wadi Latat, about two hours' journey. Alagoum is a large cluster of high houses, surrounded by stables and houses excavated in the sandhills, where the inhabitants and their cattle live in hot weather. This is quite an idea suited to the Bedouin, who live in caves, when they can find them. The Bedouin in Southern Arabia never have tents.

We found that Saleh had joined the camel-men in resisting our own people, who wanted to encamp under trees. They had unloaded in the open and Saleh and Iselem had then retired into the village till the tents were pitched, so, as we were to remain in this place two days, we had them moved. We had by this time some of the Kattiri tribe with us as siyara.

At Al Garun the Wadi Ser is entered by a short collateral valley called the Wadi Khonab, in which valley is the tomb of the prophet Saleh, one of the principal sacred places of the district. Kabr Saleh is equally venerated with the Kabr Houd, also called the tomb of the prophet Eber (for, from what we could gather from the statements of intelligent natives, Eber and Houd are synonymous terms) which is to be found in the Tamimi country further up the main valley.

The prophet Houd was sent to reclaim the tribe of Ad. The Mahra tribe are descended from a remnant of the Addites, as also are the Hadhrami, according to the legends. Once a man named Kolabeh, when seeking for camels came upon the beautiful garden of Irem-Dhatul-Imad, which is supposed to have been in the desert near Aden; he found and brought away a priceless jewel which came into possession of the first Ommiad Caliph Nourrijaht. Those who embraced Islamism on the preaching of the prophet Houd were spared, but the rest either were suffocated by a stifling wind or survived in the form of apes, whose descendants still inhabit Jebel Shemshan at Aden.

A remnant are also said to have fled to the Kuria Muria Islands.

We again met with considerable opposition from the Bedouin and our escort when we proposed to visit the Kabr Saleh next day. However, this was overcome by threats of reporting the opposition to Sultan Salàh on our return to Al Koton. So next morning we started. The sultan of Shibahm's people were just as anxious to go as we were, for they were delighted to get the chance of making this pilgrimage to so holy a place, which being in an enemies' country they could not have done but for our escort.

A short ride of two hours brought us nearly to the head of the Wadi Khonab, and there, situated just under the cliff, in an open wilderness, is the celebrated tomb. It consists simply of a long uncovered pile of stones, somewhat resembling a potato-pie, with a headstone at either end, and a collection of fossils from the neighbouring mountains arranged along the top. Hard by is a small house where the pilgrims take their coffee, and the house of the Bedou mollah, who looks after the tomb, is about a quarter of a mile off. Beyond this there is no habitation in sight. A more desolate spot could hardly be found. The tomb is from 30 to 40 feet in length, and one of the legends concerning it is that it never is the same length, sometimes being a few feet shorter, sometimes a few feet longer. The Bedouin have endless legends concerning this prophet. He was a huge giant, they said, the father of the prophet Houd, or Eber; he created camels out of the rock, and hence is especially dear to the wandering Bedou; and he still works miracles, for if even unwittingly anyone removes a stone from this grave, it exhibits symptoms of life, and gives the possessor much discomfort until it is returned. Once a domed building was erected over the tomb, but the prophet manifested his dislike of being thus inclosed and it was removed.

Men are said to go blind if they steal anything connected with the tomb; once a man took a cup from the coffee-house, unaware of the danger he incurred, tied it to his girdle, and carried it off. It stuck to him till he restored it. Another man took a stone away and gave it to his children to play with, but it hopped about till taken back again.

At the time of the ziara or pilgrimage which takes place in November, crowds of Bedouin, we were told, come from all the valleys and hills around to worship. All our men treated the grave with the greatest respect, and said their prayers around it barefoot.

I do not know what they would have done to Imam Sharif if he had not comported himself as the others did, so that wretched man had to walk barefoot all round on the sharp stones, and thus we obtained the measurements. He got dreadfully pricked by thorns and coveted the fossils very much. The stones of which the tomb is composed are about the size of cannon-balls, and look just as if newly put together and quite weedless. People stroke the upright stone at the head and then rub their hands on their breast and kiss them, and do the same at the foot. The wazir would have led us up close to it; but the Bedouin hated our being there at all, and would by no means let us sleep there, as we wished to do. We overheard our horrid little Saleh Hassan telling the bystanders that we live on pork.

When we first got there, we were permitted to approach within a few yards of the tomb, so that we saw it very distinctly; but when, after eating our luncheon, and taking a siesta under a tree, we again advanced to inspect it, the Bedou mollah attacked us with fierce and opprobrious language, and, fearing further to arouse the fanaticism of these wild people, we speedily mounted our horses and rode away.

We hoped to be able to visit Kabr Houd, the tomb of Nebi Saleh's son, in the main valley, but, as it will appear, we were to be disappointed. I am told, on reliable Arab authority, that it is similar in every way to the Kabr Saleh—just a long pile of stones, about 40 feet in length, uncovered, and with its adjacent mosque. These two primitive tombs of their legendary prophets, zealously guarded and venerated by the Bedouin, are a peculiar and interesting feature of the Hadhramout. It is a curious fact that when one turns to the tenth chapter of Genesis (the best record we have of the earliest populations of our globe) we find the patriarchal names Salah, Eber, and Hazarmaveth (which last, as I previously stated, corresponds to Hadhramout) following one another in their order, though not in immediate sequence. I am at a loss to account for these names being still venerated by the Bedouin, unless one admits a continuity of legendary history almost too wonderful to contemplate, or else one must consider that they were heathen sites of veneration, which have, under Moslem influence, been endowed with orthodox names. Certain it is that these tombs in the midst of the wilderness are peculiarly the property of the Bedouin, and, though visited, and to a certain extent venerated, by the Arabs, the latter do not attach so much importance to them as they do to the tombs of their own walis or saints, which are always covered tombs, near or in the centre of the towns. Another curious point I may mention in connection with these tombs is that the Arab historian, Yaqut, in his 'Mu'gam,' tells us of a god in the Hadhramout, called Al Galsad, who was a gigantic man; perhaps this god may have some connection with the giant tombs of Saleh and Eber. Also Makrisi, who wrote in the tenth century, a.d., speaks of a giant's grave he saw near Shabwa.

Near Al Agoum we saw a quantity of very ancient stone monuments, situated on slightly elevated ground, above the sand. At first we imagined them to be tombs, but on closer inspection we discovered that the erections, which are large unhewn ones of the cromlech type, are decorated inside with geometric patterns somewhat similar to those we found in the Mashonaland ruins, and therefore my husband was more inclined to believe they were originally used for religious purposes. There are traces of letters above the pattern. The buildings are about 20 feet square and several are surrounded by circular walls. They are apparently of extreme antiquity, and doubtless far anterior in date to any other Himyaritic remains that we saw in the Hadhramout.

The wazir joined us as usual on our return from Kabr Saleh, as we sat outside our tent in the moonlight with Imam Sharif and the Indian interpreters, and we had a pleasant evening. We were perfectly charmed to see great preparations for sleep going on among the Bedouin. We thought they really must be tired after dancing the whole night and walking the whole day. They were busy putting themselves to bed in graves which they dug in the loose dust, not sand; turbans, girdles, and so forth being turned into bedclothes. Just as they were still Iselem began capering about and they all got up shouting and screaming, but the wazir, seeing my distress, with the greatest difficulty quieted them, as he did when they broke out again at three o'clock in the morning.

It took us six hours the following day to ride back to Al Koton, where, not being expected, we could not get a meal of even bread, honey, and dates for about an hour and a half, and then had to wait till we were very sleepy indeed for supper. We endured great hunger that day.

Salim-bin-Ali, the other wazir, had not come with us because he was not well. The day of our reception, in curvetting about, he fell from his horse and had suffered various pains ever since.

The sultan had had another stone brought for us from Al Gran; we did not care to take this away as it had very little writing on it, only [Symbol: See page image] (al amin, to the protection). It is circular, 1 foot 4½ inches in diameter, 2½ inches high, made of coarse marble. We saw a similar circular stone at Raidoun.

The wildest reports were going about as to the water-stone we already had. It was almost the cause of an insurrection against the sultan of Shibahm. They said 'It was very wrong to give that stone to a "gavir"'—as they call us (for all the k's are pronounced g)—'only think of our carelessly letting him have it. The Englishman has taken fifteen jewels of gold and gems out of it,' and named a high value.

'You are sure of this?' said the sultan to the ringleader.

'Oh, yes! quite certain!' he said.

So the sultan led him to our room, where the stone was, and said:

'Do you know the stone again? Look closely at it. Has anything happened to it but a washing?'

The man looked extremely small. They said my husband's only business was to extract gold from stones. It is extraordinary how widespread this belief is. It is firmly rooted in Greece. Many a statue and inscription has been shivered to atoms because of it, and our interest in inscriptions was constantly attributed to a wish to find out treasure. We once saw two men in Asia Minor industriously boring away into a column—to find gold they told us. They already had made a hole about 8 inches deep and 4 or 5 inches wide. They think that the ancients had a way of softening marble with acid.

We had again at this time a great many patients; for, as we really had effected some cures the first time we were at Al Koton, our fame had spread. We always had Matthaios and Imam Sharif to help us to elicit the symptoms, and also to consult with as to the cures, because some remedies which suit Europeans were by no means suited to the circumstances of our patients. For instance, the worst coughs I ever heard were very prevalent, but it would be useless to ask the sick to take a hot footbath and stay in bed. The one blue garment, which in different shapes was all the men and women wore, was little protection from the chill of the evening. The women's dresses were always hanging off their backs; and the men, who had each two pieces of thick blue cotton about 2 yards long by 1½ yard wide, with fringes half a yard long, wore one as a permanent petticoat and the other as a girdle by day and when cold as a shawl, often put on in a very uncomfortable way—thrown on in front and left hanging open behind—forming no protection to the back of the lungs.

The poor little baby, aged fifteen months, of the Wazir Salim-bin-Abdullah was brought shrieking in agony, gnawing hard at its emaciated little arms, and all covered with sores. Our hearts were wrung at this wretched sight and we longed to help; we even thought of giving it part of a drop of chlorodyne much diluted, but, fortunately for us, dared not do so, for my husband said to them, 'I do not think the child will live long.' It mercifully was released in a few hours. Then an old man came who 'had a flame in his inside.' My husband examined him and decided that he had an abscess, and, to please him, gave him a dessertspoonful of borax and honey, which he swept up with his finger, and I suppose it did relieve him, for after some minutes he said: 'The fire is gone out.'

It grieved us sorely when poor souls came to us so hopefully and so confident of help, with a withered arm or an empty eye-socket. Some with less serious complaints than these last we recommended to go to Aden hospital, a building of which we never thought at that time we should be inmates ourselves. We found the ladies, to whom a plentiful supply of violent pills had been administered, were better, but the sultan, who had an attack of indigestion, had to be taken in hand at once by us doctors. His wife required a tonic, so we got out some citrate of iron and quinine, a bright, shiny, greenish-yellow, flaky thing, which Imam Sharif assured us would be more beneficial and better liked if shown and admired as gold; so after some conversation about pious frauds, I packed the medicine up neatly and wrote in ornamental letters 'Golden Health Giver,' and this name being explained and translated gave great satisfaction. We were glad to be able to give the kind sultan a new bottle of quinine—more acceptable than gold.

While we were away Mahmoud had found two little hedgehogs. One was dead and stuffed; the other we kept alive for some time and it always liked to creep into my clothes and go to sleep—I suppose because I never teased it. In the little book of directions for zoological collectors we saw, that 'little is known of the reproduction of lizards, so special attention is to be paid,' &c. Mahmoud had brought me two little fragile eggs to keep, about half an inch long, and I had put them in a match-box with tow and packed them in my trunk, and on my return to Al Koton I found two little lizards about 1¼ inch long, one alive and the other dead. Both had to be pickled, as we did not understand how to bring so small a lizard up by hand. They proved to be new to science, as was also a large lizard we had found near Haura, whose peculiarity is that he has no holes along his legs to breathe by, like other lizards. His name is Aporosceles Bentii. The first lizard's egg I had I was determined should not slip through my fingers; but alack! and well-a-day! my fingers slipped through it.

In the meantime we were terrible bones of contention, and had the Wadi Hadhramout all by the ears. We were very anxious indeed as to whether we could proceed any farther or should have to go back, and whether we could do either safely. We wanted to go right along the Wadi Hadhramout and to see Bir Borhut or Barahout, a solfatare as far as we could make out, but Masoudi in the tenth century speaks of it as the greatest volcano in the world, and says that it casts up immense masses of fire and that its thundering noise can be heard miles away. On the heights near is much brimstone, which the Bedouin find useful for gunpowder. They consider this place is the mouth of hell and that the souls of Kafirs go there. In Iceland there is similar accommodation for those souls. Von Wrede thinks it was the Fons Stygis of Ptolemy, but M. de Goeje thinks that Ptolemy alluded to some place farther west and south of Mareb. Certainly the position given by Ptolemy does not coincide with that of Bir Borhut.

From 'Arabian Society in the Middle Ages,' by S. Lane-Poole, I take the following notices of this place:—

El Kaswini says of Bir Borhut: 'It is a well near Hadhramout and the Prophet (God bless and save him) said "In it are the souls of infidels and hypocrites." It is an Addite well in a dry desert and a gloomy valley, and it is related of Ali (may God be well pleased with him) that he said, "The most hateful of districts to God (whose name be exalted) is the valley of Barahout, in which is a well whose waters are black and fœtid, where the souls of infidels make their abode."'

El Asmaï has narrated of a man of Hadhramout that he said: 'We find near Barahout an extremely disgusting and fœtid smell, and then news is brought to us of the death of a great man of the chiefs of the infidels.'

Ajaïb el Makhloukàt also relates that a man who passed a night in the valley of Barahout said: 'I heard all night (exclamatives) of "O Roumèh! O Roumèh!" and I mentioned this to a learned man and he told me that it was the name of the angel commissioned to keep guard over the souls of the infidels.'

Bir Borhut is not far from Kabr Houd, which is said by some to be even longer and wider than Kabr Saleh. The route lies through the territory of the Kattiri, and the Yafei are quite ignorant of it; it would be quite unsafe for them to go to the sea along the valley, and they always use the road over the tableland. The Kattiri tyrannise over the sultan of Siwoun and are enemies to the sultan of Shibahm; beyond them are the Minhali, who are also enemies; then the Amri and the Tamimi, who are friendly, and then come the Mahri. The sultan told us that not even he could prevent us going along the kafila path, but we should not be admitted into any villages and should probably be denied water. One source of enmity between the Kattiri and the Yafei is, I believe, a debt which the Kattiri owe and will not pay. The sultan of Siwoun borrowed three lacs of rupees from the grandfather of the present sultan of Makalla; he would not repay them, so after much squabbling the case was referred to the English at Aden, who, after duly considering the papers, gave Makalla and Sheher (bombarding them first) to the Yafei.

In answer to the seven letters there was nothing from the sultan of Siwoun, and the sultan of Terim sent a verbal answer—'Do as you please,' taking no responsibility—to which Sultan Salàh replied, 'I have sent you a letter, send me a letter.' The sheikh of the Kattiri tribe came to Al Koton and said he would take us, but on January 23 we heard that the sultan of Siwoun had made a proclamation in the mosque there, forbidding the people to admit the unbelievers to the town. Though we could easily go by the kafila road, leaving the town of Siwoun two miles on one side, the sultan deemed it wiser for us not to attempt it, as brawls might arise, the two tribes being at war; so we then decided to mount on to the akaba, pass the inhospitable Siwoun and Terim, and reach the friendly Tamimi tribe. The Kattiri kabila, or tribe, really came to Siwoun to be ready for us, but the seyyids had collected a large sum of money and bribed the sultan to send them away.

We were hoping to get off to Shibahm, but as the sultan was neither well nor in a very good humour, we had to resign ourselves to settling down in Al Koton in all patience. He said he must accompany us, as he could not depend on his wazirs for they were too stupid.

My husband and I were always occupied. He used to sketch in water-colours, and I had plenty of work developing photographs in a delightful little dark room, where I lived and enjoyed as many skins of water as I could use, till I had to stop and pack my celluloid negatives like artificial flowers, for they curled up and the films contracted and split, from the alkaline water. I had to put glycerine on them when I reached Aden. Our botanist nearly died of dulness and impatience; Mahmoud was quite contented to sit quite still, and I do not think the Indian servants minded much. Poor Imam Sharif used to gaze up at half a dozen stars from a yard, but he dared not venture on the roof to see more.

We took a stroll with the sultan one day, no crowd being allowed, and remarked how many things were grown for spices, those spices which were becoming rather wearisome to us. There was zamouta, an umbelliferous plant, the seed of which is used in coffee, and habat-assoba for putting in bread; coriander, chili, fennel, and helf, a plant very like tall cress, which is used in cookery and also raw, and which we liked as a salad; also attar, a purple creeping bean, very pretty and good to eat. There was also another low-growing bean, brinjol (egg plant), cucumber, water-melon, henna, and indigo. The sultan has besides a private inclosure where he has some lime-trees, not our kind of lime-tree of course, but the one which bears fruit; and I must not forget cotton, from which the place originally took its name, as it is abundant in a wild state.

At last another polite letter came from the Kattiri, and a letter from the sultan of Terim. 'I have both your letters and you can do as you like, my answer is the same.' This did away with all hope of progress in that direction.

Our spirits, however, were much cheered by hearing that the sultan had received a letter from a seyyid at Meshed (probably the nice one who had been in India and had leprosy in his legs), telling him how very badly the sultan of Hagarein had behaved about us. As this was spontaneous, we hoped that the negotiation our sultan was going to undertake about our making excavations at Meshed, Raidoun, or Kubar al Moluk (for some part of the ruins is called Tombs of the Kings), would turn out successfully. The sultan of Hagarein was summoned to Al Koton, but we were away before he came. I believe in the end he was turned out of his place, former misdeeds counting against him.

Chapter XII

The City of Shibahm

On January 25 we started for Shibahm, carpets having been sent forward the day before. The sultan was to follow us in a day or two, when some sheikhs had been to see him. We started at 8.30 and were at Shibahm in four hours. We had eleven camels only, three horses, and the donkey. We travelled, as soon as we left Al Koton, through sand nearly all the way. We passed the tall white dome of Sheikh Aboubekr-bin-Hassan's tomb, near which the ruling family are buried if the seyyids permit. They are all-powerful, and the sultan can do nothing in this respect without them—not even be buried in his own family tomb. There is a well beside the tomb, or rather the kind of building from which water is obtained in the open valleys. This consists of a small white building 8 or 9 feet square, with a dome resting on an open pattern composed of a herring-bone course of bricks; a little wooden ladle, 4 or 5 inches wide, stands in one of the little openings to dip out the water, which would otherwise evaporate. They drink out of the ladle, and fill the water-skins and the drinking trough for animals, which stands always near. They would never let us drink from the ladles.

As we neared Shibahm we passed through a good deal of ground that had once been irrigated, but it had had its ups and downs, and was now abandoned. First there had been plenty of soil and the palm-trees were planted in it. Then the wind had denuded the roots, some of which had been banked up and walled in with stones; others were standing on bare roots, but at this time the sand was burying the whole place. There were high drifts against many of the walls and among the trees.

Shibahm is twelve miles distant from Al Koton, and is one of the principal towns in the Hadhramout valley. It is built on rising ground in the middle of the narrowest part of the valley, so that no one can pass between it and the cliffs of the valley out of gunshot of the walls. This rising ground has doubtless been produced by many successions of towns built of sun-dried bricks, for it is the best strategical point in the neighbourhood.

Early Arab writers tell us that the Himyaritic population of this district came here when they abandoned Shabwa, early in the Christian era. We succeeded, however, in finding evident traces of an occupation of earlier date than this, both in a seal, which is described further on, and in an inscription in which the name Shibahm occurs, and which certainly dates from the third century b.c. Even if Shibahm were not the site of the original capital it must always, centuries before our era, have been a place of considerable importance as the centre of the frankincense trade, for here must have been made up the caravans which brought the spices westward by the great frankincense road across Arabia. The caravans take twenty-five days on the journey to Saihut, and five to Makalla; they go also to Nejd, but we could not find out how long they take.

Shibahm is now the property of the sultan of Makalla, but was administered by his cousin Salàh, who received 40,000 rupees a year for the purpose. It is now three hundred years since these Yafei left their old home and came to settle in the Hadhramout. They were then a wild predatory race, plundering caravans; now they have become peaceable and rich. They still remain close friends with the Yafei farther west, but are quite independent of them. It is the maintenance of a residence for the Nizam of Hyderabad, and their constant communication with India, that has doubtless made all the difference between the Yafei tribe and others. Building seems to have been their mania. The sultan of Shibahm has numbers of houses at Al Koton and Shibahm, and he was intending to spend 20,000 rupees in rebuilding his father's house, for the castle at Al Koton is not his own but Government property, and the strip of land across the valley, part of it sandy, goes with it. He was buying up land for himself in the Wadi Al Ain and elsewhere. He told us his father left eleven million rupees to divide among his numerous progeny.

Relationships in that family must be a trifle confused. Manassar of Makalla had married two sisters (both now dead) of his cousin Salàh. Salàh had married two of Manassar's sisters. A daughter of Salàh's married Manassar, and another of them was married to one of Manassar's sons, and Manassar's brother Hussein of Sheher married, or was married to, a third daughter of Salàh. Apparently the same complications existed in the generation before this, but into them it is impossible to go. As in India, the favourite marriage that a man can make is to marry his 'uncle's daughter.' Possibly the fact that property goes from brother to brother till a whole generation is dead, instead of from father to son, has something to do with this arrangement.

The town of Shibahm offers a curious appearance as one approaches; above its mud brick walls, with bastions and watch towers, appear the tall houses of the wealthy, whitewashed only at the top, which make it look like a large round cake with sugar on it. Outside the walls several industries are carried on, the chief of which is the manufacture of indigo dye. The small leaves are dried in the sun and powdered, and then put into huge jars and filled with water. Next morning these are stirred with long poles, producing a dark-blue frothy mixture; this is left to settle, and then the indigo is taken from the bottom and spread out on cloths to drain; the substance thus procured is taken home and mixed with dates and saltpetre. Four pounds of this indigo to a gallon of water makes the requisite and universally used dye for garments, the better class of which are calendered by beating them with wooden hammers on stones. This noise was a great mystery to us till we traced our way to it and found out what it was. They used also to beat the dried leaf of a kind of acacia called kharrad, and, when pounded, make of it a paste which has a beautiful pea-green appearance; it is used for giving a polish to leather.

Another industry carried on outside Shibahm is rope-making out of the fibres of the fan palm (saap) which grows wild in the narrower valleys; the leaves are first left to soak in water, and then beaten till the fibres separate. Yet another is that of making lime for whitewash kilns—it is curious to watch the Bedouin beating the lime thus produced with long sticks, singing quaint little ditties as they thump, in pleasant harmony to the beating of their sticks.

We entered the town by some very sloping steps, which led through the gateway, passing some wells and the indigo dyers outside; also some horrible pools where they had put the little fish that the camels eat, to drain the oil from them. We entered a sort of square, having the castle on the right-hand side and a ruined mosque in front of us. This huge castle was built by the grandfather of the Sultan Manassar, sultan of Makalla, but, owing to some difference about his wives, he left the two topmost stories unfinished. No one lives in it, so we had the whole of this immense pile of buildings to ourselves. It belongs to Manassar. It is larger than Al Koton by far, and that is also exceeded in size by Haura. It is a most imposing structure and much more florid than the others. The gateway is a masterpiece of carving in intricate patterns. On entering this you turn sharp to the right up a shallow staircase, protected from without, but exposed to fire from the inmates of the castle. The pillars in the lofty rooms are beautifully carved. All the windows are filled with pretty fretwork; bolts, doors, and window frames are also carved. The huge doors are carved on one side only, the outer one, and inside they are rough and ill-grained and splashed with whitewash. There are pretty dado patterns round the walls; and the staircase, as in the other castles, has numerous doors for defence, usually put in the middle of the flights. Shooting-holes are in every direction. We established ourselves in a room about 30 feet by 25 feet, and used to go up and dine in one of the unfinished rooms at the top where there was a little bit of roof and where the cooking was done. We generally thought it wise to dine in our grill-room, in order to have our food hot. We all greatly enjoyed the works of our own cooks, provisions being supplied to us.

We overlooked a huge puddle into which the surrounding houses drain, and it is a proof of the scarcity of water in this part of Arabia, that they carefully carry this filthy fluid away in skins to make bricks with, even scraping up the remaining drops in the pool with their hands. In fact, it scarcely ever rains in the Hadhramout.

From the roof of our lofty castle we had an excellent view straight down the broad Hadhramout valley, dotted with towns, villages, palm groves, and cultivation for fully thirty miles, embracing the two towns of Siwoun and Terim, ruled over by the two brother sultans of the Kattiri tribe. Close to Shibahm several collateral valleys from north and south fall into the Hadhramout, and a glance at the map made by our chartographer, Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur, will at once show the importance of this situation.

Shibahm is the frontier town of the Yafei tribe, the Kattiri occupying the valley about two miles to the east, and these two tribes are constantly at war. Sultan Salàh's big standard was in one of our dwelling-rooms ready to be unfurled at a moment's notice. He has cannons on his walls pointed in the direction of his enemy—old cannons belonging to the East India Company, the youngest of which bore the date of 1832. From the soldiers we obtained a specimen of the great conch shells that they use as trumpets in battle, and which are hung to the girdle of the watchmen, who are always on the look-out to prevent a surprise.

The Kattiri are not allowed to stay in the town at night, for we heard that seven months before some of them were detected in an attempt to blow up the palace with gunpowder. There was a fight also, about a quarter of a mile outside the town, in which five Kattiri and seven Yafei were killed. There are three or four armed soldiers to protect Shibahm, the sultan has erected bastions and forts all about it, and the walls are patrolled every night.

There are many ruined houses in the plain, relics of the great war forty years ago, when the Kattiri advanced as far as Al Koton and did great damage. The sultan of Siwoun was invited, with seven sheikhs, to the palace of Shibahm on friendly terms and there murdered in cold blood, while forty of his followers were killed outside.

The inhabitants of Shibahm were not at all friendly disposed to us. On the day of our arrival my husband ventured with two of the sultan's soldiers into the bazaar, and through the narrow streets; but only this once, for the people crowded round him, yelled at him, and insulted him, trying their best to trip him up and impede his progress; he was nearly suffocated by the clouds of filthy dust that the mob kicked up, and altogether they made his investigations so exceedingly disagreeable that he became seriously alarmed for his safety, and never tried to penetrate into the heart of Shibahm again. On the whole I should accredit Shibahm with a population of certainly not less than six thousand souls: there are thirteen mosques in it, and fully six hundred houses, tall and gaunt, to which an average population of ten souls is but a moderate estimate. The slave population of Shibahm is considerable; many slaves have houses there, and wives and families of their own. The sultan's soldiers are nearly all slaves or of slave origin, and one of them, Muoffok, whose grandfather was a Swahili slave, and who had been one of our escort from Makalla, took us to his house, where his wife, seated unveiled in her coffee corner, dispensed refreshments to quite a large party there assembled, whilst Muoffok discoursed sweet music to us on a mandoline, and a flute made out of the two bones of an eagle placed side by side.

Taisir and Aboud were also abiding in Shibahm. Taisir when he met us, on the minute asked for bakhshish, saying he had been ill when we parted and had had none though we had sent it to him. Oh! there was such kissing of hands! so we thought it politic to love our enemy and gave him a present. The Wazir Salim-bin-Ali had travelled with us to take care of us in the absence of his master.

Once the Arabs had a good laugh at the expense of three members of our party. One morning our botanist went forth in quest of plants and found a castor-oil tree, the berries of which pleased him exceedingly. Unwilling to keep so rare a treat for himself, he brought home some branches of the tree, and placed the delicacy before two of our servants, Matthaios and, I am glad to say, Saleh, who also partook heartily. Terrible was the anguish of the two victims, which was increased by the Arabs, veritable descendants of Job's comforters, who told them they were sure to die, as camels did which ate these berries. The botanist did not succumb as soon as the others, who, not believing he had eaten any berries himself, vowed vengeance on his head if they should recover, and demanded that, to prove his innocence, he should eat twelve berries in their presence. To our great relief the botanist was at last seized with sickness, and thereby proved his guiltlessness of a practical joke; three more miserable men I never saw for the space of several hours. However, they were better, though prostrate, next day, and for some time to come the popular joke was to imitate the noises and contortions of the sufferers during their anguish.

In consequence of the enmity manifested towards us we were even debarred from walking in that interesting though smelly part, just outside the town under the walls with the well, the brick-works, the indigo, the oil-making, the many lime-kilns, the armourers, and all the industrious people of the town.

We used to take the air on the roof in the evening; there were no mosquitos, but we were never so persecuted with flies. Fortunately our castle was near the wall, for to dwell in the narrow, tortuous, dirty streets must be fearful—most likely the dust does much to neutralise the evils of the defective drainage. The houses are very high and narrow and built of mud brick (kutcha), which is constantly though slowly powdering away. There are many houses in ruins.

We had two or three days of slight cold. The temperature was 62° (F.) in the shade, and it was so cloudy that we expected rain, but none came.

Saleh managed to get ten rupees from my husband, who refused any more, though he brought a piece of cloth which he said he wished to buy from the sultan. The money was only wanted for gambling. He went to Imam Sharif and said, 'How is this that Mr. Bent, who at first was like my brother, now is quite changed?' Imam Sharif said, 'If he was kind to you when you were a stranger, and now that he knows you is different, there must be some reason for it.' 'What have I done?' 'You know best,' said Imam Sharif, 'and I advise you to beg pardon.' Saleh exclaimed, 'And you, who are a Moslem, take part against me with these Christians!' This is the keynote of his conduct to us.

We rode two hours one day, without Saleh, to a place called Kamour, on the southern side of the valley, where there is an inscribed stone at the mouth of a narrow slit or gorge leading to the akaba. The words thereon were painted light red, dark red, yellow, and black, and scratched. The decipherable words 'morning light' and 'offerings' point to this having been a sacred stone when sun worship was prevalent. The letters are well shaped, some letters being strange to us. The writing is boustrephedon, which means that it runs backward and forward like an unbroken serpent, each line being read in an opposite direction to that preceding or following it. There is no difficulty in seeing this at a glance, as the shapes of the letters are reversed; for instance, if this occurred in English the two loops of a B would be on the left, if the writing were to be read in that direction, [Symbol: See page image]. The Greek name comes from this style of writing being originally likened to cattle wandering about. This at once relegates it, according to the best authorities, to at least the third century before Christ, and we were forcibly reminded of the large stone in the ruins of Zimbabwe and its similar orientation.

We heard of a cave with an inscription in it in the Kattiri country, about six miles off, almost in sight. We longed 'to dance on Tom Tiddler's ground' and make a dash for it, but the forfeits we might incur deterred us, being our lives. The wazir said he would try to arrange for this, but that, even if the seyyids consented, we must take forty soldiers, well armed, pay them as well as siyar to the Kattiri, pay the expenses of the siyara, and take as short a time about the business as possible.

On the 27th we heard that some of the tribe of Al Jabber, descended from Mohammed's great friend of that name, had passed Shibahm for Al Koton to fetch us, but there was no news of the Minhali or of the Tamimi.

It was said that the Jabberi could not take us over their highland, past the Kattiri and into the Tamimi country, without consulting the Kattiri, who sometimes help them in their wars. It must be remembered that the Kattiri Bedouin were for us (no doubt in view of the payment of siyar), while the seyyids and Arabs of that tribe at Siwoun, and their friends at Terim, were against us.

I need not say we were weary of this indecision, so we sent a letter to the sultan of Shibahm by a messenger saying, 'We have been here three days; what are we to do next?' and planned that Imam Sharif should ride over next day, as he could communicate 'mouth to mouth' with the sultan in Hindustani.

We had one consolation in our imprisonment, for the seal of Yarsahal, which has been mentioned before, was brought to us. The stone is in brown and white stripes, and the setting is very pretty. It had been in the bezel of a revolving ring. We began bargaining for it at once, my husband offering ten rupees for the stone and ten for the golden setting, but the seyyid who brought it said it was the property of a man in Siwoun, who wished to keep it for his children, and he must take it back to him. My husband said 'he should like to look at it very quietly by himself and think over the stone,' and therefore asked the seyyid to remain outside the door for a few minutes. I quickly utilised this quiet time to make an impression with sealing-wax, in case we never saw the seal again. In two hours the seyyid appeared again, and said he had had a letter from Siwoun (twenty-four miles off), saying the (imaginary) owner would not part with it under thirty rupees, but he very soon took twenty and laughed most heartily when I said if I had known how near Siwoun was I would have gone myself.

This seal is of particular interest, for on it were the words 'Yarsahal, the Elder of Shibahm'; and in an inscription published by M. Halévy, we have the two Yarsahals and various members of this family described as vassals of the King of the Gebaniti. Now Pliny says that the capital of the country was Thumna; this is quite correct and was confirmed by the seal, for Thumna was the capital of the Gebaniti, who were a Himyaritic tribe, west of the Hadhramout. It is therefore an additional confirmation of the accuracy of the ancient geographers concerning this district.

In old days Shabwat, as it is called in inscriptions, or Sabbatha, Shaba, and Sabota, as it is written in the ancient authors, was the capital of the country. Hamdani tells us in his 'Geography of the Arabian Peninsula' that there were salt works at Shabwa, and 'that the inhabitants, owing to the wars between Himyar and Medhig, left Shabwa, came down into the Hadhramout and called the place Shibahm, which was originally called Shibat.' Times are much changed since Shabwa was a great town, for from all accounts it is now quite deserted save for the Bedouin, and is six days from good water; the water there is salt and bitter, like quinine, the sultan said. The Bedouin work the salt and bring it on camels, as is mentioned by Makrisi. The effect of salt is traceable in the water of all the wells in the main valley. We would gladly have gone into Shabwa, but it was obviously impossible.

There was a great deal of gun-firing when the Jabberi went by with the sheikh of the Kattiri, and our next interest was a letter from Al Koton, saying 'that the Tamimi, who had sworn on their heads and their eyes to do so, had never appeared, and that the Jabberi wanted 110 dollars, exclusive of camel hire, to go with us, the camels only to go a short distance, and then we must change. What did we wish to do?'

Of course we could not start without providing camels for our onward way, so this answer was sent back: 'We have not come to fight; we do not much care when we go, and we await the advice of the sultan when he comes to-morrow.'

Saleh was quite delighted, but we thought any direction would be good for our map and we still had hopes of digging near Meshed, though we began to have fears that a repulse eastward would strengthen the hands of our enemies westward.

On January the 29th a letter was brought to us by the wazir and the governor of the town, attended by Saleh, more pleased than ever. They said the letter had arrived last night and it was to say that the sultan's pain had increased, so he could not come to-day, and adding what we already knew as to the three neighbouring tribes.

We had a council of three, and feeling that the journey to Bir Borhut was out of the question, we determined to beat what we hoped would be a masterly retreat, so the wazir and the governor were summoned and the following answer was sent:

'We cannot understand the letters of the sultan, having no means of communicating with him privately. Therefore we will return to Al Koton to-morrow, and see him face to face.'

The servants were all quite delighted at this, for Saleh told them the letter was to say we and the soldiers were all going to be murdered.

We had stayed five days in Shibahm, and on the first three had taken sundry walks in the neighbourhood, but during the last two we never ventured out, as the inhabitants manifested so unfriendly a disposition towards us. After the Friday's prayer in the mosque, a fanatical mollah, Al Habib Yaher-bin-Abdullah Soumait, alluded to our unwelcome presence, and offered up the following prayer three times: 'O God! this is contrary to our religion; remove them away!' and two days afterwards his prayer was answered. This very gentleman had not long before been imprisoned for praying to be delivered from the liberal-minded Sultan Salàh, but the people had clamoured so much that he was released.

As we halted at the well outside the town, whilst the various members of our caravan collected, we overheard a woman chide a man for drawing too much water from the well, to which he replied, 'We have to wash our town from the infidel this day.' Needless to say we gladly shook the dust of Shibahm off our feet, and returned to the flesh-pots of Al Koton with considerable satisfaction. Of a truth, religion and fanaticism are together so deeply engrained in the Hadhrami, that anything like friendly intercourse with the people is at present next to impossible.

Religion is the moving spirit of the place; without religion the whole Hadhramout would have been abandoned long ago as useless, but the inhabitants look upon it as the most sacred spot on earth, Mohammed having been born in Arabia, and hence their objection to its being visited by unbelievers. The Shafi sect prevails to the exclusion of all others. The men go in crowds to India, Batavia, and elsewhere, sometimes remaining absent twenty years from their wives and families, and indeed we were told of one case in which a husband had been away for forty years. They return at last to spend their gains and die in their native sanctity.

We reached Al Koton on January 30, and found our friend the sultan very well indeed. We had begun to suspect we were being deceived as to his illness, for when the wazir and Saleh, who seemed in league together, heard the seyyid son-in-law, who came straight from Al Koton soon after the letter, telling us that the sultan was much better, they looked disconcerted, whispered together, and the wazir said, 'You should not talk of what you know nothing about.'

We were most anxious to learn all that had gone on in our absence, and what arrangements had been made. It seemed to be considered a mistake our ever having gone to Shibahm, but I do not think it was. Had we not gone we should never have seen that fine and interesting town, and assuredly not have obtained King Yarsahal's seal.

The sultan told us there had been a great uproar about us, and all the Yafei tribe were now considered Kafirs. The Kattiri absolutely refused the Jabberi leave to conduct us, and the Nahadi, through whose lands we had passed from Hagarein, said that if they had known how the Kattiri would treat us, they would have treated us just the same. It would be madness to go to Shabwa, as we should, even if we could get there, be only further hemmed in; the Wadi bin Ali was closed to us, the Nahadi were between us and Meshed; nevertheless, the sultan had actually sent a man to ask if we could dig there a few days, he camping with us. Our very faint hope of this was only founded on the fact that the seyyids of Meshed are at enmity with those of Siwoun.

On February 1, the Tamimi sent to say they had really started to fetch us, but the Kattiri told them they would declare war on them unless they retired.

The following evening we were thrown into some excitement by the arrival of the sultan in our room with seven letters, the general tenor of which was that eight of the Tamimi had come, with the siyara of four Amri only, and no siyara of Kattiri, as far as Siwoun, and asked to be passed on, but that the Kattiri refused them safe conduct; they asked the sultan of Shibahm to go to Shibahm and arrange for them to reach us. They proposed that we should, without touching Shibahm, turn into the very next wadi and go up on to the akaba; the men who went with us were to stay with us all the way to the coast. The sultan promised to keep hostages till his returning soldiers told of our safety. We had another council with Imam Sharif. We counted up our dollars, for we had to live on our money-bags till we reached the sea, and determined to reach Bir Borhut if we could, saying nothing to the servants to upset their minds till all was settled.

The sultan went away to Shibahm the next day, and, as usual, the women became very noisy, and during his absence we were close prisoners, on account of our fear of being mobbed. The Indian party were generally looked upon as Jews.

In the evening the sultan came back, telling us that the Tamimi wished to bring 400 soldiers unpaid (?) and to take us through their country, but the Kattiri were too strong for them. They said, 'One man came disguised to see us (Herr von Wrede), one man came undisguised (Herr Hirsch), and now a party has come. Next time it will be a larger one still, and then it will be all over with the sacred valley of the Hadhramout.' Saleh, meanwhile, was doing all he could to annoy us. When we were talking over our difficulties with Imam Sharif, he strutted in with a bill for the camels. My husband said:

'It is already paid.'

'I shall see about others then,' Saleh said.

'They are ordered already.'

'Your groom, Iselem, will not go with you,' said Saleh.

So I told him, 'He won't get the chance; we would not have him if we were paid, and though we have paid him beforehand, we willingly lose our money.'

'I must, then, speak to the sultan about him, for you.'

I said, 'The sultan has decided what he will do with him, and I don't think he will like it.'

'Haidar Aboul will not go with you.'

This made us very angry, as we had seen that Saleh had been tampering with him, lending him his donkey and his sandals when he walked, and whispering with him. He tried to separate everyone from us. Haidar had promised to go with us all the way, and later Imam Sharif brought him to me when I was at home alone, and made him repeat his promise, and assurance that he had never told Saleh he would not go.

Saleh also wanted money, but was refused; he got 100 rupees a month, and 200 were prepaid at Aden. He gambled, and my husband wished to keep the contents of our money-bags for our own use. We calculated that at the cheapest, for soldiers and siyara and camels, Bir Borhut would cost 130l. Saleh had put all the servants in a most terrible fright, and a soldier had told them that if we went beyond Shibahm we should all be killed, and that we should find no water by the way. So we had to explain to them the plan of going by Wadi bin Ali, and to comfort them as well as we could. These people never seem to think that we value our own lives as much as they do theirs.

Meshed was also closed against us. The sultan of Siwoun and the seyyids had sworn on the Koran not to let us proceed on our journey; the Kattiri had also sworn and sent messages to the Tamimi of Bir Borhut, the Jabberi of Wadi bin Ali, and the Nahadi, and they were all against us.

We had another day of anxiety and uncertainty as to when we should really start, as the camels were not collected till late. We watched eagerly from our tower, counting them as they arrived by twos and threes.

We were rather in despair as as we sat dining in a yard, for at this time we were started with our own cookery, and dined near the kitchen, which Matthaios had been able to make in an arched recess of the inclosure, where there were high hills of date-stones, kept to be ground to paste for cattle-food.

He could not be allowed to defile a Mohammedan kitchen.

After a very few minutes, however, my husband had an idea, which was to go to Sheher somehow, and turn up inland from thence; there were plenty of Tamimi there to help us, and we could thus get to the east side of the Kattiri. Saleh was to know nothing till all was settled.

February 7 was a very weary day of waiting; for we had mended and cleaned everything we possessed, and we packed and hoped the camels would come, expecting to be off on the morrow, but it was not till evening that people, I cannot remember of what tribe, came to bargain with us, and the bargaining continued next morning; so we made all baggage ready to be tied into bundles, for we had no doubt we should start on the 8th at latest.

First they said we must go by the Wadi al Ain, their own home, and this we knew was that they might blackmail us; but they told us it was from want of water on the high ground, over which we must travel for six days, and that we must take two camels for water. Then they said we should take seventeen days in all, and were to pay for twenty at more than double the usual fare. We should have to go back on our old road as far as Adab, then three days in the Wadi al Ain region, the same road near Haibel Gabrein, go on to Gaffit, and thence turn eastward to Sheher.

We were perfectly horrified at this plan; the price was great, and the sultan seemed not to think it possible to go against the Bedouin; but far worse in our eyes was the thought of our map, as we should see no new country, instead of taking a turn or a climb that would have added miles to it.

They left us, and we were sitting on our floor in the deepest depths of dark despair, when news came that these camel-men, having made a fresh plan for more extortions, i.e. that there was to be no limit to the number of camels, save their will in loading them, the sultan, being indignant, was thinking of sending for other men.

When we heard that we roused up and concocted a new plan, which was to send for the sultan and ask him to get the Jabberi, and make them take us by the Wadi bin Ali; so he came and agreed to this. We were not to go so long over the highland, but to go up and down at least twice, which would suit us and our map. The sultan told us we should find running water, and that it was a shorter way to Sheher.

Besides this, there lurked in the background, not to be revealed till the last moment, a design to get the Tamimi to come to a place in Wadi Adim and take us to Bir Borhut, a name truly terrible to Matthaios and the Indian servants.

We were in high spirits, and agreed that no matter what our fate might be we were having a delightful evening. Truly I think the pleasures of hope are not sufficiently appreciated, for even if your hopes are never realised the hoping has been a great happiness. On the 8th those extortionate men of Wadi al Ain sent to say they would take us by the Wadi bin Ali, turning out of Wadi Hadhramout at Al Gran, crossing the Wadis bin Ali and Adim, and reaching Sa'ah, where we could branch off for Bir Borhut. This offer was declined, for we were watching and waiting for the Jabberi; and at night we heard that the brave Jabberi were at Shibahm, whereas our messenger had been sent to Wadi bin Ali. They said they wondered at not hearing from us, as the sultan had engaged their camels and promised to let them know when they would be wanted. It was a great mystery to us why the Wadi al Ain people had ever been sent for.

The Jabberi thus defied the Kattiri: 'As sure as we come from Jabberi fathers and Jabberi mothers, we will take these people safely to Bir Borhut; and as sure as you come from Kattiri fathers and Kattiri mothers, you may do your worst but still we will keep them safe'; to which the Kattiri replied: 'We do not wish to make war on you, and we do not care where you take them so long as it is not into our country.'

As soon as we had finished our breakfast next day, a message came to say our horses were ready, and we were to go and drink coffee at a little tower the sultan has in the plain. Most of the party walked. There were only horses for five; a donkey carried a water-skin, and our donkey, Mahsoud, carried halters for every animal. There were the two wazirs, the son-in-law, the sultan of Haura, and a good many servants with carpets for us to sit on, and a teapot. We sat there for about two hours doing nothing but look at the green, an occupation for which this house is expressly built. A gun announced the arrival of the men of Al Jabber, and the sultan sent a man to kill a goat and receive them.

Our great joy at their coming was nothing compared to our extreme satisfaction at parting with them later on.

I cannot say much for my skill as a physiognomist, for I have it recorded that I liked the looks of our Mokadam (that is chief of our kafila, or leader) Talib-bin-Abdullah, son of the Jabberi sheikh, and that I did not care for the looks of our new groom, Salem. I was quite wrong in both cases. There were also Saleh-bin-Yamani and another Jabberi. We were certainly, this time, to start next day, but with another change in our route, I believe on account of water. Instead of going by Al Gran, we were to go by Wadi Manwab, retracing our steps as far as Furhud.

Very early in the morning Imam Sharif came to us and told us that the Jabberi had not sufficient camels with them and that we must take camels of Mandob the first day or two, and that others would meet us in the Wadi bin Ali, so there was little hope of a move that day. The Jabberi afterwards said the Mandob way was much the longest, so we changed again.

We delayed several days longer at Al Koton, hoping against hope that the sultan of Terim would grant us permission to pass through his territories, that we might prosecute our journey.

Chapter XIII

Farewell to the Sultan of Shibahm

Our departure from Al Koton on February 12 was almost as serious an affair as our start from Makalla. Sultan Salàh, with the instincts of true hospitality, not only refused to receive remuneration for our entertainment, but loaded us with presents of food for the way and fodder for our animals, intimating that 'bakshish' to some of his dependents would not be altogether unacceptable. With the object of receiving rewards for their services, the grand viziers, the mounshi (a scribe), the hall-porter, the water-carriers, the slaves who had waited on us, were all brought in a bare-faced manner to our room; as we descended the stairs, expectant menials lined the passages; we had to remember the grooms, the soldiers, and the gardeners. Never again will the irksome custom of tipping be half so appalling as when we left the palace of Sultan Salàh.

The sultan wished to fire off seven guns at our departure, but this we declined. He came about a mile with us, and then went to Shibahm, to send an answer to the letter from the Tamimi, saying, 'On their eyes they would meet us at Sa'ah.' He also determined to stay away a few days, as he should find his house very dull when we were gone. It had been such a great break in the monotony of his life having us, and he had so much enjoyed the society of Imam Sharif that he was always promising him houses, wells, lands, slaves, and wives if he would only return and settle down in the Wadi Hadhramout.

An old and confidential relation of his was to accompany us all the way, and the Wazir Salim-bin-Ali came as far as our first camp, two hours off, in the Wadi Hadira. Here we could plainly see the formation of these valleys, abrupt at the end and like a circus, not made by streams descending, but like creeks and bays of a gigantic fiord. There is not much cultivation in the little valley. This is the road to Sheher. There are two approaches to the akaba, one by the Wadi Hadira and one by the Wadi bin Ali, which is the way to Sheher. We had to enter the Wadi bin Ali sideways by climbing over the akaba from Wadi Hadira, owing to the opposition of the Kattiri, who hold the mouth of Wadi bin Ali. The wazir departed in the morning with a Martini-Henry rifle which my husband sent to the sultan. This gave rise to the report which we heard afterwards 'that we were distributing arms, of which we had five hundred camel-loads.'

That day we had a very tiresome adventure. Starting off early before our caravan with several Jabberi, we intended to ascend to the plateau before the heat of midday came on. We were accompanied by a few soldiers, who it turned out did not know the way, and having ridden for an hour and a half up a narrow gorge with wild figs, wild date, and fan palms growing around us, and really magnificent cliffs 700 to 800 feet high on either side of us, reddish in colour and with fossils in the limestone strata, a truly fearful and awe-inspiring place, we suddenly came to an abrupt termination of our valley, having wormed ourselves along, chiefly on foot, and found that unless Sindbad's roc came to our assistance we could not possibly get out of it. Consequently we were regretfully obliged retrace our steps, having spent three hours and much toil, but glad of having had an opportunity of following one of these valleys to its bitter end. It appeared that our supposed guides had never been there in their lives.

We scrambled down this wadi, and into the wadi to our right; the way truly was difficult, the valley narrowing and nearly blocked up by perfectly perpendicular cliffs. Our caravan and servants were anxiously awaiting us at a curious spot called Mikadèh, about a quarter of the way up the cliff, where the road which we had missed goes through a natural tunnel about twenty yards long, from lovely pools of rain-water preserved in its recesses, with which we eagerly refreshed ourselves. The rest of the ascent to the plateau was marvellously steep. The camels had to be unloaded, and two fell down. All the baggage was carried by men, up crag after crag, and sometimes there was no sign of a path. I never could have imagined it possible for camels to ascend the roof-like slope of rock up which they had to clamber for the last 50 yards, and indeed, one poor animal did fall, and injured itself so that it had to be unloaded and taken back, whereupon those Bedouin who did not own it heartlessly regretted that it had not been killed, as they would have liked some of its flesh for supper. Just at the end everything had to be unloaded again, and the camels literally dragged up to the top, while we sat dangling our legs over the cliff. Such yelling and shrieking I never heard among the Bedouin, our soldiers and our servants all calling each other rascals, and no one doing more than he could help; and inasmuch as we had about five Salehs, four Umbarreks, and other duplicated names amongst our men, the shouts of 'So-and-so, son of so-and-so,' made us fully realise the clumsiness of Arab nomenclature.

When we clambered up on to the akaba it looked dreary and lifeless, silent and lonely and stony, but it soon became lively enough, for we were a large kafila, about fifty people and twenty-four camels. We had by very good fortune a great deal of cloud that day, but also some tremendous sun.

We sat eagerly counting the camels as they came into view, and had great anxiety about eight of them, and were obliged to send two soldiers back to search for them. We meant to proceed farther as water was two hours on, and some of the first-arrived camels were reloaded; but, after all, we felt we must wait for those eight camels, and send back to Mikadèh for water. We could not encamp very comfortably, for the camel which had fallen and hurt his chest had our bedding and night-clothes and Imam Sharif's tent-poles, and besides this our kitchen-box was missing and we had had no luncheon. So another camel was sent down to fetch those necessaries.

It was dreadfully windy, much dust blowing, and so stony that we could only have a peg in each corner of our tents. Rain was threatening, so the baggage was all stacked under the outer fly of our tent. The soldiers behaved most helpfully and the brave and bold Jabberi had not yet once mentioned bakshish in our hearing and were most polite. They were better-looking men than others we had seen, all tall, slight, wiry, and very muscular, a higher type than the Khailiki and much more dressed. The three principal ones wore turbans, red and yellow. They said they were so very sorry for losing the way that 'none of them felt quite well when they thought of our inconvenience.'

I could not sleep that night, so I got up and put on my dressing-gown and sat near the door with my head out, and so was fortunately ready to slip out when I heard a trailing picket, and found Zubda rushing up and down, looking for water I suppose. We were so short of it that we had washed in a very little without soap, and one horse had drunk that, and the other the water the chickens were washed in. I caught him, but as I could not possibly drive in the picket, I tied him to a packing case, and then had to collect his food, which was blown all over the place, and take it there for him.

On February 14, in consequence of the want of water, great was the hurry to start; we were off about half-past six, and travelled till one o'clock without stopping or getting water; the horses only had half a pint each, that we had washed in. We should not have been so extravagant as to wash that much if we had not wanted to let the horses drink.

The plateau here offered features that were new to us. It is as it were in two stories. From the bottom of a wadi you reach first a slope or talus of loose stones, then a cliff, then another slope of loose stones and a cliff, and next comes the main akaba, and on this again a great deal more of the upper story is left than we had hitherto seen. The upper part is from 80 to 100 feet above the lower; sometimes it is in the form of an isolated flat-topped hill, larger or smaller, and sometimes like a kind of centipede, and in the gullies between the legs of these centipedes are to be found whatever remain of frankincense trees, for vegetation is very sparse on the akaba. Showered about everywhere are small bits of black basalt. We had several ups and downs, and passed wadis running in close to us before we began to descend by what must have been a fearful road for the camels, down the two precipices and the two flights of rolling stones, into the Wadi bin Ali. The way was far better than that of the day before; the very Jabberi never saw such a road as that, they said.

When we started descending we saw the village of Bazahel below us—the Jabberi capital. It has a picturesque modern fort, built on old Himyaritic foundations. When we reached it the soldiers fired guns, and we were very kindly received by the inhabitants, who led us to a house they had prepared for us. We excused ourselves from inhabiting it, saying it was better not to have our baggage carried up, but we would gladly rest in it.

The house seemed very clean—it was of mud of course; the walls of it and the stairs had all been scraped into furrows and curves, and also the dados of the staircase and room were decorated with a kind of basket pattern, and the floors were also in a raised pattern. Carpets were spread, water brought, and with great kindness they locked us in that we might not be disturbed. Only our own party were in this room, the soldiers in another. Matthaios had joined himself to the vanguard to see what happened to us, so my husband shared his horse with him; he had been terrified the day before at the fear that we had been carried off. The Indian servants and the botanist joined us just as coffee with ginger and other spices were brought. Our host had long wrestling with the lock before he could open the door, and after this we were desired to bolt it on the inside. We had a pleasant camp, with palm-trees to shade each cooking fire, no starers being allowed. A woman here joined our kafila for protection for a few stages. Even I never saw her face: she always wore her mask and her hat, and looked a most ungainly object. I dare say I looked the same to her. The sultan of Shibahm had sent a man on horseback up that dreadful wadi to our last camp to thank us for the gun, and to warn us by all means to keep on the highlands for fear of the hostile Kattiri.

At Bazahel, Abdullah Mareh-bin-Talib-bin-Said, chief of the Jabberi, welcomed us to his own house later in the day, a most unwonted piece of hospitality. He is much stained with indigo, a very elastic and naked sovereign, who bends his fingers back in a way horrible to behold when he wishes to emphasise his remarks, as he did when he spoke of the Kattiri and his wars with them, and his constantly losing men in raids, as is also the case in his fights with the Hamoumi. As we sat around drinking his coffee, he boasted of his direct descent from Jabber of Hiyal, the friend and councillor of Mohammed, and told us that his family pedigree was safely kept at Terim, with those of all the surrounding tribes of Arabs. Somehow or other we did not care for the Jabberi at all afterwards, and for the rest of our journey to the coast our quarrels with Talib, the son of Abdullah, and the difficulties he would throw in our way, were daily sources of annoyance to us.

We left Bazahel at half-past six next morning with the intention of climbing up to the tableland again. The Wadi bin Ali is not very wide and the ground is bare, though there are many villages scattered about. At rather a large one, where the wadi forks, and which we reached at eight o'clock, we were to begin our ascent. To our dismay the camels were made to sit down and the camel-men said we must stay there the night, as there was no water up above. We declared we knew there was, and that we would go on; they must fill the twenty water-skins which we always carried. Some men were inclined to go on, but were overruled by the majority. After half an hour's contention we rode away with a good many people, leaving a few soldiers with the baggage, to show our determination to proceed, we being told that the others would be afraid to stay behind. We sat down once or twice in full view of the village, to survey the camels and wonder if they were coming, and much perplexed were we. We had expected to change camels the following day, and this was the last day with those men, who by delaying us wished to spin out another day's journey at twenty-five rupees. Those soldiers who were with us recommended us to push on round a corner, where the wadi ran in, and conceal ourselves behind rocks, which there stood up between the path and the village, that the camel-men might not think there was any hesitation on our part; so men, and beasts, and I were carefully hidden, and one who peeped without his turban, reported that some camels were rising, and finally, eight starting.

When we reached the tableland we had to go a long way round to avoid a good many little wadis which were all quite steep, before we reached the water. At the edge of the tableland are some little shelters used by hunters to shoot gazelle, which come down the gullies that to us appeared, inaccessible. Near the water the soldiers made us climb down to the first story of a small wadi, where we sheltered under a shelf of rock which overhangs the whole end of it. When I was cool, I clambered up and found a hollow or depression above our heads, with a few tufts of grass and some shrubs, so I took down some bits of shrubs as 'samples on appro' to the horses, and as they did approve, they were sent up to graze. We lay on our saddle-cloths till three, pretty hungry, when the eight camels came, and a good long time after the others arrived also the relation of the sultan Salàh joined us on a riding camel: an old man, Salem-bin-Mohammad by name. He said the camels had been changed, and the money paid in advance for this day, taken from those men. We had a cold, windy night at this place, Farash. No one had tents but our own party; even the sultan and other gentry lie in the open on journeys. Our horses were given a supper of dates, which are considered very strengthening, and which they much enjoyed.

The tribe of Al Jabber possess the parallel Wadis Adim and Bin Ali, and the road between them across the akaba is much traversed and apparently an ancient one. We went across on the level, eight miles, and then descended by a narrow valley leading into the Wadi Adim. The way was made longer by its having to wind about to skirt the wadis, which cut into it like a fringe; sometimes we were only half a mile from our former or future track. Once we heard a gun fired, and looking across, we saw a kafila of fifty camels, a much larger one than our own, slipping behind a hill to hide from us, and presently some men climbed up to peep. We—that is to say my husband, Imam Sharif, and I—with the three chief Jabberi, the Relation, and some soldiers and others, all gathered up together and stood at gaze, without returning the gun-fire, which was meant to find out if we had any bad intentions. Our own camels were very near the strange kafila, and that party was terribly frightened. I think the fright was mutual. When we had gone some distance, and were out of sight of the strange caravan, we were amused at seeing the soldiers and the Jabberi, all in line, running on at a double, firing guns, and shouting, 'Hohh! Hohh! Hohh!' My husband asked the Relation what chance we had of being robbed, as this seemed a convenient place, but he comfortingly said, 'We need not be much afraid, for we have the chief of the robbers with us.' This was really true.

The place where we were to climb down into the Wadi Adim was tremendously steep. It really seemed very like trying to climb down the sides of a tea-cup, I wondered how we and the camels and horses would ever do it. However we all did, and the valley became first a crack and then a little wider, and the road then was not so very bad in its own wild way. As soon as the valley became a little flat the men wanted to stop and wait for the camels, but we said we would rather be in the village of Ghail Omr, which they said was only just round a near corner.

So we went on, but for fully two miles, till the Wadi Adim crossed our path. It was full of palms on the far side, so we went over there, but were made, whether we would or no, to return to the mouth of our little wadi again; they said on account of food for the camels. There was a fearful row when we crossed the valley, to make us go back, there were daggers out and loud shouts that my husband and I were rascals (harami) and Imam Sharif a dog, and Matthaios and the rest of the servants were in great alarm.

We were now in much anxiety and perplexity, for we were told the Tamimi had not come, and they were to have been at Ghail Omr before us, to fetch us to Bir Borhut. We ourselves were not at the appointed place, for we were kept pent into the little wadi. We were told that two men had been murdered on the way to Sheher, but we never made out who they were; also that a seyyid and a lot of the Amri tribe had come, so the Relation took my horse and went off to investigate them.

Next morning we thought it well to be ready and to look undismayed; the seyyid with the ten Amri joined us, and we all turned into the Wadi Adim to our right and south. The valley is most fruitful and well worth seeing; there are miles of palm woods; it is about 100 feet higher than Wadi bin Ali, the slope is greater and the mountains lower; it is the most frequented caravan route from Sheher to the Hadhramout. We passed plenty of people coming up, and one day we met a caravan of 150 camels from Sheher with Hadhrami merchants returning from India to enjoy the fruits of their rascality, and end their days on the sacred soil of Arabia. There were little tents on the camels for women, and they seemed to us to have very few armed men.

The stream Ghail Omr is the first running one we saw since Al Ghail. It comes from the small Wadi Loban and is very considerable. Wadi Adim is quite the gem of the valleys that we explored. There is a ziaret or place of pilgrimage, which attracts many people, to the tomb of a seyyid Omr, called after Omar, one of the four successors to Mohammed. The Jabberi seem, in spite of possessing this rich valley, to be a poor tribe. There is a large population scattered in small homesteads. They have slaves, who live in little huts made of palm branches, with the interstices plastered with mud.

Ten more Jabberi joined us, so when we reached Sa'ah in two hours and a half, we were more than eighty people, with twenty-five camels, two horses, and three donkeys. We dismounted in a dense crowd, in a field of dry earth cut up into squares with hard ridges, so our floors were most uncomfortable. Naturally we dared do no damage by having them dug smooth.

On our arrival at our camping ground and while we were waiting for our tents to be ready, always a weary, irksome time to the wayworn traveller, I was surrounded by women all masked. They seemed highly astonished at a safety-pin I was taking out, so I gave, or rather offered it, to an old woman near me. She wanted to take it, but several men rushed between us and roared at us both, and prevented my giving it to her. I stood there holding it out and she stretching out her hand, and one or two men then asked me for it for her, so I put it down on a stone and she took it away and seemed pleased, but a man soon brought it back to me on the end of a stick, saying 'they did not know these things and were afraid of them.'

There was no news of the Tamimi and many told us they would not come, but we still kept up our vain hopes, as they had promised to come and wait a day or two for us, bringing with them a siyara of the Minhali and of the Hamoumi. However, we were never allowed to get to the trysting-place, as we afterwards thought, because the Jabberi wanted to keep the fleecing of us in their own hands.

Not one of our party, with the exception of Imam Sharif, wished to go to Bir Borhut, and they all encouraged each other in discouraging us.

About a mile before reaching Sa'ah we saw an old fortress on a spur jutting out of the precipice, with a cut road leading to it, so of course we determined to visit it. We accordingly set out about two o'clock, my husband and I, Saleh on the donkey, some soldiers, some of our siyara of Jabberi, and my camera. But we came to a standstill when first four, then nine, and at last fourteen men were seen on the top of the ruins, pointing guns at us. They said they would not let us advance without paying, and we feared to come to terms as our Jabberi first said they were Amri, and then a tribe of Jabberi with whom they were at war. In this uncertainty we had to turn back and my husband complained to the sheikh of Sa'ah, who said that this blackmailing had been planned by one of our three best Jabberi, Seid-bin-Iselem, who went with us, and that he would send men of his own with us in the morning. In the morning they came, sure enough, and first asked for a dollar 'to buy coffee,' but my husband said 'No; he would give bakshish if he found writing, but if he found no writing he would give nothing, and in any case, nothing till we returned.' As we heard no more of them after they had retired to think over it, we were sure there could be no inscription. Besides we had seen that the corner-stones were the only cut ones; the others were all rough.

After dinner we and Imam Sharif had another serious council, finding ourselves in a regular fix.

We determined to stay on one more day at Sa'ah to give the Tamimi a chance to join us, for if we were baffled in getting from here to Bir Borhut, we must get to Sheher as quickly as possible and try from there to reach Bir Borhut. We wished to dismiss our camel-men, but they said they would not let us do so, nor allow anyone else to take the loads. They said they would take us for one rupee a day each camel, but we did not know how many days they would take; they had also said that they would stop where we pleased, or go on all day if we liked, but we had had experience which led us to doubt this. They had now been asked to name their stages; kafilas can go in seven or eight days.

We determined that our next attempt to go to Bir Borhut should be with fewer camels. It is a great mistake for explorers in dangerous countries to have collectors with them. They are a great drag and an extra anxiety. The preparations they can make are necessarily all made by guesswork, as no one can tell what is to be found in an unknown country. If we had known we should never have carried the huge spade and fork, which were hated all the way by everyone, or the quantities of cases of spirits of wine and receptacles for large animals, and the dozens of gins, snares, and traps of every description for things that we never found. Of course, in the case of our expedition, there are certain plants and reptiles which would not yet have emerged from their primeval obscurity, and it is a great consolation to feel that something was accomplished in that way. For everyone who is added to such an expedition, the leader has one more for whose life and health he feels a responsibility, one more whose little idiosyncrasies must be studied by all the rest, and who may endanger the safety of all by his indiscretions with regard to the natives, and one more who must be made to pack and be ready in time, or willing not to stray away in times of danger. Mere servants do not so much matter, as they are under control, though the fewer of them the better, as they are human beings who must be fed and carried; but those above them, and who, though not entitled to a seat in the council, feel free to make comments, are the hardest to deal with.

Before we went to bed that night, Haidar Aboul, the second interpreter, came and swore on the Koran that the Relation had promised the camel-men two rupees each; still we lay down happy in the assurance that we should be at Sheher in seven days, but after a night much disturbed by guns for a wedding, the first news that greeted us was that those camel-men wished to leave us. They were told that they could not do so: they were bound to take us to Sheher. They then said they would not go in seven days—who had arranged such long stages? They were told their sheikh had. Then we agreed to go in eight days, hoping that in the end they, finding they would lose no money, would allow us to gain time. Some hours after the little crooked sheikh sent to say that if those men would not take us in seven days he would get others.

The Relation was not of much good to us. There is here no law, order, authority, honour, honesty, or hospitality, and as to the people, I can only describe them as hateful and hating one another. It must be an awful life to live for ever unable to stir without siyara even a few miles. The rude Carinthian Boor cannot have been as bad as these Arabians.

After this they came and said we should go in thirteen days. Later the sheikh sent to say he would send twenty soldiers, and make them take us in eight days. This my husband declined, as we knew he had no power, even in his own village.

Then the brother of the sheikh came to ask for a present for him, which was refused, and the sheikh said afterwards we could not trust that brother, he was a liar.

At last another list of different stages was brought, and they swore by God and upon the Koran that they would take us in seven days.

All the time we were in Sa'ah we had to remain in our tent, tightly tied in, for if we did not we were quite deprived of air by the crowd, which became thicker and thicker, driving the foremost nearly into the tent headlong. I sewed strings to the extreme edges of our doors, which lapped half a yard, and this extension of size was very welcome. We afterwards found these strings useful and pleasant, but we always called them the 'Jabberi strings' in remembrance of these tormentors. If, thinking the crowd had dispersed, we ventured to open the tent, a scout proclaimed the fact, and we were again mobbed.

Our tent was 7 feet 6 inches square, and we found this quite large enough when it had to be pitched on a slope, or on a narrow, rocky ledge, when trees had to be cut down to make room in a forest, or when it was among the boulders of a river bed. Imam Sharif's tent was larger, and though it looked more stately in a plain, he sometimes had not room to pitch it, and had to sleep with his servants.

Chapter XIV

Harassed by Our Guides

We never could ascertain whether the Tamimi had come or not, so on February 18, having given up all hope of joining them and changed ten camels, we set out, but not before nine o'clock.

After Sa'ah the Wadi Adim becomes narrow, stony, and uninteresting, and our way lay for a good part along a stony river bed, gradually mounting, but almost imperceptibly. For several days we pursued the course of this valley, and had we known what would befall us as we approached the head of the Wadi Adim, I think nothing would have induced us to take this route. It appears that a very wicked branch of the Hamoumi tribe hold a portion of this valley, and determined that their enemies, the Jabberi, who stole their cattle and plundered their caravans, should not have the exclusive patronage of the lucrative English travellers on their way to the coast. To our surprise at twelve o'clock we stopped at a well, Bir al Ghuz, when our men began to unload the camels. They said they were only just waiting for the Hamoumi siyara to come up, and that they had already arrived at Sa'ah.

The Hamoumi are a small, poor tribe of Bedouin, who occupy the lower end of Wadi Adim. They hire out camels to caravans, and do a great deal of the carrying business. Their villages consist of miserable little hovels gathered round forts, placed at intervals down the valleys, so that they can see from one to another. They have many flocks and herds, for there is actually pasturage for them, and many of the shepherds live in caves, there being plenty in the sides of the valley, which are composed of pudding-stone; they wall up the front.

We considered that, as Talib-bin-Abdullah, the chief of the Jabberi and so notorious a robber, was our Mokadam, we had better keep friends with him, therefore we spoke him fair. He and his companions came and wrote their names after a list of stages, and made a most solemn oath they would do anything we liked; and after we had sat for an hour or more in the sun, waiting for the Hamoumi, they said we must pass the night at Bir al Ghuz, still swearing to the seven days.

We therefore encamped, and very soon the Jabberi came and asked my husband for a sheep, but he said he would not give one now, but later in the journey he would do so if he found we were getting on well; so they went away, but soon came back for twenty-seven dollars, as siyar to the Hamoumi. My husband said he had agreed for twenty-five, but they said they had spent two dollars on a messenger to fetch the Hamoumi. The Jabberi were by way of having 110 dollars for their siyar, forty first and the rest at Sheher. They would not move next morning (the 20th) without the whole of the money, so they had to be given that and the twenty-seven dollars for the Hamoumi. Besides this they always demanded their camel-hire every evening.

They next said the way was very dangerous, and we must take men from five other tribes (though we could not imagine how so many could be accommodated in that wilderness), and pay twenty dollars. As my husband refused, and asked them to reflect upon the consequences of their conduct, the soldiers came and now said they recommended him to pay and recover the money at Sheher; otherwise they, the soldiers, said they would give up their weapons to the Jabberi as a pledge that they would pay forty dollars at Sheher. We said they might, but Talib told us that if we did not pay they would give the Hamoumi their money and all go back themselves. We then summoned Imam Sharif and had another council of three.

The servants, meanwhile, used often to be leaning in at the tent door, scanning our faces and begging us to do anything the Jabberi wanted, and moaning that we should never see the ocean any more.

The Jabberi had gone away, as my husband said he must think over this; so we consulted together. We at first quite decided to return to Al Koton, and try to reach the coast by Wadi al Ain and, if we could not have the camels, to load our own three animals with necessaries and money, leaving all else behind, and perhaps to slip by Siwoun in the night. So Talib was recalled, and told that we would go back; that we were now convinced of the dangers of this road, as we saw he was afraid himself, and as he had told us of two places where murders were always committed. But afterwards we thought it wiser to consent to pay the extra thirty dollars (in all fifty-seven) as siyar to the Hamoumi, all the tribes mentioned being varieties of Hamoumi. The money was to be placed on the Koran and taken thence by Talib, with an oath that, if the sultan of Sheher thought it unnecessary, it should be refunded. Seid-bin-Iselem and three soldiers witnessed this, but Talib would not allow the Hamoumi to be present. Instead of taking Talib's gun as a deposit, the soldiers were to keep the money in their hands. We were still to be at Sheher within the seven days, and not now to wait two or three days for the five tribes.

Though we did unpack a Koran and make Talib-bin-Abdullah swear on it, we did not then understand that merely swearing on the binding is nothing. The Koran must be opened, and some places are better than others. Oaths by the life of a son, or to divorce a favourite wife, are really good. We being, as I say, ignorant, the oaths were broken.

My husband and I now felt quite conquered; and it must be admitted we had reason.

We had a horrible evening of dust-storms and hurricanes, and were dreadfully afraid of the tent being blown down. In the morning we packed, and the baggage was taken out to be tied in bundles, when Talib demanded the eleven dollars camel-hire for the day before. In vain was he told that all was packed, and he should have them at the next stage. No! he would not go away without his money; so at great inconvenience we had to pay on the nail.

We had not gone an hour before we stopped, unloaded, and changed our camels for Hamoumi camels. 'Now all is peace,' said Talib-bin-Abdullah, and in the same breath asked for two dollars for two extra camels, that we had had before we reached Sa'ah. My husband refused, but when we reached our stage Talib asked for that day's pay, and would not take it without the two dollars. Of course my husband refused again, saying we were not responsible for those two camels; that Talib had contracted to take us and our baggage, and that now we had twenty-two camels instead of the fifteen with which we arrived at Al Koton. Equally, of course, he knew he must pay, and did.

We settled ourselves under some thorny trees at Bir bin Aboudan, where there are two wells with good water. It is larger than most Hamoumi villages, and has palm-trees and many large b'dom-trees.

Besides the Hamoumi, Jabberi, and Yafei, there are many small subsidiary tribes, or rather families, forming little independent communities of their own, in this region.

To continue the life of Talib-bin-Abdullah. As soon as he had received the last-mentioned money, he and his companions and the Hamoumi had a great and loud quarrel. Our money, being so bulky, was in bags scattered about among all the baggage, but we always had one store-bag in my box, and my husband had some for current expenses. The camel-men thought all the money was in a certain bag that was solemnly carried into the tent every night. While they shouted we filled the bag with a certain amount of dollars, meant to represent our entire fortune, and placed it on the table. We had become great hypocrites, but now we both decided that sweet words were of no avail. Whenever Imam Sharif was sent for, the servants crowded round, scanning our faces, and in despair themselves, saying 'our lives are sacrificed,' and making great lamentations about their wives and families.

It was very hard sometimes to keep our voices and countenances cheerful while holding counsel with Imam Sharif as to how we ought to act, for sometimes it is right to haggle over fourpence and sometimes it is right to pay through the nose. It is difficult, indeed, when you are cudgelling your brains, not to knit your brows, even if you only wish to decide if you will take your umbrella or not.

Talib had not been absent from us an hour when he again arrived, saying he wanted four dollars to pay a debt he owed in Bir bin Aboudan; 'it was to come out of the thirty dollars still owing for the siyara, and to be paid at Sheher,' he said. He was, of course, told that the money for the siyara had been fully paid up, seventy dollars before the sultan of Shibahm, and forty at Sa'ah. Talib bawled a good deal, and my husband pointed to the money-bag and said, 'If you want all my money, take it; but call it by no other name than robbery. Take all at once instead of bothering me perpetually, and I will settle with you at Sheher.'

When they heard this they were frightened, and went away, saying 'Oh! No! No! We do not want that.' They were soon back, and said they wanted four dollars on their food money (four annas a day), 'but not at all unless we wished.' They then acknowledged, before the soldiers, that the siyar was fully paid up, and that Talib had made a mistake about those two dollars that he had obtained for the camels. In the meantime we had been planning to get our most urgently needed things ready to load on the horses and to walk to Sheher, only sixty-five miles—but such miles! However, we knew our enemies had the advantage of knowing the way and the water-places, which we did not, and could climb like monkeys over places where we could not take horses.

I am sure we should never have found the way over such mountains, where camels sat down and slid, and we did much the same, sometimes quite involuntarily.

Saleh at this time seemed disposed to do his duty. The money (thirty dollars) that had been extorted the day before for siyar to the Hamoumi, who had not yet turned up, and given to the soldiers, was by them put into Saleh's keeping, as he had a box that could be locked. In the night Talib came to Saleh and said: 'Six Hamoumi are here; give me the money for them.' 'Wait till morning,' said Saleh, 'and I will give it you before Mr. Bent, Imam Sharif, and everybody,' but when he offered it to him then, he said, 'No, keep it.'

We had gone a little ahead next morning, February 21, Talib, Imam Sharif, and I, with the needful escort, my husband having to ride a camel as his horse's back was sore, and had proceeded an hour on our road when—'Bang!' went a gun high up in the rocks, to our left, near the village of Kouna or Koutna, and 'bang!' went another; so we stopped, and with some hesitation five of the soldiers and some of the Jabberi went forward, getting round behind the shelter of some trees. There were seven men up in the rocks, and a tower in the village was crowded. They constantly fired from both places. The camels soon came up, and we all dismounted and stood together with our animals, Basha, Zubda, and Mahsoud close by. This shooting and parleying went on for half an hour. We thought at first that they would only fire over our heads, but a bullet struck the ground very near us.

We could not make out what it was all about. There were so many different suggestions made as to the cause; some said the people of the village wanted to come with us as siyara, and some that they wanted to fight the Hamoumi, who had lately taken their camels.

Our men shouted, 'Siyara! Siyara!' and the men on the tower, 'Come no nearer!' 'By my God you shall not come on!' 'We are fighting and we will slay him who dares to stir a step!'

Talib said, 'Now we can go neither backward nor forward,' and amazed us by asking for no money.

At last the soldiers came back from the village and told us to advance, so we mounted and rode through the village amidst uncomplimentary remarks from the scowling inhabitants. We were told some people had gone on to intercept us, and accordingly about half a mile farther there were more shots, this time to our right. We of course came to a standstill, but Talib, in spite of the shooting, rushed at Mahsoud's bridle and dragged Imam Sharif down into the river bed, calling excitedly to the rest of us to hurry on. We passed safely, and you may be sure looked in every rock and bush for enemies.

Hardly a quarter of a mile on, and where the valley is about three hundred yards wide, there was a small tower to our left, and we saw a lot of men rushing into this and appearing on the battlements. We knew they would shoot at us and I was watching for the puff. The first shot threw up the earth nearly two yards from my horse's nose, and the next seemed to say 'tshish!' just at the back of my neck. It went just between my husband and Imam Sharif, who were on foot behind me.

Everyone ran as fast as the rocky ground let them, to some trees out of sight of that tower, but not knowing whether we were not going to meet with more shooters, we always had our revolvers ready, though no one knew that; our safety lay in being unarmed in the enemies' eyes; we kept them for worse need.

The sheikh of Kouna said his name was Abdullah-bal-Jabbeli, of the tribe of Obathani. There are two other small tribes, Zedin—Sheikh Ebenadon, and Shibim—Sheikh Bengadem.

After that last firing there was no more that day, and we slept peacefully at Naïda, which we reached about 12.30, and where the inhabitants were quite friendly, bringing us all the food we asked to buy. The valley seemed to come quite to an end, but took a sudden turn eastward just before we reached the village. It is rather a pretty place, but the spot on which we were encamped was dreadfully dirty, and we were so afflicted by dust-storms, that our books were covered while we read, and the colour of our clothes and bedding obliterated, and we had to tie our hair up in handkerchiefs to keep it clean.

We always had quilts of turkey-red or some other cotton, for when we lay down our beds often became sandy, and the quilts could easily be shaken or brushed, and besides protected the blankets from burrs and grass-thorns. We were by ourselves in the afternoon when Talib came quite alone, and with an air of secrecy, to ask for his eleven dollars for that day's camel hire. I rushed out to the kitchen and brought Matthaios as a witness. Then Talib asked for two dollars, and when my husband began to call Saleh, he said he did not want them and went away. He was soon back again, however, with Saleh, to ask if my husband wished to pay any more for siyara of the people we were coming to. My husband said 'No,' and after some talk Talib said he would not ask it if my husband did not wish. I told Talib that the very next thing he would get would be my husband's money-bag, so he retired. Later he came for thirty dollars to send to some people that night, but my husband told him to send his own men for them, and not afterwards to say he had paid a messenger; the money would only be paid into those people's own hands. We lay down with no great certainty of peace for the morrow, when we expected to reach Ghaida.

All, however, went quietly that day, much to our relief. My husband had been induced to pay a rupee to send a scout up the mountain to look behind rocks and bushes for dangers, but we passed on our way completely unmolested by the shepherdesses, young and old, who were all we met with in the shape of human beings.

The valley became narrower, we rose higher, and the cliffs were cavernous. Sometimes the valley seemed quite to finish up, but then it always took a turn again. Much of the way was over large, round stones, most horrible for the horses.

We passed a water-place two hours after we left Naïda, though Talib had made us stop there because, he said, there was no water within a day's journey, and we found ourselves stopped at Rahba, two hours at least before Ghaida, where we expected to be, Talib still sticking to it that we should be at Sheher in three more days. He only asked for four annas for coffee to drink at the great tomb of a wali, Sheikh Salem-bin-Abdullah Mollah el Mohagher, who is buried near a mosque and a tank, the footbath of cattle, from which we drank pea-green water, boiled and filtered of course. Altogether Rahba is a pretty village, but much exposed to wind. The tribes thereabout are Mahri, Gohi, and Salbani.

February the 23rd was a weary day. Talib had asked leave to go to Sufeila to arrange something with the sheikh, soon after our arrival at Rahba, saying he would not be away long. He did not go all day, but at night said he was now going, and would take sixty rupees siyar then, but was told we would take it ourselves. In the morning the Hamoumi refused to load up, saying they had not been paid the twenty-seven dollars. Talib was absent, but being fetched said he was keeping the money, as otherwise the Hamoumi might leave us anywhere they liked. In the meantime the soldiers, according to their habit, instead of keeping their weapons for our safeguard, once more gave up their swords and guns to the Hamoumi. They always were pledging them to our enemies, as an earnest that we would do what they wanted.

The Hamoumi loaded the camels, on the oath of Talib that they should have the money that night at Sufeila, a place that we were to pass, and which the day before we were told it was impossible to reach in one stage. They swore to take us to Bir Baokban. We started about ten o'clock, and at eleven the camels were stopped at Sufeila, and the men said they would wait a quarter of an hour, to which my husband consented. They then began to lead the camels away to feed, so my husband stoutly said that if they did that he would get other camels. Neither he nor any of us knew how or whence these other camels could be procured, but it had the desired effect, and they left the camels sitting among their loads. Saleh was sent to arrange with the wretched little sheikh, and remained away till after two o'clock. A soldier was sent to fetch him, and then arose a tremendous uproar. First they said we should stay where we were, then that we should go only a short distance, and on a different way to that already settled. After that we were told we could not go to Al Figra or Al Madi, as these were recognised places for murders, and we were told the same of Ghail Babwazir; also a good many different numbers of days were mentioned for our journey.

My husband said he would camp at Sufeila, but they quickly loaded up for Bir Baokban, they said. The sheikh was given fifteen dollars, and he told us he would send four of his sons with us.

I must say that after those four or five hours of being stared at and called bad names, I was pretty tired. We none of us remarked that three of the soldiers, all the Jabberi, and the four sons stayed behind.

I was riding with Imam Sharif, two Indians, four soldiers, and the groom leading Zubda, whose back was still sore, when we came to a fork in the way. The soldiers asked a passing man, 'Which is the way to Ghail?' The man looked puzzled; so were we. I said, 'We want to know the way to Bir Baokban.' 'No, no! Ghail,' said the soldiers, and when I said 'Baokban!' again they laughed scornfully. Our kafila came up, and I rode to my husband and told him I was sure we were being led out of our way.

We were guided down a rocky slope into a valley not more than 200 feet wide, with thick woods up each side, and a sandy bottom. Here we were stopped by a good many shots from each side, and retreated a little, without turning our backs, and then looked about for the four sons. There was another row of course, and my husband said we would return to Sufeila; but we were told at last that we might pass, so we did, and one of the shooters soon joined us and asked for a rupee for coffee, but was refused, and then said he would let us go to Bir Baokban if he got a rupee, but he did not insist. We now thought it well to ask where we were, and were told that it was Hadbeh, a place we had never heard of before. My husband said we should return to Sufeila, and carried off a string of camels. There was a great consultation, amid much roaring and shouting. I rode fast to the head of the kafila to see what was happening, my husband still going back with about six camels, the others going on, they said, to Bir Baokban. I then galloped back over the stones to the soldiers who were behind, and said, 'Your sultan has placed you under our orders; go and get those camels back.' 'No, no,' they said, 'it is quite safe to go on,' and ran back as hard as they could.

I then rode back quickly to my husband, and found him in abject distress; one of his camels had shed its load, and was seated on the ground. The soldiers remained behind, sitting on a bank. After a long council, we determined to go on to a village close by, where we joined the other camels. We had barely time to set up the tents before dark, and our store of bread and charcoal stood us in good stead. The Indian party were dreadfully late getting to bed. Dismay reigned supreme amongst us all.

Saleh came in to our tent and said, 'The man who shot at us says, "You cannot go on to-morrow. To-day we only shot our bullets in the air, but to-morrow we shall shoot at you."'

We thought of going back to Sufeila, and sending to the sultan of Sheher for help, but where could we find a messenger? When we were in bed, Saleh came and said two men with the matches of their guns alight were standing by our tent; some of those that had shot at us, and said they wanted four or six annas, as they were returning to Sufeila. They refused to take four then, so my husband said they had better come about it in the morning.

Morning revealed that these were some of our own camel-men, who were just pretending to be the shooters in order to get money, and also we found out that Talib had employed the shooters to give us the fright, in order to delay us, that the Jabberi and the soldiers might have a feast at our expense in the village, and time to eat it. They did not reach camp till eleven.

Next morning the soldiers brought my husband twelve of the fifteen dollars the sheikh had received (being part of the original thirty, said to be for the three other tribes of Hamoumi), saying that he was a very wicked man, as he had not sent his four sons, so they had only left him three dollars for the feast. Hardly had my husband put this by, when Talib came and had to be given thirty-six dollars for siyar to the Mahri. Plainly we were in their hands, and had to pay whatever Talib chose, as we might be hemmed in at any moment. We felt as if we were in a net.

The eleven dollars camel-hire which we had kept out having gone to make up this sum, and the camel-men refusing to load without it, we had to unpack again to get it for them.

Sufeila, where we had endured such a disagreeable delay, is on the tableland, 3,150 feet above the sea-level, with excellent air, excellent water, palm and other trees, and would make a first-class sanatorium for Aden. It is ten miles inland from Sheher as the crow flies.

About 8 o'clock next morning we started, not knowing precisely whence or whither, and determined to keep together as much as possible. We followed for miles the bed of a stream, which collects all the water from this part of the akaba, and gradually develops into Wadi Adim, the great approach to the Hadhramout. There is a fortress on a hill 3,500 feet above the sea-level, the highest point in this part; Haibel Gabrein being 4,150 feet, and near Dizba the highest point is 4,900 feet. After some miles on the akaba, we plunged into a valley about 200 feet wide, and wooded with palms; the earthen cliffs were about 60 feet high, and the bed sandy.

By this time we neither had a liking for valleys, cliffs, trees, nor people. We did not feel pleased at being led straight across the valley to a band of armed men, in a most unpleasant situation for us if they meant mischief. These were only Jabberi travelling, and they were told that we were friends of the sultan of Sheher, and not going to stay a minute. I suppose they would have fired if we had not been introduced to them. We were glad to reach Bir Baokban at 11.30. It is a well in a bare place at the mouth of a valley. Talib did not wish to stay there, for the water is brackish, and he wanted us to go on before the camel-men came up, but we waited, and they and the Jabberi had a loud and angry quarrel, and we were told there was no water nearer than Al Madi, and some of them wanted to stop at a place half-way to Al Madi and send for water. We could make neither head nor tail of it. Talib then asked my husband which he wished to do, for so it should be; but as he knew it was a case of 'You may do as you like, but you must,' answered to that effect, 'Whichever Talib liked, we were in his hands and could not choose.' After great hesitation we encamped in a windy, dusty, but rather pleasant place near Bir Baokban.

There were many tombs on the way. One had three upright stones, which the Hamoumi camel-men touched, and then kissed their fingers.

They cheerfully told us that many caravans have been robbed here, and men murdered; pleasant news for us.

We asked them why we had been fired on, and they said that the people believed we poisoned the wells. The soldiers came and shouted at us a good deal, saying, 'Why do you hire Bedouin to protect you? Are we not here? Do you not trust us?' We soothed them with flattering words, and then Talib came and extorted nine more dollars.

In the morning we had to pay three dollars to three men who said they had seen four men, which four men ran away. We were informed that we were to pass through three tribes that day, and should have a good deal of trouble on the way to Dizba, the place half way to Al Madi. As a matter of fact we were pretty sure that these later scares were only got up to frighten more money out of our pockets. The soldiers were told to go in front, but they often sat down and lit a fire for their water pipe, got behind, or rode a camel.

Though we went up and down a good deal, it was not too steep to ride all the way, and though there were watchings and scoutings, we saw neither man nor beast, nor any habitation of the three tribes. As we went along my husband was told that an old woman (whom we never saw) had come and said that the men of Al Madi would not let us pass, and that we must write to the sultan of Sheher to send us two hundred soldiers.

There is water at Dizba, though we were told there was none till Al Madi. We encamped in a sheltered spot, a sort of pot between low hills. We ought, according to the solemn contract, to have been at Sheher by that time. We talked over the plan of sending to Sheher, and decided that doing so meant much pay to the messenger, thirty or forty more dollars siyar, and, what was worst, four days' delay; it would also cost forty-four dollars in camel-hire; so we decided that it was far better to push on, for our delay would only give time to more enemies to gather round us. It would likewise be far cheaper, and so it subsequently turned out.

From being hypocrites we now became liars, and my husband said he had not so much money left, and that he had already paid four rupees to send men on the morrow. There was some talk of our all going by night and getting past Al Madi, but in that case our own men would only fire on us to frighten us. Next we heard that there was no village at Al Madi where we could buy forage; we had but little left, though plenty of dried bread. Then three Jabberi came and said they were getting lame, and wanted eight dollars to buy a donkey out of their food-money, but my husband said he had paid so much for siyara that he had not enough to pay that till we reached Sheher.

There was an idea that they would shoot round us in the night, for they spoke of the dangerous situation in which we were, and wanted six or eight dollars to pay for scouts on the hills, but went away when my husband said he would see about it in the morning. In case they did we determined to remain silent in our beds that they might be unable to locate us, and in that case they would not fire at our tents for fear of hitting us.

We had a very cold night; the dew in the morning was streaming off our tent in heavy drops.

Talib said, 'The people of Al Madi do not want money, but our lives and souls.' We did not think they meant to kill us, but only to frighten money out of us. We also overheard some conversation about our lives and baggage being in peril. We had not far to go, but the way was very intricate.

At sunset we three had a great council, and sent for Saleh; the soldiers, having been flattered, were fetched too, as we now thought we had them on our side, and we threatened to ruin them and their families, or to give them good bakshish if they did well by us. My husband said we had decided that in future he would not give another pi (not to eat, but there are a good many pies in an anna and also pice), but that, as the camel-men spoke of stopping between Dizba and Al Madi, we would have some food ready to eat on the journey and get the soldiers to force them on; and, if we had to stay, to load the horses and start the following morning to Sheher. The soldiers agreed on promise of a good sheep next day; the Hamoumi camel-men were promised coffee and sugar, so they agreed also.

When they were all gone, Saleh, to our unbounded amazement, said that Seid and Talib had confided to him 114 rupees, on account of his having the locked box; so he brought them to us, and amid shouts of laughter they were engulfed in our bag.

By the bye, we actually had two of the Al Madi people with us, so we ought to have been safe; or what is the good of siyara?

In the morning an awful object met our view. This was a soldier, a very ugly black man, who was dragged along on his knees by his arms and shoulders to our tent. He had been struck by the cold, his companions said. He seemed to be perfectly helpless, and to have no control or use of any muscles save those which were at work making the most horrible grimaces. I ran to the kitchen and fetched our tea, to the rage of Matthaios, who said he had no more water to replace it, and that as it was we could not have a cupful each. It was poured down his throat in a very rough way, but refused to stay. My husband gave him some of an unknown medicine, that he said was specially used for such cases, and this brandy just trickled out of his mouth, so they dragged him away to their own fire, still in a kneeling position. They then opened his jacket and burnt him a good deal with a hot sword, and he was given tepid water to drink, which stayed down very well. When we were about to start, he was held upright by two men. A thick square shawl was put rather carelessly over his head with the fringe over his face, and pushed back off his shoulders, to allow his arms to come out through an abba, a kind of cloak with armholes, which was also put over his head. They came out so high up of course, that the hands stuck out on a level with his ears. High up under his elbows, and far above his waist, a turban was wound, and a muffler was put round his neck and mouth; he hobbled along with two supporters and leaning on a spear, with the shawl streaming on the ground like a train—a very absurd sight. In about an hour he was quite well.

Talib, not knowing of our little plan of going with the Hamoumi to Al Madi, came and told us how very dangerous Al Madi was, and that it would be far better to go by Ghail Babwazir, if only the camel-drivers would agree. If they would not, he would put all our most necessary things, i.e. our money, on his own camel, and we would ride secretly off together. It is needless to say we did not consent, as it would have been 'Good-bye Talib and money!'

Then Ali, the chief of the camel-men, came and said he would not go unless he got six secret dollars for himself and six for the others, and said he would (like Ananias and Sapphira) swear he had only six. Imam Sharif and Saleh again perjured themselves in our behalf to such an extent that my husband and I could hardly sit by, but we must speak the language of the country, I suppose.

From Dizba we passed over very high ground, 4,300 feet, with a cold refreshing wind from the sea. It seemed to us a healthy climate. In a little narrow pass is a rude tomb near the rough stone cabin of a sainted lady called Sheikha, where our soldiers and camel-men made their devotions.

I had a very uncomfortable ride, for on the way we saw an aloe of a kind we had not seen before, and which proved to be new enough to obtain the name of Aloe Luntii. The botanist sawed off the head of it (which is growing now in Kew Gardens), and we knew he dared not try to take it on his camel, as the men always quarrelled over every weight that was added to the load; so I told him to go on and leave it, as if he did not care for it, and then I tied it to the off-side of my saddle, and had to ride hanging heavily on my left stirrup, as otherwise I should have been over-balanced, and my horse would have got a sore back. On arrival, I dismounted in a quiet place, put the aloe down with my jacket thrown on it, and later fetched it into the tent, under cover of my feminine draperies, and at night it was smuggled into some package. On one occasion, when no one had been riding for some days past, a felt saddle-cloth somehow was left behind by us, so one of our own men was forced to carry it in his hand till I discovered it, and tied it to my saddle, for he was not allowed to put it on a camel. I tell this to show how very disobliging they were to us.

Mariala is the name of a disgusting pool or cistern of the very dirtiest water, on a bare and lonely hillside, where we were exposed to wind and cold, and where we encamped in much the same state of perplexity as usual.

Soon after our arrival my husband was asked for eight dollars to send fifteen men up the hills to look for murderers; he refused, then the camel-men said they would not start without six men to go ahead, but that was refused too.

Next morning we started for Al Madi. We wound up and down, over bare ground, and could see no danger for miles. At a point on the highland we waited for the camels to come up; they came and passed to the southward on a well-trodden path. Talib called out to them to stop, and said that he would not go that way, and that we should not, and that the men were taking us into danger. He pointed to the south-west, but we did not like parting from our baggage. Talib then asked my husband which way he pleased to go.

'Which is the best?' he asked.

'I do not know,' said Talib.

'Very well,' said my husband, 'we will follow the camels.' On we all went in great doubt, and the Jabberi told us awful stories of the Hamoumi intentions. We had five armed Jabberi, seven soldiers, and twelve Hamoumi, all armed, including two little boys.

The soldiers, so brave the night before, said: 'We can do nothing—we are afraid. If we fired a gun, or if they fired, hundreds of people would come, and they would kill us.'

They never either raised their weapons or their tongues in our defence. They said the sultan of Sheher would not be able to go himself or send soldiers into these parts, and that the Al Madi people wished to decoy us to Al Madi and kill us. The Jabberi said the same, and Talib again wished us to ride off with him.

The Hamoumi said it was all Talib's fault, for he owed a great deal of money at Al Madi, and was afraid of going thither.

The Hamoumi then said they would take us to Ghail Barbwazir or Barbazir or Babwazir, but we must keep it a secret from the Jabberi and the soldiers.

Saleh said to them, 'My dear friends, tell me the truth. Where are we going? I also am an Arab and a Moslem, and I swear by my Koran and my religion, that we will give you forty dollars, and spend two days in Ghail Babwazir, during which you will have your eleven dollars a day; and we will engage you on to Sheher, and give you good bakshish, and a good character to the sultan and two nice turbans.'

We gasped in amazement at this.

'Oh!' said Saleh, 'I only read them something from the preface of the Koran! We are not bound at all. If I had to swear falsely on the Koran, I should have to be given a great many guineas!

We never knew the name of the place where we slept that night.

Talib came in the morning and said he could not persuade the Bedou Hamoumi to go to Ghail Babwazir. We told him that they had agreed to do so, and he was very angry at our having settled anything without him. Then Ali said he could not go in two days; so he was led aside and privily threatened with public betrayal as to having taken twelve dollars and saying he only had six. Then they all wanted payment in advance, but the same threat to Ali availed to avert this bother and we set out, told that we should go as far as Gambla.

We had, after, all, to part from the camels, which went a more roundabout way, while we climbed down 1,000 feet over very steep rocks, with the use of hands as well as feet, the horses being with us, to a place not very far from water. The horses were sent to fetch a little, while we awaited the camels more than half an hour, and ate some food we had with us.

The horses had been badly off and had only bread and dates, for the camel-men would sell us no forage. When they arrived they said we must stay where we were, and there was a fierce row as usual. They also demanded their eleven dollars, but gave up sooner than unload, as we said we would not stop.

At one time, when we had been waiting a long while for the return of those camels which had gone to fetch skins of water, Talib caused our horses to be saddled, mounted his camel, and started, but my husband would not go on to Gambla, when the camel-men had refused to go there. Then we all lay down on rough stones, scorching in the sun for hours, wondering what would happen and whether we could get any farther that day, but at length we suddenly were invited to start.

We had a very steep climb up on foot and then down, and pitched our tents for the night in a very bare little hollow. We were very sorry for the horses; it was sad to see them turning over the stones, and we longed for some real horse food for them.

The soldiers sent a letter to Sheher to announce our arrival, and they wished to send for more soldiers, but we begged them not to do so, as they were quite useless.

Seid-bin-Iselem in this lonely spot came to Saleh and wanted some money to buy something, where there was no one to sell. Saleh said the money was still in his box, and to make his words good smuggled it in again, in a most clumsy but quite successful way.

Ali's secret had twice to be threatened, next morning, for different reasons before we could start, and then they all roared that they would none of them carry our chairs. We all travelled on foot still, as there was much climbing to do. We climbed down 2,000 feet, very steep in parts, to Gambla.

Gambla is a verdant and palmy place where we could buy so much food for our hungry horses that at length my Basha turned his back on his big pile, and came with long green streamers hanging from his sated mouth to doze beside me.

There was a struggle, of course, to stay the night at Gambla, and we were told we could not reach Ghail Babwazir till very late, but we said we did not care how late, and Ali was once more privately drawn aside, and again threatened about the twelve dollars, so it was agreed we should go on.

We waited, however, a long time, and seeing no camels collected to load I said very loud, 'Call all the Hamoumi together here, and tell Ali that the very last moment has come.'

Ali rushed about, and soon had us on our way.

Chapter XV

Retribution for Our Foes

We reached Ghail Babwazir in three hours, at half-past five, passing through several oases. It is a large town. Some children, as I came round a corner, cried, 'Let us flee! here is a demon' (afrit).

All the guns of our escort were fired, and we were ushered into a house, where there was a good-sized room with some matting.

We were all very tired, hot and hungry, but alas for Arab hospitality! No coffee was brought, not even water, and when our servants asked for water and wood—'Show us first your money' was the answer they got.

We had a very public visit from the governor, who is called sultan, and who asked us if we had had a pleasant journey, and wondered how we could have been so many days on the road.

He was told of all our troubles, and took the Hamoumi, Mohammad, who shot at us, a prisoner, and his jembia (or as they say in Southern Arabia ghembia), without which he is ashamed to be seen, was given into my husband's custody.

Our expedition all passed a peaceful night, thankful to be in security after eighteen days of anxiety, never knowing what ambushes we might be led into; but Talib we heard did not sleep at all and was quite ill from fright, as contrary to his wishes he was, said the sultan, to be taken to Sheher with us on the morrow.

Ghail Babwazir is an oasis or series of oases of rank fertility, caused by a stream the water of which is warm and bitter, and which is conducted by channels cut in the rock in various directions.

Acres and acres of tobacco, bananas, Indian corn, cotton, and other crops are thus produced in the wilderness, and this cultivation has given rise to the overgrown village.

The stream was discovered about five hundred years ago by one Sheikh Omar, and before that time all this part was waste ground.

This fertilising spring rises under a hill to the east, where a large reservoir has been dug out. Above on the hill are some Arab ruins, places where things were stored, and there is a road up. Canals cut some twenty feet deep, like the kanats of Persia, conduct the water to the fields. The chief product is tobacco, known as Hamoumi tobacco.

Our roof happened to command a view of the terrace where a bride and her handmaidens were making merry with drums and coffee. In spite of the frowns and gesticulations of the order-keeper, who flourished her stick at us and bade us begone, we were able to get a peep, forbidden to males, at the blushing bride. She wore on her head large silver bosses like tin plates, her ears were weighed down with jewels, her fingers were straight with rings, and her arms a mass of bracelets up to the elbow, and her breast was hidden by a multiplicity of necklaces. Her face, of course, was painted yellow, with black lines over her eyes and mouth like heavy moustaches, and from her nose hung something which looked to us like a gold coin. The bride herself evidently had no objection to my husband's presence, but the threatening aspect of her women compelled us reluctantly to retire.

On the 29th we set out for Sheher, or Shaher Bander as it is called, a most cheerful set of people, at least as far as our own immediate party was concerned; some of the others had little cause for pleasant anticipations.

We were in advance of the baggage camels, riding our horses and donkey, and accompanied by Talib, without his dagger, on his camel. Matthaios, the Jabberi, and the soldiers surrounding the prisoner Mohammad, attached by a long rope to my husband's horse, an arrangement not invented by my husband, but which we enjoyed very much, and no wonder, after all we had suffered!

The servants all thought that as soon as might be after getting to Sheher we should take ship for Aden, and many were the plans made for vengeance upon Saleh once he was safe in our clutches on board that ship.

We, however, had quite another design, which was that my husband and Imam Sharif and I should go off to Bir Borhut, if the safety of our lives could in any way be guaranteed, we taking only Noura, one of the Indian servants, as our own attendant. Of course the others would be with their master.

Several times we went by small passes through gypsum hills, lovely to behold, and twice we passed water, not so bitter as Ghail Babwazir. We had plenty of up and down hill, but never had to dismount. The way was, for the most part, arid and uninteresting. Four years before, in these passes, the Hamoumi had attacked a caravan and killed nine men, taking eighty camels and 2,000 rupees. They must have had siyara, though, from some tribe. Each tribe has its fixed tariff. The Hamoumi have twenty-seven dollars, the Jabberi seventy, the Tamimi one hundred, &c., and when this sum is paid, if you have only one of each tribe with you, you are safe.

When we had gone two-thirds of our way we reached a palm-shadowed village called Zarafa. Here we went into a house to eat our luncheon and obtain some coffee, which had to be prepaid.

We reached Sheher about four o'clock. The last three miles, going eastward, were close along the shore at low tide. It was quite delightful, and we were very much amused at all the crabs we put to flight.

We were very glad to dismount in the middle of the town, at the gate of an old castle, and were shown up into a room about 50 feet by 30 feet, with a good many chairs, tables, and sofas, arranged stiffly, and all dusty. Indian cotton carpets covered the floor, and there was a great number of very common lamps with lustres.

We waited wearily nearly an hour, while the Sultan Hussein Mia and his brother, Sultan Ghalib Mia, put on their best clothes, and at last we became so out of patience that my husband sent a message to the wazir, asking him to be kind enough to send a man to point out to us a spot where we might pitch our tents, and an answer then was returned that the sultans were coming. When they appeared, very gorgeous, our letter from Aden was given, with that from Sultan Salàh of Shibahm, and my husband requested leave to make a camp. Sultan Hussein looked round him and asked if this room would not do? Imam Sharif explained to him that we were rather a large party for such accommodation (the whole of our expedition being then present in the room), that we should require separate apartments, and, therefore, would prefer a private house. We were given tea in crockery of the commonest kind; I had an odd cup and saucer which both leaked badly, and I feared my cup would fall into four pieces, but they had come from afar, and I dare say the sultans would be astonished at the care we take of cracked cups from foreign parts.

We were then led on foot quite to the other side of the town, where there was a 'summer-house' partly constructed and partly furnished, the builders were on one side and we on the other. We had a room with a carpet, a settee, and two little tables, and set up our own beds and chairs. We had rather a good dinner served by an Indian butler who could talk English, so we had hopes of being very comfortable. The summer-house at that time consisted of two very long rooms back to back, and several rooms at each end projecting so as to form a verandah for each of the long rooms. The back one was quite unfinished then, and upstairs there were only rudimentary walls traced out, three or four feet high. There was a great square wall surrounding a piece of desert in process of being transformed into a garden; the sea sand came quite up to the wall.

We found the heat intense, so we had our tent somehow fastened up on the roof to sleep. All the sides had to be tied up for coolness, but the defences against mosquitoes and fleas were very stifling. Goats had been kept on the roof, and hence the fleas. We could only stay there till sunrise, and then had to betake ourselves to our suffocating room, to find the flies wide awake. We had to use our mosquito curtains by day on their account. In Shibahm the mosquitoes are awake by day only, and at Aden both by day and night.

Imam Sharif found great favour in the eyes of the two sultans, who asked him to supper every day. The conversations he had with them about us, and the letters they had received from their cousin at Shibahm, did us far more good than the letter from the wali of Aden. They said this gave them no idea other than that my husband was 'only a merchant' or a person of that rank. They were very hospitable to us while we were in their town.

They examined into our complaints with regard to the treatment we had experienced on our journey. Mohammad, who had shot at us, and Ali, the one who had extorted the money from us, were both imprisoned, and this money was made to pay for our last two days' journey. Talib was forced to repay the thirty dollars and sent to summon the heads of those villages which had fired upon us, his sword being taken from him as a disgrace, and all were to wait in Sheher, till after Ramadan was over, to be judged.

This, of course, was pleasing to us; however, no money could repay us for the anxiety of this journey under the protection of the Jabberi, and we considered it as quite the worst experience we had ever undergone in the course of any of our travels.

On reflection we could attribute these troubles neither to any indiscretion on our part, nor to neglect of care on the part of the sultan of Shibahm.

We have always been perfectly polite in respecting the prejudices of the inhabitants of the countries through which we have travelled, never, on the one hand, classing all non-Europeans as 'natives' and despising high and low alike as inferior to ourselves in intelligence and everything else, nor, on the other, feeling that, having seen a few men, not quite as white as ourselves, in no matter what country or continent, we thoroughly understood how to manage 'these niggers.'

Sultan Salàh did, assuredly, his very uttermost to secure our safety and comfort, quite disinterestedly. He absolutely refused to take a sum of money, saying, 'I want nothing, I have plenty.' When we determined to have some money melted and to have a silver-gilt present made for him, he heard of our vain inquiries for a non-existent jeweller, and earnestly begged that we would do no such thing. 'He loved the English, and only asked that my husband would mention him favourably to the English Government'—and this favourable mention has gained him nothing.

If when my husband asked that a reliable interpreter should be recommended to him, he had been sent a man favourably disposed towards ourselves, and capable of inspiring respect in others, instead of a little clerk, aged twenty, from a coal-office, a fanatical Moslem who hated his employers, we should have been in a much better position, and have been able to pass on from the Jabberi to the Hamoumi, whereas travelling with the Jabberi through the Hamoumi country we had to encounter their enemies as well as our own.

Sheher is a detestable place by the sea, set in a wilderness of sand. Once it was the chief commercial port of the Hadhramout valley, but now Makalla has quite superseded it, for Sheher is nothing but an open roadstead with a couple of baggalas belonging to the family of Al Kaiti, which generally have to go to Hami to shelter, and its buildings are now falling into ruins, since the Kattiri were driven away. Why anyone should choose such a place for a town, and continue to live in it, is mysterious. It is a place so unpleasant with flies and fleas, that the inhabitants often go to sleep on the seashore. The doors of the houses are very prettily carved all over, also the cupboards, and lintels to doors; we tried to buy some but could not. They have texts from the Koran carved on them. We were not allowed to buy them for fear we should work magic with them.

There is a very picturesque mosque with a sloping minaret, white domes, palm-trees, and a well, and hard by a house we saw a miniature mosque—a sort of doll's house—built for children who play at prayers. They can just crawl into it. It is hung with lamps, and the children make mud pies of various shapes, which they put in it. Especially during Ramadan they are encouraged to play at mosque, and the lamps are lit up every evening. It is 3 feet high and 3 feet square, and has its little dome, minaret, and parapet like other mosques.

There is an imposing gateway to the town—but built in a kind of Romanesque style which does not suit Arabia—with long guard-houses on each side, and various quaint weapons and powder-flasks hung upon it.

Ghalib, the eldest son and heir of the chief of the Al Kaiti family, ruled here as the vicegerent of his father, who is in India as jemadar or general of the Arab troops, nearly all Hadhrami, in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Ghalib was quite an oriental dandy, who lived a life of some rapidity when in India, so that his father thought it as well to send him to rule in Sheher, where the opportunities for mischief are not so many as at Bombay. He dressed very well in various damask silk coats and faultless trousers of Indian cut, his swords and daggers sparkled with jewels, in his hand he flourished a golden-headed cane, and as the water is hard at Sheher, he sends his dirty linen in dhows to Bombay to be washed. He was exceedingly good to us, and as we wanted to go along the coast for about eighty miles, to get a sight of the mouth of the Hadhramout valley near Saihut, where it empties itself into the Indian Ocean, he arranged that the chief of the dreaded Hamoumi tribe should personally escort us, so that there might be no further doubt about our safety.

Sultan Hussein had married a daughter of Sultan Salàh two years before, when she was eleven years old.

The Al Kaiti family have bought up property all round the town, and talked of laying out streets and bringing water to Sheher. We heard that one brother had to have all his share in money, and had twenty-two lacs of rupees, about 150,000l.

We became very tired of Sheher before we finally left, having to stay a week, while arrangements were made for our onward way, and on account of Ramadan no communications could be held with anyone, or business be done till sunset. We seemed all day to be the only people alive, and then at night we could hardly sleep for the noise.

Our only pleasures were walks at sunset along the sand, picking up lovely shells and watching the crabs, and we used to sneak out as quietly as we could for fear of being pursued by soldiers. Our little walks were very much shortened when we had an armed escort dogging our steps. Once we got a mile away but were fetched back for fear of the Hamoumi, Sheher being quite on the frontier. There is a round, black basaltic mountain which they call the Hamoumi mountain. The Hamoumi tribe occupy nearly all the mountainous district east of Sheher, between the Hadhramout valley and the sea, and they are reported to be very powerful. Next to them come the tribe of Mahra.

Even Sultan Ghalib himself cannot ride far out of his capital unprotected, because the Hamoumi are his foes.

We tried to get leave to go to Saihut in the Mahri country, but that was impossible, and at last it really was settled that we should go to Bir Borhut and Kabr Houd. We were highly delighted, and fear broke out badly again among the servants, who dreaded the very name of those places. They gladly took permission to remain behind. All arrangements about siyara were made, and we were never to stop more than one night anywhere, and to return by a different way, and the day of departure was settled; but the day before that fixed, it became apparent that we Christians could by no means be permitted to go near Kabr Houd, and that the time occupied for the journey would now be thirty-one days, and we must wait till after Ramadan. It was to be a mere journey without our seeing anything that we wanted to see, and it was getting very late and hot, and we did not feel we could spend so long a time for so little; therefore we gave up all idea of seeing Bir Borhut and Kabr Houd that year. It was to have cost us 670 dollars, at seven to the pound sterling.

By the way, Maria Theresa dollars are always spoken of as reals. You have to buy them dear, two rupees and a varying amount of annas, and are told they are very hard to get. They are tied up in bags, and you may very well trust the banker for the number of coins; but if you are wise you will examine them all, for any dirty ones, or any that are the least worn or obliterated, or that have any cut or mark on them, will be rejected and considered bad in the interior. When you return to civilisation you hasten to the banker to change these dollars, and you sell them cheap, for you are told that there is now little demand for dollars, they are quite going out of use and rupees only are used—quite a fable. No matter how many extra annas you may have paid, the dollar only passes for two rupees in the interior. We lost 1,100 rupees on this one journey between our departure from Aden and our return to Aden.

We next settled to go to Mosaina along the coast, and still to start on the appointed day. Therefore we were up betimes (what little baggage we were to take being bound in bundles the day before), packed our beds, and then we waited; it was not certain till four o'clock that no camels were coming. No one could do anything, as the sultan had no power beyond his own dominions, and the camel-men were all foreigners.

However, next morning seven camels came and we were quickly on the road, causing great terror to the crabs. When I say the road I mean the sand at low tide.

We had the chief of all the Hamoumi with us, a very old, rich, and dirty man, but most precious to us as a safeguard. Two of his sons were kept as hostages in Sheher till we should return in peace.

We also had the governor of Kosseir with us, as well as men of the various little tribes whose country we were to traverse, as siyara. The camels and siyara cost twelve dollars. The camels were hired by the job, twelve days, so it would not pay them to dawdle.

We had told the sultans how Saleh had behaved and asked them to keep him under their eyes till our return, and this is how we managed without him as interpreter. We talked English to Imam Sharif, he talked Hindustani to his Afghan servant Majid, Majid talked his own tongue to an Afghan whom we annexed at Sheher, and he could speak Arabic. We got on very well, but as such a party had to be assembled to say important things, we had to struggle to express simple things ourselves.

Chapter XVI

Coasting Eastward by Land

The journey was delightful, nearly all the way by the edge of the sea, past miles and miles of little mounds thrown up by the crabs in making their holes: daily they make them, and they are daily washed away by the tide. They live in holes higher up, but these are refuges for the day while they are scavenging in the sea. They were nearly under the feet of the horses. Near Sheher we passed the mouth of the Arfa river, where there is water, and near it are horribly smelling tanks where they make fish oil.

We had to make a deviation of two miles inland to cross the estuary of the Wadi Gherid, and then go down to the sea again, but the last mile was over a low cliff covered with a smash of huge shells. It must be a furious place in a storm. We passed a wretched hamlet consisting of a few arbours and a well, whose waters are both bitter and salt.

Hami (hot), where we stopped, is sixteen miles from Sheher. It is most picturesquely situated at the foot of some low spurs, volcanic in nature, and is fertilised by a stream so very hot that you can hardly put your hands in it; indeed, in the tanks where it is collected in large volume, it is quite impossible. It is much cooler in the little irrigation channels, which have hard beds from the incrustation of the sulphur. The water is very nasty when hot, but much better when it cools. We did not enjoy our tea at all in Hami. We were encamped in a delightful spot under both date and cocoanut-trees, and hot baths were a pleasure to everyone. I had to wait a long time till mine in the tent was cool enough.

There was a great flutter when we arrived on the scene, for there were a large number of women and girls bathing. They did not seem to mind their own relations seeing them, but on our approach they rushed into their blue dresses and fled.

This sulphureous stream makes the crops grow prodigiously, and we walked through fields of jowari and Indian corn as high as our heads. At our camp we had a delicious sea-breeze, but in our walks abroad we got an occasional whiff of the little fish which were being boiled down to make oil for lamps and colours used in ship-painting.

We paid a visit to the governor of Hami, who received us on the roof of his house, where many were assembled, and scarcely had he greeted us when they all fell to praying, the mollah standing in front to lead, and all the others standing in a row behind. After that they gave us coffee with no sugar, followed by tea with far too much, and they pressed us to stay with them and partake of their evening meal, but we declined politely and retired to our camp.

On March 11 we started for Dis without any rows or brawls whatever. Dis is fifteen miles off. We never went down to the shore at all that day, but travelled over a barren, undulating country which runs out to sea and forms Ras Bagashwa. We went for half a mile close above the sea on a cliff 20 or 30 feet high, with many shells, some in an ordinary state, some half petrified, and some wholly so, but none embedded in the stone. After travelling three hours and a half we passed over and amongst a range of low hills, a volcanic jumble with earths of all colours, seams of gypsum stuck up edgeways, and many other things.

I used once to sigh and groan over not having brought a geologist with us, but I was wiser by that time. It was enough to think of his specimens and their transport, to say nothing of the responsibility for his safety. Still my husband and I often wished we knew more of geology than we did.

When the geologist does visit these parts he must make a special bargain with his camel-men, not based on his apparent, present, visible baggage, but upon what it may expand to. He might arrange to pay at the end according to the results of his journey. On one of the dreadful days with the Jabberi, the man whose camel carried the botanical boxes positively refused to load up, on account of having seen stones with lichen put in; and but for the fact of his being last and that all the other camels had started, we might have had to throw the things away.

There was nothing to see at Dis but a sudden oasis of fertility caused by a ghail, but the report of an inscription led my husband a long wild-goose chase. The district is very populous, and from the old forts near it evidently has been and is a very prosperous place.

We had a great many patients, and were nearly driven wild with starers.

To avoid the crowd we pitched our tent tight up against a field of sugar-canes, but so anxious were the populace to see me, that the whole field was trodden down and no one seemed to mind. There were perpetual shouts for the 'woman' to come out. On this part of the journey, as well as in the Hadhramout, I was always simply spoken of as the Horma (plur. Harem) and never as Bibi (lady).

There were some very light-skinned Arabs at Dis, with long dark hair, which they dress with grease, wearing round their neck a cocoanut containing a supply of this toilet-requisite for the purpose. Most of them affect red plaid cotton turbans and waist-cloths, a decided relief to the eye from the perpetual indigo.

We had a very damp night, not from rain but from dew, though there is more rain in this part than in the interior.

We had an uninteresting march next day, over desert and many stones, up and down hill, past a village called Ghaida, and went somewhat out of our way to see a rock with bitumen or asphalte oozing out of it. We went fifteen miles and encamped near Bagashwa on the margin of a large and pretty pool made by recent rains, with bushes round it. Though pretty, this pool was not clean. Almost before we could dismount the camels were unloaded and in it, my horse immediately followed, and likewise all the camel-men, and by the time our vessels could be unpacked to fetch the drinking water, the soldiers were washing their clothes, consequently our water was turbid and of mingled flavours.

Later my husband took a bath, and said he felt as if he was sitting in warm oil.

My horse, for two days after this, was afflicted with a mysterious bleeding from the mouth which we did not till then discover was caused by three leeches under his tongue. We did not like to put the bit in, so the immense iron ring which was usually round his chin hung round his neck and clanked like the clapper of a bell, while the nose was thrust through that part meant for his ears.

Some pastoral Bedouin were encamped near here, whose abodes are about the simplest I ever saw: just four posts stuck in the ground with a roof of mats to afford some shelter from the sun; on this roof they hang their cooking utensils, their only impedimenta when they move. One old woman was boiling a pot of porridge, another was grinding grain on a stone, another was frying little fish on a stick, whilst the men were engaged in picketing the kids on a rope with a very loose noose round each little neck, and preparing the oil-cakes for their camels. We had just sunlight left to photograph them, and perpetuate the existence of this most primitive life. Young camels are reared here.

We were so lucky as to discover a scorpion that had travelled in our tent from Dis, before it could do us harm.

That day one of the Bedou soldiers came to me and asked me in a confidential sort of whisper, 'Are you a man or a woman?'

We were five hours on our journey to Kosseir (11 miles), which was our next stage, over stones first, then over heavy sand to the shore again. There were not so many shells, seaweeds, corals, crabs, madrepores, sponges, and flamingoes as we had seen near Sheher, but hundreds of seagulls sitting in the shallow water, and quantities of porpoises. The lobster-shells which lie about are a beautiful blue mixed with red.

The great stretch of basalt which runs for fully fifteen miles along the coast, with Kosseir in the middle, caused us to mount on to the rocks some little distance before reaching Kosseir, and when we got quite near we sat on a rocky hillock, contemplating the town and awaiting our kafila, that we might arrive with all the dignity due to the governor. All our baggage was on five camels and the old sultan of the Hamoumi on the sixth, so we really need not have had the seventh. That dirty old Bedou owns many houses in Ghail Babwazir and other places.

The governor was a very thin old man very like Don Quixote, his scanty hair and beard dyed red with henna. He had been governor five years before, and was now reappointed at the request of the town, so great were the rejoicings, manifested by the firing of many guns. Some came to meet him at the rock, some stayed in the town, some appeared on the tops of the numerous towers, but no matter where they were, one and all, as well as those who came with us, fired off their guns whenever they liked, under our noses, in and from every direction. Our animals did not mind one bit.

The governor and all the foot-passengers arrived in the town with their feet twice the natural size from the clinging mud, through which we had to pass, and which necessitated great scraping of feet and picking out between toes with daggers.

We were most pleasantly received and taken upstairs in the governor's castle to a roofless room with a kind of shed along one side, and here we subsided on mats, very hot, and soon a most powerfully strong tincture of tea with much sugar, ginger, and cinnamon was administered to us; and though the kind old governor was so busy being welcomed by his happy old friends, he was always coming to see that we were properly attended to.

We had our camp in his yard, where we had a very comfortable room, and enjoyed having his wall round us very much.

In the evening we went on the shore and about the town. The town is on a small point and approached from the west it seems to 'lie four-square' and to present a very strong appearance, 'with its yetts, its castle, and a'.' We rode in by the gate on the northern side and were surprised to find that the side towards the sea had no wall, but only four detached towers. There were fishing-boats on the beach, with the planks just sewn together with cords.

The long line of black basalt, jutting into capes here and there, is thought by the Arabs to be formed by the ashes of infidel towns. The tiny port of Kosseir is just a nook where the boats can nestle behind a small, low, natural breakwater of the basalt. Boats lie on either side, according to the wind.

Next we went to Raida, three hours all along the top of the cliff; the old Hamoumi sultan was with us, of course, otherwise there would have been no safety for us beyond Kosseir.

We had a dreadful experience passing the village of Sarrar. The smell from the cemetery was so awful that even the Bedouin had to hold their noses for many yards on both sides of it.

The village of Sarrar only consists of three large mud houses and a good many bamboo shanties.

We were amused by a man whom we met alone, his terror of us was so great. As we approached he lit his match, got his gun all ready, and left the path seeking cover, but our people shouted: 'What good can you do? You are one and we are many, and besides we mean you no harm!' so he came forward, and there was great laughter both at and with him.

Raida is a large fishing village. Certainly there are strange eaters in these parts. The Ichthyophagoi here prefer their fish generally in a decayed state; and one of our Hamoumi soldiers had a treat of lizards, which he popped in the fire to roast and ate whole.

We did not get much farther eastward that year, only two hours farther to Rakhmit, a very uninteresting journey, but we were buoyed up by hopes of some very delightful inscriptions that were described to us: one on the way to Mosaina, to which we were supposed to be going that day, and another in a cave, quite close to Mosaina. When we reached the river-bed at Rakhmit, a spot in the mountains about five miles off was pointed out; so after very much and long consultation with the aged sultan, we decided it would be safer to camp where we were, see Mosaina next day, and return to the same camp. However, when we were quite prepared to go the five miles, it appeared that it might be dangerous. It was in the country of no one then present, so we could have no siyara, and the old Hamoumi chief said it would be bad for his sons, the hostages; so this plan had to be abandoned.

Afterwards it was revealed to us that the cave is twenty miles from Mosaina on the akaba, that there is no water near, no village at Mosaina, no means of getting forage; so, as in that case farther progress was useless, as well as impossible, we proposed to return the following day to Kosseir, helping ourselves, if possible, with a boat from Raida.

It took us three hours to return to Raida, where an old seyyid took us into his house and led us to a little clean room, 10 feet by 6 feet, and there we settled down on the matting to rest and have our luncheon till one o'clock, when we started, leaving the baggage camels to follow.

How thankful we were that, tastes differing, there were people in Arabia who could look upon us as harmless and pleasant individuals. Everyone had been nice to us, and we had had no difficulties whatever, and been treated like human beings, just because we had not that horrid little Saleh Hassan with us. The more civil people were to us the more enraged we were with him, and I think if the servants had carried out their threats against him when he should be on the dhow, the masters would not have interfered.

It is fifteen miles from Raida to Kosseir. We were quite determined, after the severe lesson we had had two days previously, to go to windward of Sarrar. When we passed a well there I was requested to detach myself from the party and go and let some women see me, and then the soldiers begged that I would show off Basha prancing about that the women might see that I did not want holding on, and finally they shouted 'Shilloh!' to make him gallop away, amid screams of delight. I dare say these women had never seen a horse. The sultans at Sheher had only three. We had already sent Zubda back to Al Koton. The soldiers were very fond of terrifying my horse, when passing a village and I wanted to stare about, to show him off.

In avoiding Sarrar we got into great difficulties with the loose sand. We went over it half a mile, and when we reached the sea there was so narrow a strip of firm sand that, our animals being too much afraid of the rising tide, we had to make our way up again. We reached Kosseir about half-past five, warmly welcomed by Don Quixote, who gave us coffee while awaiting our kafila, which was, to our surprise and delight, only half an hour behind us, not having been fighting with the sand.

We were made more angry with Saleh by finding that water, wood, forage, eggs, fish, and a little milk had been prepared for us beforehand. My night was disturbed by the old Hamoumi chief choosing the eave of our tent just beside my ear to say his prayers. Quiet nights, however, must not be expected in Ramazan.

Next morning we were off at eight, of course dragging the poor wizened old gentleman with us on a camel, two hours (6 miles) up the Wadi Shirwan to see a ruin at the village of Maaber, where there is a running stream.

At the entrance to Wadi Shirwan the ruins are situated. They consist of a large fort, circular on one side and about 40 feet in diameter, built of round, water-worn stones set in very strong cement, dating from the same period as those at Ghail Babwazir.

Evidently the mediæval inhabitants of Arabia chose these two points for good water. Tobacco is also grown here, besides other things. The water is really good and sweet.

We behaved with the greatest temerity in entering these ruins; no one now living had been in before we did. The building is the abode of jinni, and no one who goes in is ever able to come out by the same door. We were so fortunate as to be able to do so. On the road we saw a stone, and were told that a jinni (or ghinni as they are called in Southern Arabia) was bringing this to help to build the fort when he was met by another jinni who said, 'Why do you bring stones when the fort is finished?' so he dropped it in disgust.

Jinni are able to get sufficiently near to heaven to hear the conversation of the angels, and there are various incantations to make them reveal the whereabouts of hidden treasures. One called darb el mendel, carried on with a handkerchief, is much in vogue.

Maaber nestles under a big pointed rock on the highland, which sticks up aloft, and to which we heard that the Kafirs used to tie their horses. Bottles were stuck into the graves as ornaments, and built on to the tops of buildings.

We rested beneath a b'dom-tree, which showered its little fruits on us, and made as many inquiries as possible in a crowd of starers who were all very polite.

We heard that Wadi Shekhavi is the end of Wadi Mosila. It runs parallel to, and is almost as large as, the Wadi Hadhramout. Ghail Benzamin is the principal town in it.

At last, feeling that our work and our researches were as thoroughly done as in our power lay, we arose and turned our faces toward England.

Chapter XVII

Coasting Westward by Sea

Though we rose so early next morning that we dressed by candle-light, we were not up nearly so early as Imam Sharif, who, being sleepy and misled by a candle in our tent, aroused his followers and made them light their fire for breakfast at midnight. Kind old Don Quixote and many others walked with us a mile to Ras Dis, where we were to embark; this is the harbour of the town of Kosseir. Ras Dis is not near Dis, as Ras Bagashwa runs out between them. Probably before the interstices of the black rock were filled up there may have been a decent harbour for small craft. Two forts guard the way to Ras Dis, and near it are two wali's or sheikh's tombs which afford perfectly safe store-places to the fishermen. All their gear, anchors, ropes, sails, wood, fish, and what not are heaped round the tombs, and none dare touch them.

Having been carried into a filthy boat, we scrambled into a sambouka crammed and stuffed with the baggage—eight passengers, including the Afghan interpreter.

There was a little deck 3 feet by 4 feet at its widest, where Imam Sharif and I were packed, the steersman sitting in a little angle, leaning against my gaiters. About ten o'clock Matthaios began to make some tea, but soon had to retreat to the bow very sick. My husband finished this cookery, and from a small hole in the baggage handed me what little food he could reach, but soon everyone was expanded over the baggage, no one having room for his legs. Imam Sharif was soon a wretched heap, and not an appetite was left among our party but my husband's and mine. We had nothing but a little halwa (a sweetmeat) and no water, till the end of our eighteen hours' voyage, so we rather envied the others who seemed unconscious of the smells of cockroaches, bilge-water, and fish oil, as well as of the great heat, for we had no awning.

The wind was favourable, but there was little of it, and fearing it would fail entirely we planned to land, taking food, which would then be attainable, and the one blanket we each had kept out, not knowing how long we should be at sea, and lie in the sand, but we wasted an hour of great trouble in a vain attempt. The shore was too shelving, so we dressed ourselves in our blankets and settled down to catch bugs. We had seen few by day, but by night they kept us busy, for they swarmed over us with their descendants and their remote ancestors.

Once we saw some operations which made us think we were going to tack, but to our dismay we perceived the captain hovering over his bedding, and found that he had put the ship to bed, and we were meant to be violently rocked in the cradle of the deep till morning; but he was firmly reasoned with, and at two in the morning, worn and weary, we were borne ashore at Sheher.

It being Ramazan, we easily found the Indian cook of the house, and asked for some boiled eggs, but not till four did we get some very nasty fried ones and tea, and then lay down on the floor anyhow, to fight with mosquitoes and fleas, our baggage and beds being still on board; regular quarantine measures were carried out as regards bugs when it came. I felt too weak to stir till luncheon was brought me at twelve, there having been some little difficulty as regarded breakfast.

The horse, donkeys, camels, siyara people, and soldiers all came in by land next day.

A period of waiting and hoping for a ship to take us to Aden now set in. Our annoyances were rather aggravated by some Indian converts to Mohammedanism being taught their prayers well within our hearing.

A promising ship was said to have gone to Hami for water, and anxiously we turned our eyes in that direction for three days, till we were in such desperation that my husband went down to find any small boat to take us as far as Makalla, but the ship had come at last and we were able to leave.

Hussein Mia and Ghalib Mia took leave of us with much friendliness and hopes of seeing us the following year, which they did.

Mia is a kind of title.

We were told that the captain had gone on board with the baggage, but we found it covering a vast expanse of sand, live hens, dead foxes, swords, spears, and other strange things making it look very unlike Christian baggage. We also had quantities of cocoanuts, that we might have some palatable water on the voyage. A bargain was made with much shouting in a great crowd, to put us and all belonging to us on board for four dollars.

I was quietly looking on when a man came suddenly behind me and whipped me up, seated me on his shoulder and carried me off into the sea. It required all my balance to keep safe when so suddenly seized. I did not know I was being scrambled for as the lightest person. I hate that way of being carried, with my five fingers digging into the skull of my bearer, with one of his wrists placed lightly across my ankles, while he holds up his clothes with the other; and I do not like being perched between the elbows of two men, whose hands are clasped far beneath me, while I clutch their dirty throats. It is much nicer to be carried in both arms like a baby.

Our ship lay tossing so far out that we had to be put in a good large boat first and as I sat amidships I was well ducked when those who had been pushing the boat off all jumped in, shedding sheets of water from their garments.

Our ship did not look smart; on the contrary it looked so untidy that it had a kind of mossy, woolly, licheny appearance. There was no ladder, so it was rather hard to climb up the side in that uneasy sea. My first care was to scramble up ropes and various other things to survey the little deck, sure that Saleh had taken care of himself. There were two charpoys or stretchers tied one to each side of this little deck, and we determined that Imam Sharif should have one, and the 'botanist' the other. Saleh's things were settled on the latter. I at once ousted them and lay down till the proper occupant appeared, looking evidently anxious to assume a recumbent position.

Saleh then put himself and his property in a place which I told him was inconvenient as no one could pass.

'I only stay here a little while,' he said. 'Mr. Lunt has my place.'

'Your place!' I said. 'How did you get a place?'

'I told the Nakhoda to keep that place for me.'

I said, 'Had you first asked Mr. Bent where he wished you to sleep or where he wished Mr. Lunt to sleep?'

'No.'

'Well remember that Mr. Bent is master on board this ship and I am mistress,' I said. 'I have given that bed to Mr. Lunt, and you can go there, and as you have a habit of spitting on floors and carpets you will now spit overboard or you will move.' So Saleh began to take a back seat. He was positively afraid to be among the servants.

Any excitement at sea is welcome, so we now began to take a great interest in him and Mahmoud. We were quite anxious as to whether they would be sea-sick or not. You might wonder why we cared, but this is the reason.

If they were sea-sick their fast of Ramazan would be broken, and all their previous fasting would go for nothing; they would gain nothing by going on with it, and might eat as much as they liked.

All the Indian party had taken advantage of the excuse of travelling to eat as usual.

Mahmoud soon broke down and rejoiced greatly thereafter, but Saleh reached the end of the day and his evening meal in safety, but his fast came to an abrupt termination early in the morning.

Does it not seem a wildly funny idea that putting food into your mouth by the back door (the throat) involuntarily should be quite as bad for your soul as voluntarily putting it in at the front door (the lips)?

We started at half-past five and reached Makalla at sunrise the following morning, Easter Sunday, March 25. Our arrival being announced, the Sultan Manassar invited us to see him, and he and his ugly sons were all dressed up again, and we had tea and halwa. Saleh kept running about trying to whisper to all the wazirs. My husband kept him under his eye as much as possible, but once he escaped and ran back and begged the sultan for a box of honey and a carpet. He only got the former, so he returned and was very abusive to my husband, saying it was his fault; I told him he could say what he liked at Aden, but had better be quiet as long as he was on the sea with us.

My husband graciously gave permission to ship a cargo of frankincense, and the ship was filled with delightfully sweet, clean bales, on which our luggage and men could be accommodated, and we were glad of the ballast.

We had three more days and nights on the sea, and during the last had a miserable fear of a calm; but at last a fine wind sprang up and we whizzed along, all sitting up in our beds, loudly rejoicing with one another on the prospects of our arrival at the haven where we would be, which took place at sunrise on March the 27th.

I am thankful to say that the work of our expedition was successful in all its branches; but what we should have done without Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur, I cannot tell. He was the greatest help to us in every way, and it was an untold comfort to have one brave person as anxious to get on as ourselves. I have always been sorry that the map was made on so small a scale—eight miles to an inch. It would have been more useful to future travellers had it been larger. The spelling had, of course, to be according to the ancient Indian method, and not that now recommended by the Royal Geographical Society, to which I have adhered myself.

The year before, when we were embarking for England on board a Messageries steamer at Aden, we noticed an Indian gentleman standing in the angle of the landing of the ladder to let us and our baggage pass, and little we thought how well we should know that Indian gentleman, and he on his side had no inkling how far he would travel, two successive years, with all that baggage around him; it would have been so interesting could we have guessed. Imam Sharif was returning from Zanzibar, and leaving that ship to tranship for India.