 36 We were up and off before the sun rose, our party being increased by Sultan Salaam, brother to the Fadli Sultan, he was twenty and though not dark in color, has woolly hair. He and the soldiers and the wazir, Abdullah bin Abdurrahman, rode at some distance to our left between us and the dangerous Yafai Towers, the Qadam, or Qadam range, which separates the Wadi Yeramees from the Abiyan, is a mass of arid peaks, none reaching to more than two thousand feet. A road leads from Al-Mahaa across the mountains to the sea at Asala. We reach Karyat el-Mahsuf, about ten, the valleys getting narrower and more woody and grassy as we approached. There is an ancient fort on the hill, six hundred fifty feet above the valley and about a thousand three hundred above the sea, with a glorious view over the Qadam range to the sea. There is another ruin of a round fort on the left of the valley. We went on a mile to a delightful place, where there were trees, water, and reeds, and beautiful views through sandy glades to the mountain peaks and many cattle. We wished to remain there, but were told it was better to get onto Naa'ab, as there was a little danger. We quite understood that danger was a bogey to prevent us keeping them from a town, and we pointed out that the yafi were not likely to come down a light-colored mountain side with only a few tamarisks into a valley half a mile wide. So my husband firmly said we would stay on the clean sand. Here we saw many baboons. The first ruin is probably Persian, or later Arabian. The second one, which is a mile further up the Wadi Yaramis than the first, is evidently hemeritic and protected the first town after Bana on the way to the Hadraman. It is circular, crowning a hill 300 feet high and enclosing a space of 50 yards in diameter. On the northeast side it is protected by five square towers and has one gate to the south. It was the acropolis of a large town, lying in all directions, but chiefly to the northeast. It has evidently been a place of considerable strength as the Wadi Yaramis is only half a mile wide here. There is a regular stream of water in a narrow channel and the whole valley is green and fertile. Before we entered this narrow part of the valley it was curious to see below the peaked mountains a flat-topped effusion of basalt called Borum, advanced forward. We made a very early start next morning and gradually got into a thick, low wood, but where the Wadi Yaramis widened out there were only tamarisks. Our ascent was rapid and after about an hour we turned due east, this part being very bare-looking. Though there were a good many horrid acacias and also euphorbias with rounded trunks, we soon burst upon a lovely plain all mapped out in fields and arbors. It is six miles to Naab and we took three hours. We passed through full two miles of this fertility with three or four villages, Sawat, Nogat, Arawa, and Old Naab with mosque, minar and a fine old house all tumbling into ruins. Wadi Yaramis is much opened out here and the lower part is bounded by the basalt and walls about 200 feet high, sometimes with mounds within them again and helix of the same formation as the high mountains. This cultivated paradise is the property of Sultan Hamat bin Salam, brother to the Sultan Salah of the coast, and may be said to be the pick of his whole dominions. Arawa, or new Naab, has twenty-four shops and the Sultan gets half a real, or merry Teresa dollar, on all merchandise, camels going up to the Balad Yafai. There were many bales of merchandise in a sort of custom house when we arrived at this great center of inland traffic. We encamped on the opposite side of the wadi from the town of Arawa, which is perched on a raised plateau of earth banks. When we halted and had climbed up, there was a line of people waiting to salute us. We and Sultan Salam walked in front, our eleven men with guns walked behind singing a mergahazi, or salutation song of which I have a copy. We halted again and they fired ten salutes, then we advanced again. Sultan Salam Leading When twenty of the local Sultan's soldiers came forward and kissed his hand and shook ours, then there was a refreshment of five or six cups of coffee and ginger, very weak, on the floor in a tower. There was milk in the first cups, but it became exhausted. We never saw the Sultan all the time we were there, for they said he had a wound in his leg. The earthen cliffs are about thirty feet high and we had to go a very roundabout way to get up them by very narrow gullies. My husband went up a hill, your odd. Just behind Na'ab, with an old Arab fort on it above the Yiramees, which ends here, then begins wadi Raban, with a clear course northeast for three miles, then north and then a long stretch east again. There was a lovely view over the Yafai Mountains on the north and Ghadam Range on the south. A bedou, Abdallah, who went with him, told him all the names. Though he could understand when the Bedouin talked to him, he could not understand two talking together. Abdallah said he had been a soldier in the Sultan's service, but when my husband asked how long he answered four, five, six years, I never had it written down. The Bedou gave my husband some food called Kaharo, roast millet seeds put in a mug with boiled milk, not at all bad. The Sultan, Salam bin Salas, old abandoned castle, had some nice decoration about it. They left it because there were so many genie, i.e. ghosts in it. Our informant had not seen them, but only heard of them. March the 12th my husband went up what he thought was the highest mountain of the Ghadam Range. Minzoko, just behind Na'ab, and made it 2,000 feet, but considered when he got to the top that its neighbor, Haida Na'ab, was 30 or 40 feet higher. The Tariq Minzoko goes between them. The Sultan sent to our camp some bowls of food, soup, and a fowl cut up and cooked in gravy, very rich with oil and onions. It would have been good but for the stuffy bitter taste of myrrh, which they like so much to put in their food. He also sent us red cakes of millet bread, a poet of Na'ab, made a murg hazi on us during our stay about our treatment by the Yafai Sultan, how he had demanded money of us and how he had bidden us return to Aden. This was thought so excellent by everybody that my husband was forced to take a copy of it from Dictation, and Sultan Salam took a copy back to Shukra. Our party was now increased by another Prince, Sultan Haidar, son of the Sultan of Na'ab. A person delightful to contemplate, he was got up in Badau style. His hair, fluffy and long, was tied behind by a fillet, and stuck out in a bush behind. He had a curious countenance and very weak eyes. He was wrapped in a couple of large blue cotton cloths with very long fringes, half a yard at least. The cotton is plastered with indigo even beyond the dye, and when calendered, as the clothes are when new, bling purple and red, the richer you are, the bluer you are, and Sultan Haidar was very blue indeed. The curious thing about these blue people is that, as the prominent parts of the face and body are the darkest, there is an odd inside-out effect. While in Na'ab, we had our usual number of patients, but the one we were most interested in was a woman who had a dreadfully sore foot. The foot was very much swollen, and there was a sore on her instep and ankle in which one could nearly put one's fist. This had never been washed, though it had been going on for some years, and it had a dressing composed of half a pound or so of dates stuffed into it. The poor creature lay on sort of a bedstead, or char-poy, in a tidy little house consisting of one room and lighted only by the door. My husband set off at once half a mile back to camp to fetch the necessary relief, and I waited, sitting on a cloak that someone rolled up on the floor, for there was not even a carpet to sit on. I was afraid of various insects, but I could not rudely stand, and I should have had to stand at good time, as my husband had a mile to walk. When he returned, he syringed the sore with Condi's fluid, and I cleaned it with bits of wadding, and the woman with her nails, in a way that made me shudder, but she did not seem to hurt herself. Then we put on zinc ointment. She drew her bedding from under her foot so that the water streamed through the bed to the floor, which was earthen, and below the level of the door. There was a big puddle, of course, and I feared they would have mud to contend with, but a woman soon came with a basket full of dry sand, and by constantly brushing it up when wet into a palm leaf dustpan quickly cleaned up all the mess. We went daily to attend to this foot, and at last, if not much better, it was improved by becoming thoroughly clean, foot, leg, and all, and its poor owner was cheered and looked much brighter herself. We left her all the zinc ointment we had remaining to use first, a milk tinful of ointment composed by me from pure lanolin, vaseline, and zinc powder to go on with, and some grease-proof paper to spread it on. A lot of tabloids of permanganate of potash and directions to pour it from a water vessel very clean. Before the family would undertake to receive these final instructions, we had to wait while some elderly persons were fetched, reputed wise acres, evidently. And it was like teaching a class, the poor things with such earnest faces were determined to make very sure they all thoroughly understood what to do. An old man took each thing and handed it to the husband, telling him how to use it, and we all consulted as to the best niches in the roof in which to stow the things safely. They at least long for us to stay, and we felt sorry to go. One feels so helpless, face to face, with such misery. I do hope she got well. The first day we visited this house, a great crowd came after us, but they were turned out with sticks and fastened out in a very ingenious way. Most of the houses were surrounded by a fence of prickly brushwood in which is an entrance three or four feet wide outside this stands on its head with its root in the air, a bush. The root has a rope of twisted palm leaf attached to it. You enter and pull the rope. The bush stands on its side then and blocks up the entrance. The rope is secured inside to a bar which is fixed across the threshold and no one can pass this strange and thorny gate. The bush is, of course, wider than the gateway. Certainly Arabians are not all that one expect. I never can believe that Mohammedans in general can consider dogs so very unclean when they have so many about them. And one tribe in the Saudan is called keleb, dogs. We used to hear also that they all shaved their heads leaving one lock only for Mohammed to draw them up into heaven. They do all kinds of things to their hair and the only people I ever saw with one lock were the Yorks in Asia Minor and I think it was only a fashion. Some people think that all the rude efforts of aborigines and uncultivated tribes are inspired by true or wisdom then are the results of science and civilization and amongst other things turbines are pointed out to us as an instance of the good sense of people in hot climates who know how necessary it is to protect their heads from sun. If so, why do some cover their heads with turbans and some not? And why do those who wear turbans take them off to cool their heads in the sun and some accidentally leave a bit of head exposed when they put the turbine on without ever finding it out? Some never covered the middle of the head at all but only won the turbine round. My theory, which may be wrong, is that it is really worn for ornament as a diadem in the original sense of the word just tied round the head as a mark of dignity. Once or twice, our camp being on the far side of the valley from the town, we managed to give the slip to the spearmen who otherwise would have accompanied us and sneaked up a very narrow little wadi where we found a good many flowers and enjoyed this very much. Wild beasts live in holes in these hills and on the extreme top of the mountain my husband ascended was found a big goat that had been killed in the wadi the night before. A little hairy animal called Uabri was brought to our camp. When we left Na'ab we turned into the wadi Reban to Sharia, three hours and ten minutes, seven geographical miles, four northeast and three north and ascended 350 feet. Wadi Reban is a quarter of a mile wide near Na'ab but after two miles opens out and there are gardens and now and again running water appears and plenty of trees. At the fourth mile near Afort we turned sharply to the north past Jabel Rea where Wadi Rea comes in and then reached a wide open space where Wadi Saleb joins in. Jabel Sha'as was beyond us very high and Wadi Gahiyuda to the right. This large open space is girt with mountains 500 to 5000 feet high and is a great junction for the waters from Wadi Reban, Saleb, and Gahiyuda. It was once exceedingly populous. There are here no less than four old villages called Sharia. Two considerable towns were perched on the rocks forming gates to the Wadi Saleb and two others at a great elevation on the opposite side. The cause of the decrease in population in Arabia must be the constant inter-tribal warfare and the gradual filling up of the valleys with sand, great backs of sand 20 feet high line the riverbeds and wash away with the heavy rains which contribute to the silting up. This country must have been very fertile to have supported the population for the four towns must have been large. The stone buildings along would make any one of the four larger than most towns in Arabia today and there must have been the usual hut population. We had a very pleasant camp among trees and had a steep scramble to the ruins. An enthusiastic geologist would have enjoyed our next day's journey immensely. We went through such a strange weird volcanic valley not a Wadi but a Shiaeb narrower and shallower. The road is called Tariq Asauda. The strata of the rocks are heaped up at a very steep angle and we had to ride along smooth rocks sometimes without any trace of a road at all among the stones. Sometimes we had to make very great windings amongst heaps and helix of all sorts of different colored earths. Hardly a green thing was to be seen and altogether the whole place looked dreary and desolate. But we were much interested in this day's journey among the great scarred and seen volcanic mountains. We ascended 650 feet, very difficult indeed, traveling about seven miles in four hours. The steepest part is called Aqaba Asauda. We reached the headboarder of the Wadi Gehiyuda at the top of the Aqaba, 2,000 feet from sea level. Na'ab is 1,000 feet above sea level. Thence Tushiriya is 350 and thence to Gehiyuda 650. We passed Dogotar and Mhider, mere names. We encamped on a waste of stones. No tent pegs could be used and it was windy and cold. There are gazelle in this part and we had some for dinner. Now was our time to send Bamosaban to the camp of the sultans, three very gay blankets for them and Abdullah Ben Abdu-Rahman. The long name of the Wasir's father had constantly to be on our lips, on account of his dignity. For they are like the Russians in that respect, common people's fathers are not mentioned. The name was marvelously shortened to Medaraman. We were thought to be in danger that night and did not make a very early start as we had to load up with water. And we too climbed down 350 feet into the wadi Gehiyuda that I might take photographs. It was so pretty with pools of water and creepers hanging on the trees. The sultans, meanwhile, sat up in their beds of leaves wrapped in their blankets. How absurd it seems that two princes and a prime minister should have to sleep out because two English choose to travel in their country. Not a word of thanks did we ever get for those blankets, but they were evidently much appreciated, for their recipients sat on their camels wrapped overhead and ears in them in the blazing sun. We join the camels on the way, and after two hours of stones, ascended the very steep Aqaba Beva. The view from the hills above, about 2500 feet, is splendid. All the Yafa'i mountains and the guddam range ending at Haida Naaab and giving place to the higher mountains of Raqab and Gehiuda. We descended, but not much, into the lovely wadi Hadda, full of trees smothered with a kind of vine, with thick, glossy, India rubber-like leaves. Then we went on straight up Aqaba Hadda to the huge plain of Mishal, full of villages, but ill-supplied with water. There are only some very bad wells for the cattle, and they have to fetch drinking water from afar. From Renab and Lammas, we engaged a Bedou's camel to keep us supplied while resting our own. The plain is 2700 feet above the sea. The sheikh's name is Muhammad bin Nasr Naka'i. This is the first time we heard this pronunciation of the prophet's name. He was determined to give us a grand reception. Sheikh Sale had gone forward to announce us from Gehiuda, and he came to meet us on his pony, down both Aqabahs, a fearful journey. We always liked Sheikh Sale very much. He was the sheikh of Tirqeg. His hair and his shaggy chest were not white, but a lovely sky blue. In that part of the world, old people's hair is not dyed red with henna, as it is in other parts of Arabia and Asia Minor and in Persia, so the effect of the indigo can be seen. From a distance, we could see the preparations. There was a long line on the sandy plain of between 2 and 300 bedwing, naked, save for blue scarf round their waists, with dagger, powderhorn, etc. stuck in. Some had guns, match locks, and some had spears. They mostly had their long hair tied up and sticking out in a fuzz behind, as funny a long line of men as ever one saw. We dismounted nearly a quarter of a mile off, and all our party advanced hand in hand, 14 besides ourselves and Matthios. We being the only ones who did not know the words in which to chant our response to the welcoming shout. This they interpreted occasionally by the high gurgling sound they are so fond of, constantly coming out of the rank, one or other, and firing a gun and retiring. The blue-bearded Shakespeare galloped up and down in front of us, twirling his spear. We stopped 150 yards from them, and after much firing, the spearmen began to parade before us in a serpentine way, two and two, backwards and forwards, zigzag, and round and round the gunners, gradually getting nearer and nearer to us, and dragging the gunners after them, with a red flag, a sayid, and their sheikh, Mohammed bin Nas, between them. When they got quite close, they welcomed us, and we said, peace to them. They passed us so many times that we could see and notice them well. Some were very tall, one who was very lame, led his tiny little boy. The Lancers danced very prettily, having a man a little way in front of them, executing wild capers, and throwing up his spear and catching it, singing all the wild songs of welcome. We could not understand more than some illusions, which assured us they were composed for the occasion. After many gyrations, they retired to their former place, and then a herald came forward, and made a solemn address of welcome. Then our turn came, and we sent forth a line of men, with Sultan Haider in it, to sing and let off guns. When the two lines met, they shook hands and kissed, the sultans and sayids being kissed on the forehead, and the upper part of the leg. When they returned to us, all our party joined hands to go to our camp. Now ready, a good distance off, all keeping step, in a kind of stilted, prancing way, singing. The spearmen in front danced with all manner of light and graceful antics, and we were nearly stifled with the dust, and the din was so appalling that we arrived quite dazed at our tents after this welcome, which had lasted fully an hour. We were the first white people who had been at Mishal. I tore my camera from its case, to take a photograph before the people left us, and it did better than I could have expected in such a crowd, with no sun and so much whirling dust. The town consists of a low square dar, and a collection of brushwood arbors, so slight that there is no pretension of concealing anything that goes on inside. We were very thankful for a large pot of coffee and ginger, sent by a sultan, and a fat lamb. The princes ventured to leave us in charge of Abdullah bin Abdulrahman, and abode in the tower. Sultan Haida went home from here. The table land of Mishal is approached by three akibas, one Sauda to 2,000 feet, two Bever to 2,500 feet, three Hadda to 2,750 feet. The Nakai tribe lives here, and are in friendly terms with their neighbours, the Fathli, a sufficiently rare circumstance in this country. The Nakai chief can put 400 men in the field to help the Fathli. The Markeshi were at war with them. They live in the Qoddam range, and had been giving the sultan trouble lately. The road to Shukra, most frequented, is the Tarikal Arkob. Eastward goes the road to the Hadramut, over the plain. Northward is the mountainous country of the Aoudeli tribe, where they told us, quote, It is sometimes so cold that the rain is hard and quite white, and the water like stone, end quote. The plain is ten or fifteen miles long, by about four or five miles at its broadest. If irrigated, it would yield enormously. The well is of great depth, but the water very bad. My husband ascended a mountain about 3,000 feet high, but only 400 feet above the plain, with a most remarkable view of the Aoudeli mountains, about 20 miles away, towering up to a great height. Far higher than the Yafaa'i range, which Mr. Tate gives as 7,000 feet, these are probably 10,000 feet. The range must run for 30 or 40 miles from east to west, with few breaks and no peaks. We were not well the last day at Mishal. The Aoudeli women paint red lines under their eyes, and down their noses, and round their foreheads, with a kind of earth dye, which they call hissen. Sometimes there is a round spot on the forehead, and red triangles on the cheeks. One woman had her face literally dyed scarlet all over. She had a heavy necklace of beads, and carried the sheepskin coat, that she could not wear in the hot plain, rolled up and laid on her head. It is curious how dissatisfied dark people seem to be with the colour of their skins, so often trying to lighten it. The fairness of the English is in some places attributed to the soap they use. We took advantage of the curiosity of the Aoudeli, who had just arrived with a kafila, to make them stay in our camp and question them. The El-Khaor Mountains look most fascinating to see, only from a distance. They are inhabited by lawless tribes, owing allegiance to no man, and having no wholesome fear of the Wali of Aden, before their eyes, would murder any traveller who ventured among them. They are all Bedouin. The Aoudeli are a very large tribe, and say they have 4,000 men for war. The Markashi can put 500 or 600 in the field, and the Fazli 2,000. Lauda, the chief town of the Aoudeli, is much bigger than Shiba. There are many Arabs. The Sultan is Muhammad bin Saleh. It is 6 hours from Misal, 34 miles, and is situated below the mountains. Above it is El-Bathar, Sultan Saleh. Beled El-Meghaba, in the upper Yafi country, is under Sultan Haqam Muhammad bin Ali. Sabad El-Bayda al-Rasas, where there must be lead, is not under the Turks. El-Aoudeli lives there. Neither is Sahib Lauda under the Turks. The inhabitants are Awgari. This has a very soft guttural. The Arabic, Zeen. Our next stage was Bir Lammas, about 4 miles off, mostly across the monotonous plain. We passed 4 dars and villages. In time of war, the Fazli Sultan comes and occupies one of these dars. We met sheikhs walking with little battle axes on long poles, weapons in war, and in peace used for chopping wood, at all times emblems of their rank. The plain at length broke away, and we got into the narrow, and not very deep, wooded, Wadi El-Mimin. It has very precipitous sides of basalt, brown in colour, and making a very untidy attempt at being columnar. Bir Lammas is a great, and I must add, very dirty, halting place for caravans, going to Shukra, on the Tariq El-Arkob, to El-Kaur, and the Wadi Hadramut. We were 2 nights at Bir Lammas. I was too ill to go about at all, but I could not resist going out to see some baboons, which came to look at us from the low cliffs. I'm sure their leader must have been 4 feet long without his tail. My husband, who went for a climb, came to pretty close quarters with a striped hyena. We were encamped about 380 yards off from the well, and thought it a very pretty place, with acacia trees, and creepers hanging in long trails, and making arbours of all of them. The women do all the work here, having to fetch water from Bir Lammas and Ghenab for Mishal. The children, up to 14 years of age, tend the flocks, and the men stroll about, or sit in very war-like-looking conclaves, with guns and spears. Young children have wooden gembears to accustom them to their use, and it is funny to see tiny urchins of three or four hurling reeds at each other in imitation of their elders with more deadly weapons. The Bedouin seemed born in an element of war. One, we heard of, had lasted 15 years, but was happily now stopped for a little while. On a hill near the plain, about half a mile from Bir Lammas, there are ruins of good style, probably of the Ashabir period of Hamdani. We were to ride five hours to the next water after Bir Lammas. I felt it would be an awful journey, as I was becoming more and more inert. But I was able to jump onto my camel as usual. I begged my husband to tell me, as each hour passed, being quite determined never to ask too soon, but every time I did ask, it turned out to be only 20 minutes from the last time. We were soon out of Wadi Lammas, and went over stony plains with basalt scattered over them, and no possible place to encamp, which I was keenly on the lookout for. We went through a curious little pass, not high, but a very narrow cutting, just wide enough for us to ride through, for 300 yards, and then we had to wind down steeply at the other side over rocks. I began to feel that I had no control over my legs, and I hardly cared to change my position for going up or downhill, and once when my camel slipped down about five feet, I started to fall off headlong, but a bedou caught me by my leg and held me on. If I had fallen, as the path was very narrow, the camel would surely have stepped on me. I should certainly have cracked my skull first. Camels are not like horses. They do not object to stepping on people. A late Sultan of Shukra fell from his camel and was trampled on, and, quote, though the Quran was read to him, and herries or talismans were put on him, his breath would not stay in him, but came out in half an hour, end quote. Herries are put on camels to make them strong. My husband's camel had one, of which its master was very proud. At last we came to the Wadi Samloof, and I begged that we might stop and have a camel fetched for water. I had to be dragged from my camel and laid in the cindalike sand till the tent was pitched, for, as my malarial fever was constant, and I had no tertian intervals, I lost my strength completely. Both my husband and I, and several others were very ill, and we were not strong enough to get at our medicine chest. The water was very bad. The Sultan Salim and other grandees camped at the more dangerous open mouth of the valley. The place where we pitched the tents was very pretty. There were trees and very fantastic peaky rocks against the sky, and a great step about three feet high, which had once been a wave of basalt, black on the yellow sand. The camelmen used to spread their beds and light their fire on this sort of stage by night, but they spent the day under the trees. The last night we were in the Wadi Samloof, there was a great noise, guns firing, parties going out to reconnoiter, and shouting, but it turned out that the newcomers who arrived at such an unseasonable hour were sent by the Sultan of Shukra to welcome and escort us. From this spot I had to be carried to the sea, 17 miles on my bed, which was strengthened with tent pegs and slung on tent poles. From the little Sultan downwards, there was not one who did not help most kindly. We went down gently 3,000 feet. I cannot describe this journey, except that it was so very winding that I seemed to see the camel's meeting and passing me often. Fortunately, the crossing of the low-hot Abiyen was short. I dreaded the journey as I thought my bearers would not keep step, but they did wonderfully well, though of course they had no path to walk in, for two men and the bed were far too wide for any path there was. I saw one man double up his legs and go over a bolder 3 feet or 4 feet high, and they kept me very even too, and only dropped my head once. The bearers changed as smoothly as if they were accustomed to it, and were always saying something kind to me. I was not pleased at first at being carried off very suddenly head first, but it was certainly sweeter not having all those men in front of me, and I rejoiced in a delicious sea wind which blew stronger and stronger, and just seemed to keep me alive. I was very grateful to them, and took good care never to ask if we had still far to go. How glad I was to find myself in a rushing, roaring, rabble route of men, women and children tearing along beside me, not a thing I generally like, but now it told me of the end of my weary journey. I was deposited on my bed in a tower, tent pegs and poles removed, and left with a spearman on the doorstep to keep off intruders. The rest of our miserable fever-stricken party came in half an hour later. The Sultan of the Fathley came to our tent to see us, a pleasant-faced, mustard-coloured man, and also his wife, the daughter of an Aidan sheikh, a very handsome woman. They were very kind in sending milk, watermelons, and any little luxury they could. The Sultan lived in a fine brown building with a stunted tower, a glorified Arab house, but nothing like those in the Hadramut. They send sharks-fins to China from here, as well as from Sokotra and the Somali coast. This is probably Ptolemy's Agmanisfe Kome. It is just the right distance from Arabia Emporium, that is, one day, so we found it. There was the greatest difficulty in getting a boat, for none of the ships wished to go to Aidan for fear of quarantine, as they would be supposed to be coming from the plague-stricken Bombay. My husband promised a hundred rupees for every day, and the Sultan compelled a captain, whose baggala was loaded for Mughalla, to take us to Aidan, by refusing to give him his papers otherwise. Our last moments at Shukra were spent lying on the sand with our heads on a bag, and sheltered by a little bit of sacking on three sticks. The Sultan sat over us on a high chair, saying very polite things. We were lifted on board our ship at three o'clock, and from the ship admired Shukra, which looked very picturesque in the evening haze, with its towers, its few trees, and its many-peaked, goddamn mountains behind. We reached Aidan at three next afternoon. This is all I can write about this journey. It would have been better told, but that I only am left to tell it.