dren lay upon it to a posy of glowing | mysterious smells and was alive with hues. So beautiful and transparent, flies; so we worked hard to get our methinks, were the stains that in this preparations made and to make our soworld fell upon the character of my journ in this uncongenial, burning spot dear old friend. as short as possible.

of the good ladies to sit for her photograph, or rather to sit still whilst something was being done which she did not in the least understand.

everywhere redolent with their stench. | After much persuasion we induced one
We had just enough strength of mind
to commence the first of many quarrels
with our camel-men, and insist on be-
ing taken two miles further on away
from the smells, where beneath the
pleasant shade of some palm-trees we
halted for the remainder of the day,
and recovered from the agonies of our
start.

Leaving these villages behind us, we climbed rapidly higher and higher, until, at an elevation of over five thousand feet, we found ourselves at last on a broad, level plateau, stretching as Three days' camel riding up one of far as the eye could reach in every the short valleys which leads towards direction, and shutting off the Hadrathe high plateau offered little of interest mut from the coast. This is the mons beyond arid rocks and burnt-up, sand- excelsus of Pliny; here we have the covered valleys. Here and there, where vast area where once flourished the warm volcanic streams rise out of the frankincense and the myrrh. Of the ground, the wilderness is converted latter shrub there is plenty left, and it into a luxurious garden, in which is still tapped for its odoriferous sap; palms, tobacco, and other green things but of the former we only saw one 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.

specimen on the plateau, for in the lapse of ages the wealth of this country has steadily disappeared; further east, however, in the Mahri country, there is, I understand, a considerable quantity left.

Words cannot express the desolate aspect of this vast plateau. Akaba, or "the going up," as the Arabs call it, is exclusively Bedouin property, and wherever there is a little herbage to be found, thither the nomads drive their flocks and young camels; there is no

Then we entered the narrow, tortuous valley of Howeri, which ascends towards the plateau, 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-sign of habitation over its whole exgrounds, and not to pitch our tents in panse; only here and there a few the immediate vicinity of the wells. tanks are dug to collect rain water if There are two villages at the head of any falls, but the air is fresh and the Wadi Howeri, where there is actu- invigorating after the excessive heat of ally a ghail-that rare phenomenon in the valleys below. After travelling Arabia, a running stream. Here the along this plateau for three days, we Bedouin inhabitants cultivate the date at length reached the valley system palm, and have green patches of lu- which centres in the broad Hadramut. cerne and grain, very refreshing to the To the south and to the north of the eye. At Al Bat-ha we actually reposed main valley are cut out of this plateau, under a spreading tree, a wild, uned-like slices out of a cake, numerous ible fig called Luthba by the Arabs, a collateral branches, deep, narrow, and nickname given to all worthless, idle straight. From all points of the plaindividuals in these parts. Bedouin teau the descent into them is precipwomen 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.

itous, and on either side of them rise these red stratified walls nearly a thousand feet high.

Our first peep down into the Wadi Al Aisa, towards which our Bedouins

sunt Adramita pagus Sabæorum in monte ex1 Pliny, xii. 14, § 52: "In medio Arabia fere celso."

had conducted us, was striking in the cornelian set in base silver, and agates extreme, and as we gazed down into and small tusks also set in silver. Not the narrow valley with its line of vege- far from Khaileh we saw a fine village tation and numerous villages, we felt which we were told was inhabited by as if we were on the edge of another Arabs of pure blood, so we sent a world. It had not been our intention polite message to the seyyid, or headto visit the Wadi Al Aisa, but to ap-man of the place, to ask if we might proach the Hadramut by another valley pay him our respects. His reply was called Dowan; but our camel-men to the effect that if we paid thirty dolwould not take us that way, and pur-lars we might come and pass four hours posely got up a scare that the men of in his town. Needless to say, we Khoreba at the head of Wadi Dowan declined the invitation with thanks, were going to attack us, and would and on the morrow when we marched refuse to let us pass. A convenient up the Wadi Al Aisa we gave the abode old woman was found who professed of this hospitable seyyid a wide berth. to bring this news, a dodge subse- Shief was the name of the next vilquently resorted to by another Bedouin lage at which we halted for a night, tribe which wanted to govern our also inhabited by pure Arabs, who progress. So we humbly descended treated us with excessive rudeness. It into the Wadi Al Aisa, and found our- is a very picturesque spot, perched on selves encamped hard by the village of a rock, with towers and turrets conKhaileh, the headquarters of the Khai-structed of sun-dried brick; only here, like tribe, within a stone's throw of as elsewhere in these valleys, the Mikaic's father's house and under the houses are so exactly the same color as shadow of the castle of his uncle, who the rock behind them that they lose is the sheikh of the tribe. These their effect. The rich have evidently worthies both extorted from us sub-recognized this difficulty and whitewash stantial sums of money and sold us food their houses, but in the poorer villages at exorbitant prices, and thus it was there is no whitewash, and consethat we learnt why we were not per- quently nothing to make them stand mitted to go to Khoreba, and why the out from their surroundings. Arab old woman and her story had been girls before they enter the harem and produced. 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 color for the nose is red; green spots adorn the cheek, and the general aspect is grotesque beyond description. My wife tells me that the belles in the sultan's harem are also painted in this fashion, and that they also paint gloves on their hands and shoes on their feet, and thus bedizened hope to secure the affections of their lords. At Shief the men would not allow my wife to ap

We thought Mikaic 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 Bedouin and his poverty underwent considerable change. During the two days we encamped at Khaileh 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 ex-proach or hold any intercourse with the ceedingly heavy girdles of brass, their anklets of brass half a foot deep, their bracelets of brass, their iran nose rings, and their massive and numerous earrings which tore down the lobe of the ear with their weight. Every Bedouin, male or female, has a ring or charm of

Arab women, using opprobrious epithets when she tried to make friendly overtures, with the quaint result that whenever Mrs. Bent advanced towards a group of gazing females they fled precipitately like a flock of sheep before a collie dog. These women wear

their dresses high in front, showing | accompanied by his friends bearing their yellow legs above the knee, and torches, and singing and speechifying long behind; they are of deep blue cotton decorated with fine embroidery and patches of yellow and red sewn on in pattern. It is the universal female dress in Hadramut, 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 (Gen. x. 28). The tall, tapering straw hat worn by these women when in the fields contributes with the mask to make the Hadrami females as externally repulsive as the most jealous of husbands could desire.

to their heart's content. On a subsequent occasion at Ghail ba Wazir 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 bid 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 The town of Hajarein is the princi- her arms a mass of bracelets up to the pal one in the collateral valleys, and is elbow, and her breast was hidden by a built on a lofty isolated rock in the multiplicity of necklaces. Her face, of middle of the Wadi Kasr, about twenty course, was painted yellow, with black miles before it joins the main valley. lines over her eyes and mouth like With its towers and turrets it recalled heavy moustaches reaching to her ears, to our minds as we saw it in the dis- and from her nose hung something tance certain hill-set medieval villages which looked to us like a gold coin. of Germany and Italy. Here a vice- The bride herself evidently had no obsultan governs on behalf of the Al jection to our presence, but the threatKaiti family, an ill-conditioned, extor-ening aspect of her women compelled tionate individual, whose bad recep- us reluctantly to retire. tion of us contributed to his subsequent removal from office. Internally Hajarein 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, and the day of rest we proposed for ourselves here was spent in fighting with our old camel-men who left us here, and 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.

During the days we were at Hajarein 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 call ulultà. From our roof we watched the bridegroom's nocturnal procession to his bride's house,

Near Hajarein are many traces of the olden days when the frankincense trade flourished, and when the town of Dowani, which name is still retained in the Wadi Dowan, 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 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." The Nahad tribe occupy about ten miles of the valley through which we passed, and the toll-money we paid to this tribe

66

for the privilege of passing by was the | palace of Sultan Salah bin Mohammad most exorbitant demanded from us on Al Kaiti of Shibahm, the most powerour journey. When once you have ful monarch in the Hadramut, who has paid the toll-money (siyar), and have spent twelve years of his life in India, with you the escort (siyara) of the and whose reception of us was going to tribe, you are practically safe wherever be magnificent, our escort told us. you may travel in Arabia; but this did The day after leaving Haura we ennot prevent us from being grossly in- tered the main valley, and were then sulted as we passed by certain Nahad in the Hadramut proper, for this name villages, the inhabitants of which is only used by the natives to indicate crowded round our camels, calling us the most inhabited portion of the big dogs " and " pigs," ," and bidding us main valley, and is never applied by come down, that they might cut our them to the collateral valleys, the plainfidel throats. A town called Kaidun teau, or the coast line. At the village is the chief centre of this tribe where of Alimanieh, where we entered the dwells a very holy man celebrated all main valley, it is very broad, eight the country round for his miracles aud miles at least from cliff to cliff, receivgood works. We purposely avoided ing at this point collateral valleys from passing too near this town, and after-all sides, which form a basin in its wards learnt that it was owing to the influence of this very holy seyyid that our reception was so bad amongst the Nahad tribe. At Assab 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 guys in a man-arid waste, and numerous other kinds ner most aggravating to the weary occupants.

midst. Until we were within a mile of the castle of Al Katan, where the sultan of Shibahm resides, all was desest 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, almost dazzling to look upon after the

of grain are raised by irrigation, for the Hadramut 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

Our troubles on this score 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 of a steep slope, and then the water is to bear out my statement, I should distributed for cultivation by narrow hardly dare to describe the magnifi- channels; it is at best a fierce struggle cence of these castles in the Hadra- with nature to produce these crops, mut.

That at Haura is seven stories for the rainfall can never be depended high, and covers fully an acre of ground upon. Sultan Salah sent a messenger beneath the beetling cliff, with battle- to beg us not to arrive till the following ments, towers, and machicolations bear-morning, that his reception of us might ing a striking likeness to Holyrood. be suitable to our dignity, as the first But Holyrood is built of stone, and English travellers to visit his domains. Haura, save for the first story, is built of sun-dried bricks; and if Haura stood where Holyrood does, or in any other country save dry, arid Arabia, it Would long ago have melted away. The vice-sultan of Haura received us right well, and immediately gave us hot spiced coffee in his spacious guesthall, and sent kids to our camp as a present, for we were now nearing the

So we encamped just outside the cultivation, and were soon visited by the sultan's two viziers, magnificent individuals mounted on spirited Arab steeds, with plaided turbans, long lances, and many gold mohrs fixed on to their dagger handles, all of which argued well for our reception on the morrow by the sultan of Shibahm.

Like a fairy palace of the Arabian