time come up and commenced unlading. Zaido placed two mats under the shade of some closely-growing mimosa trees, and one or two of the escort, who seemed willing to patronize me for the sake of the few buttons or needles I could bestow upon them, brought their mats and laid them down all around me. A rude sense of politeness seemed to prevent their pressing inconveniently near me; but I suspected it was merely the hollow affectation of courtesy by the most cold-blooded assassins I ever met or ever read of; it was necessary therefore that I should be careful to give them no excuse for attempting my life, acting as courteously as possible, distributing needles and bits of paper, loading and firing my pistols repeatedly for their amusement during the day. Having smashed, on one occasion, an earthen coffee-pot that the owner had challenged me to fire at, they were quite satisfied that I could as easily demolish an elephant with one of the little insignificant looking things that they saw I always wore at my waist, and this feeling I did not endeavour to dissipate, as I saw it had a very good effect upon the bearing of these men towards me. An accident that happened also, by which one of them was nearly shot, made them not over anxious to trust themselves too near to me or my pistols, and turned out to be a fortunate circumstance, by preventing them from closing and crowding around me. As evening drew on, Zaido, who had prepared me a breakfast in the morning of boiled rice and dates, now cooked me some kid's flesh, a portion of a present I had received in the course of the day from some Bedouin shepherds who were tending their flocks of sheep and goats in the neighbourhood, and who had sent it in by some of their children.'

On the next day, while they were still within sight of the bay of Tajurah, Mr. Cruttenden, having seen Mr. Johnston and the stores fairly off, and so fulfilled the object of his coming, sailed from Tajurah, and announced his departure by the firing of a gun. This was no sooner heard than the two chief men of the natives, who had engaged to accompany the kafilah to a halting place a certain distance on the road to Shoa, and had been paid accordingly, presented themselves to Mr. Johnston to announce their intention of returning to Tajurah.

They proceeded slowly, but without interruption, until the sixth day's halt. The Debenee, a tribe of Bedouin Arabs, had declared that no white man should pass again through their country, owing to a dispute about the division of five or six thousand dollars which they asserted the Sultaun had received from the English, in payment for the purchase of some small islands in the Bay of Tajurah. The murder of three of Captain Harris's European escort, eight or nine days' journey inland, was a painful evidence of the vindictive spirit thus excited..

The camels being unloaded, I slept for two or three hourswhen Obmed Mahomed came and awakened me, to ask me to load my guns and pistols, as the Bedouins were collecting on the opposite height to

oppose our farther progress. I always kept my carabine and three waist pistols in readiness, and on this intimation I soon charged, in addition, a fowling-piece, and also produced two holster pistols from my saddlebags. It was now nearly three o'clock, and a slight sea-breeze blowing over the land cooled the air, whilst groups of our merchants and cameldrivers were performing their afternoon prayers. As the prayers went on amongst our people, the loud whooping of the collecting tribe was answered by my escort, who stood upon the slope on our right, and facing that upon which were our opponents. Garahmee, Moosa Gra, and Adam Burrah, spear and shield in hand, leaped round and round, yelling with every bound, and then with lesser jumps, seemed to trample upon the body of some fallen foe.

'Ohmed Mahomed took measures to conciliate, if possible, the opposite party, and some half-bloods of our Kafilah went for the purpose of effecting a treaty, but were unsuccessful, and on their return they were followed by a cloud of the enemy, who now seemed to cover the whole farther side of the valley. All this time I had kept out of sight at the express desire of Ohmed Mahomed; I was anxiously watching the progress of events; for being some hundreds of yards from the men of the Kafilah I expected for a certainty being cut off by some rush of the whooping Bedouins, who, fast advancing, I could now see with my glass, from the inglorious position assigned to me; their bright spearheads glistening in the sun, over the tops of the low jungle through which they were passing. Ohmed Mahomed had depended upon the mere rumour of my fire-arms deterring them from making an attack upon the Kafilah. At first it was not his policy for me to be seen, lest the parade might be deemed by the suspicious and jealous natives as a kind of threat, but finding that they had advanced within three or four hundred yards without any symptom of the usual halt, preliminary to overtures of peace, Ohmed Mahomed sprang to his feet, and brandished his spear in defiance, leaping and yelling to deter their nearer approach. His efforts were answered only by similar cries, and seeing this he called out for me to come immediately and join them; pointing to my pistols I bade Alee bring them along with him, and taking a gun in each hand, with head uncovered, ran quickly up, and as if inoculated with the same savage ferocity as my companions, yelled in a manner that delighted and astonished even them. Adam Burrah, with a loud shout of welcome, came running to meet me, and seizing hold of my wrist dragged me into the front rank with him, where, squatting down on his heels like the rest, he pulled me down by his side. Ohmed Mahomed placed himself on my other side and told me that I must only fire when he placed his hand on my arm, and adding the word "kill" in Arabic, pointed with his spear to a tall young man, who, with unparalleled boldness, had advanced to less than one hundred yards of us.

Considering that this was to be the commencement of the fray, I had taken up my gun, and the man observing this, and the determined front our little band sustained, slowly walked back to his now retiring countrymen, who had, immediately on seeing the bright glaring barrel

of my long fowling-piece, with one consent turned and began a slow retreat, in a long straggling line, to their original position on the opposite height, where, squatting down, they assumed like ourselves an attitude of defence. Garahmee appeared to have assumed the character of commander-in-chief of our forces, walking backwards and forwards between the two extremities of the little semicircle we formed. In one hand he held a small twig, which he waved about most energetically, as he recited some long speech of a very fiercely-sounding character. Occasionally he tapped upon the head any of the party who, tired of the sitting position, attempted to rest himself by standing up. This part of their tactics I observed was particularly insisted upon, and was done, I was told, to prevent the enemy from obtaining a correct knowledge of the numbers of their opponents. Garahmee was a recognised authority: a marshal with his baton would not have been more implicitly obeyed by his army than was this half-naked savage by his wild companions.'

In this uncomfortable position they remained until after sunset, when the hostile tribe agreed to give the caravan a safe conduct through their country, which was written in Arabic and

drawn up in a very official manner. In return they were to receive three pieces of blue cotton cloth, to be divided among the tribe, to which Mr. Johnston added a bag of rice from his own stores. The next day was diversified by an attempt of two of the principal savages of his escort to get him away from the camp and murder him for the sake of the dollars they imagined he carried about him.

'I was too fatigued to take a survey of the country, and sat down under a stunted mimosa tree, over which I cast my black Arab cloak to increase the shade. Garahmee and Moosa, whom I had noticed all day together in earnest conversation, now came up and desired me with apparent kindness to accompany them to a cave, situated about a quarter of a mile from the camp, and upon my not immediately complying, went and brought Ohmed Mahomed, who repeated the invitation to go to a "tihebe bait" (a good house) with him. I had no objection, so gathering myself up with no little difficulty, for I was very tired, we all went to the den of some wild beast, where scattered bones and other traces indicated its recent occupation. I pulled off my boots and belt and laid them with my pistols at some little distance from me, and should have gone immediately to sleep had not Ohmed Mahomed made preparations to depart, and told me, as he went, that I must not sleep till Zaido came with my rice. This was quite an accidental observation, and so natural that I only asked him to send Zaido quickly, and placed myself at full length across the entrance of the cave, which was not above eight feet wide, so that Moosa and Garahmee, who had been squatting in their usual manner in front, could not conveniently come in. Some moments after Ohmed Mahomed left, Garahmee, under pretence of stretching himself, laid down his spear, and turning round walked some little way until he could get a good view of the camp, towards which he looked with an inquisitive gaze, that told me at once I had

been betrayed into this place for the purpose of assassination, and felt assured that a struggle for my life was now at hand. My heart beat thick, but I determined not to show the least symptom of mistrust until their game had begun; and placing myself a little more under cover of the roof of the cave, awaited the first signal of attack to seize my pistols and defend myself as best I might. It may be astonishing how two men could so far overcome the fear of being instantly killed by my fire-arms; but Garahmee, who was a most cunning fellow, never dreamt that his son, as he called me, suspected his design, so carelessly had I been accustomed to trust myself with him. His first step was to endeayour to take Ohmed Mahomed's place in the cave, but this I instantly objected to in a tone so suddenly harsh that he started and sat down again, just at my feet but outside the cave. His shield, held before

him, concealed his whole body, a black face and bushy head of hair alone appearing above its upper edge; his spear was held perpendicularly, with its butt end placed upon the earth, in the usual manner when an attack is meditated.

'Garahmee was evidently disconcerted by my refusal to admit him into the cave; but seeing me apparently undisturbed, he took his seat at my head, and asked peremptorily for some dollars; "and Moosa wants some, too," added he, looking with an expression readily understood by the latter worthy, who instantly rose, and taking the place just vacated by Garahmee, seconded the motion by holding out his hand for "numms" (dollars). Drawing the belt and pouch towards me, in the loops of which were still my pistols, I took one of them into my hand, and, throwing myself as far back in the cave as I could, told them that I had no dollars for them until I got to Abasha (Abyssinia), at the same time telling Moosa to go for Ohmed Maliomed and Ebin Izaak. They were taken rather aback at the strong position I had assumed and the decided manner in which I had met the first step to an outrage; for amongst these people a demand for something always precedes the attack, to enable them to throw their victim, even if he suspect their object, off his guard, in the vain hope that he might be able to purchase peace by giving them what they ask for. Neither party now knew what further to do. I had done sufficient for defence, and they found that they had too suddenly for their purpose laid themselves open to my suspicion; but Garahmee with ready thought, on my telling Moosa a second time to go, volunteered to be the bearer of the message himself, and retiring, relieved me of his presence and himself of the unpleasant feeling of having been completely foiled, and seeing, besides, that I was perfectly aware of his intentions.'

They now descended through a singular country to the remarkable Bahr Assal, or Salt Lake.

'As the valley of Alephanta, which we were now entering, contracted suddenly, the bases of the conical hills on each side approached very near to each other, and around them, in a most serpentine course, our road now lay. Scarcely a trace of vegetation appeared to enliven this land of desolation: it was most truly "the valley of the shadow of death," for at very short distances lay the bleaching half-eaten bones of

the camels and mules that had here found the last difficulty of the journey from Tajurah too much for their powers of endurance, and falling, had been deserted by their owners. The monarch of the place, a magnificent lion, stood on a small rocky ledge, about half-way up one of the surrounding hills. He kept his face steadily turned towards the Kafilah, moving round as its long line marched silently past. My carabine was cocked in a moment, for I concluded that he was meditating an attack; but my companions intimated that if we left him alone he would keep his distance and not molest us. Once I gave the long-drawn death halloo of the chase; but all the natives gathered hurriedly around me to prevent my repeating it, and I found that I had only succeeded in frightening them, without having had any other effect upon the lion but the slow lashing with his tail of his yellow sides, a movement that indicated anger rather than fear. He, however, respected our numbers, and we left him still gazing in his original position, until the last of the camels had placed the shoulder of a projecting hill between him and them. We followed a narrow path, ascending and descending the steep sides of numerous low conical formed hills of large loose stones that occasionally detached themselves from under the feet, and went dashing down to a little secondary ridge of the debris accumulating at the bottom. All around were these hills of stones, treeless, herbless, shrubless: a greater impression of desolation never occurred to my mind; greater even than that produced by the widely-spreading open deserts of Arabia, or the long and dark valleys between the wave mountains of the seas to the south of the Cape, which, under a gloomy sky, struck me, I recollect, when I was amidst them, as more nearly allied to the character of human despair than anything I could have imagined in the physical world. Two hours were occupied in passing through this valley, "where the devil lies stoned.""

Some days' journey farther they came to the only huts or fixed habitations he had seen of the natives.

There were about twenty or thirty of them, but Ohmed Mahomed, with great gravity, informed me that the name of the city was Herhowlee. On my expressing a wish to see the interior of one of the mansions, a very handsome girl, to whom Ohmed Mahomed applied, immediately assented and took me to her father's, I suppose, for there was no one to be seen but an old gentleman nearly blind. He was busily employed stirring with a stick some kind of grain, which was boiling in a red earthenware pot over the fire. The house was about twelve feet long by six in breadth and height, consisting of a frame of bent twigs, over which were laid mats of the palm leaf. The fireplace was a small circle of stones, occupying one-half of the end; there was nothing like furniture except a flat stone reared against the side of the room, which, from its mealy appearance, was evidently used as a mill. From the roof was hung one of the large water-tight baskets of the common construction, containing the family riches of tobacco, beads, bits of paper, coloured rags, and lumps of sheep's tail fat. Few natives interrupted me in my examination, as they evidently thought I was fascinated with