the accounts of his native admirers
were not to be taken _au pied de la lettre_.

Mukak had six mud rooms, three roofed over and the others unroofed. Water
was plentiful but slightly brackish, and a salt rivulet, a few inches
broad, irrigated a patch or two of cultivation below the rest house.

Among low hills, we rode away first due east from Mukak, the track at a
mile's distance rising to 3,620 feet, and we remained at this altitude
for five miles. Again on this march we obtained a glorious view (at 200 deg.
b.m.) of the Daftan volcano, with its two imposing white domes on the
crater sides. We had then gone north-east for 61/2 miles, when, after
rounding some sand hills, our track proceeded again due east.

We had crossed a plain one mile broad and four and a half miles long,
where there was good grazing (_regheth_) for camels, but no tamarisk. At
the termination of the plateau, which rose some 50 feet higher than the
remainder of it, we commenced to descend by a gentle incline, having high
hills to our left (north) and low hills to our right (south), the track
being due east. To the north-east we had another long, straight,
monotonous spread of fine sand and gravel in slight undulations, and to
the south-west very low ranges of sand hills varying in height from 20
feet to 100 feet. Before us on our left to 100 bearings magnetic
(E.E.S.E.) stood above the plain a pillar-shaped mound of enormous height
resembling, from a distance, a semi-ruined tower, and south-south-east
(150 deg. b.m.) another isolated red mountain with a sharp, needle-like
point. Other smaller rocks, of sugar-loaf form, were scattered about on
our left.

By the roadside an enormous boulder weighing several tons could be seen,
the presence of which could not easily be accounted for unless it had
been shot out by volcanic action. It was most unlike the formation of the
rock in the immediate neighbourhood of it, and had all the appearance of
having dropped at this place.

The track again changed its course and now went to east-south-east, (120 deg.
b.m.). My riding camel was taken very ill, and even Mahommed's most
affectionate language, and the caresses he bestowed on him as if the
animal had been his dearest relation, had no appreciable effect upon his
health. The animal evidently had a colic, caused, no doubt, by excessive
eating of _regheth_ the previous day. He seemed to have the greatest
trouble in dragging his legs along, and every now and t