16 



and watered by streams diverted into channels of irrigation. Still 

 ascending amidst these magnificent surrounding.^, the traveller 

 at last emerges on a vast plateau over 4000 feet High, great level 

 tracts of which are destitute of even a blade of grass and thickly 

 covered by small black stones, while tliroughout its extent it is 

 studded over, more or less, with low isolated hillocks, forming a 

 monotonous, dreary expanse, the horizon unbroken by a single 

 mountain-top. In traversing this plateau, it is found to be cut 

 into by numerous wddis running towards the north, and in their 

 beginnings mimosa, frankincense, and myrrb shrubs are found, 

 witb other scanty vegetation, and in these localities an occasional 

 Bedouin woman may be met with tending her hardy but half- 

 starved flock of goats. Thi'ee days are spent crossing this 

 featureless, gloomy, untenanted desert towards the valley down 

 wliich the route lies to the Hadramut. This plateau is essentially 

 waterless, no stream or spring being present in any part of it, 

 but as occasional storms burst over it, tanks exist along the 

 route for the storage of the water; but, owing to the rapid 

 evaporation in this dry climate, these reservoirs are usually found 

 to be empty, except immediately after rain. "When the traveller 

 reaches the margin of the plateau, where the route descends into 

 the Wadi Doau, an astonishing and unlooked-for scene opens out 

 before him, not distinctive of this valley alone, but common to 

 nearly all the many long valleys that pursue a northerly course 

 to the great Valley of the Hadramut, tbat is, to the Wadi Masilah. 

 Standing in sucli a spot, the plateau is found to dip down perpen- 

 dicularly for 1000 to 1500 feet into the valley below, and in some 

 parts the cliffs stand out like a succession of gigantic castles ; 

 but they generally terminate below in a slope of disintegration 

 on which the towns and villages are built, the bottom of the 

 valley being cultivated and covered with extensive groves of date- 

 palms. Wrede describes a flowing stream in that part of the 

 Wadi Doau where lie entered it, 20 feet broad, enclosed by high 

 walled embankments and winding through fields laid out in 

 terraces ; and Ilirsch, who descended into the valley at Sif, says 

 that the channel of the river, when viewed from above, stretched 

 like a white thread through the valley, and into it he saw flowing 

 the Al Aisar from the south ; the soil carefully divided out and 

 cultivated, with plantations of palms, and Zizyphus spina-cJiristi 

 everywhere. 



