52 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
kins, and are well supplied with honey, besides owning 
donkeys, cattle, goats, and sheep. The few camels they 
possess are raised for eating, or for their milk, but are 
never used as beasts of burden in this rough country. 
The natives, as usual, believed we had come with our large 
caravan only through divine dispensation. 
The first view of Sheikh Husein was from a valley a 
little to the southeast. As we emerged from between two 
high mountains we came suddenly in full view of the town, 
a long line of thatched houses, with the five white tombs 
and some stone mosques, high above us on a broad-topped 
hill with sloping sides. One of the white, honeycombed 
buildings was different from the rest,— the tomb of 
Sheikh Husein, that illustrious traveller and priest of 
whom I had heard so much lately. It was a huge square 
stone building, forty feet across, the walls being projected 
above the roof at the four corners so as to form parapets, 
while from the centre rose a handsome dome thirty feet 
high. The tomb was surrounded by a high stone wall, 
and this again, together with two other stone buildings, 
was within a square a hundred and fifty feet across, sur- 
rounded by a wall ten feet high, and having a large, hand- 
some gateway. Everywhere the stone was covered with 
white plaster, so that the buildings shone resplendent 
against the dark green of the giant euphorbias and syca- 
mores that grew about the hilltop; and, moreover, there 
was a considerable attempt at ornamentation and archi- 
tecture in the various structures. The body of the saint 
lies in a crypt surrounded by four stone columns. 
As we ascended the hill slowly and in excellent order, 
my boys presented a most picturesque appearance. After 
the little party of Europeans, with the tent boys and gun- 
bearers, walked Idris, in gorgeous Arab costume, very 
solemnly, with measured tread and head bowed low, 
