Gara tribes, which were described by Carter about fifty years ago '. 

 This great promontory sweeps round to the east in one of the 

 grandest escarpments on the coast. It is six miles in length, 

 and, although quite perpendicular, is deeply worn into shelves 

 under the shelter of which the people live ; and as night comes 

 on, the lights of these rock- dwellings are seen flickering on the 

 face of the precipice. Mr. Carter observed the people moving 

 about in the most perilous positions, and adds that in all 

 probability the great size of the clifi" rendered it difficult to form 

 a just estimate of the width of the shelves ; but the Mahrah 

 pilot of the ' Palinurus ' assured him that it was no uncommon 

 occurrence for them to fall over and be drowned. This head- 

 land defines the western limit of the bay of El Kamar, inland 

 from which runs another great level expanse, wholly barren with 

 the exception of a few desert herbs. It is the beginning of 

 another enormous valley, along which trade is said to be carried 

 on with the Hadramut. The eastern side of the expanse termi- 

 nates at Eas Tharbat Ali, 200 feet high, the seaward end of the 

 Fattak ridge of mountains, immediately to the east of which lies 

 another valley with the village of Damkot at its entrance, on a 

 narrow sandy shore where a few miserable date-palms struggle 

 for existence. This village is closed in, except towards the sea, 

 by inaccessible mountains 3000 feet in height, perfectly barren, 

 save on their summits which are more or less covered with grass 

 and dotted over with small trees. The coast preserves this cha- 

 racter as far as "Ras Seger, a distance of about forty miles ; but 

 here and there a few narrow ravines lead down from the mountains . 

 Carter visited one of these gorges, and found its sides wooded 

 with acacias, balsams, and euphorbias. 



Eas Seger is a gigantic headland, 3380 feet high, the sides of 

 which, where not perpendicular, are covered with trees, and the 

 plateau above with long grass, while numerous caves occur in 

 the precipices. Beyond this headland is Eas el Ahmar, or the 

 Eed Cape, defining the western limit of the fertile maritime 

 plain of Dhofar which is shut in behind by lofty mountains. It 

 is the most favoured spot on the coast of South-East Arabia, and 

 is the laud of the famous frankincense tree. 



^ " Notes on the Mahrah tribe of Southern Arabia, with a vocabulary of 

 their Language, to which are appended additional observations on the Grara 

 tribe.'' Journ. Bombay Branch Eoy. As. Soc. ii. 1848, pp. 339-364. "Notes 

 on the Gara tribe," id. op. cit. pp. 195-201, and plate. 



