16 PERSONAL NAliRATIVE. 



The road was pretty well marked across the plain, 

 through a narrow gorge between basalt rocks, where the 

 Haddas has cut its way through the little spur of 

 volcanic beds stretching south from the Gadam range, 

 and thence along the dry sandy watercourse, to the base 

 of the hills. Along the banks of this watercourse are 

 some fine tamarisk trees, affording shelter to numerous 

 bulbuls {Pycnonotus arsinoe), hombills {Tockus ery- 

 ihrorliynchus), barbets {Trachyphonus margaritatus), 

 and other birds, whilst under their shade the red-throated 

 francolins (Pternestes rubricollis), Beni Israel antelopes, 

 and hares abounded, and on the surrounding plain we 

 saw a few of both kinds of gazelle. I shot a doe Soem- 

 mering's gazelle, and could have killed another, but, 

 having no means of carrying the animal in, I let it go. 

 At the base of the main mass of hills the road entered 

 upon metamorphic rocks, and traversed a small gorge 

 cut through them, in which, for the first time since land- 

 ing on the African coast, our eyes were gladdened with 

 the sight of running water, and immediately after we 

 reached the camp at Hadoda. 



It was far from a lively sight. A few very dusty 

 tents were surrounded by a thorn fence, and some very 

 miserable-looking Indian native troopers lounged about, 

 backed by a huge herd of camels, the most helpless, 

 stupid, and melancholy-looking of all the beasts of the 

 universe. A dismounted dragoon is proverbial, and 

 certainly a dismounted sowar, if those who garrisoned 

 the posts at Hadoda and Wia be taken as fair specimens, 

 is not an improvement on the European prototype. No 



