86 ARRIVE IN ALIU AMBA. 



in its own snug enclosure, on either side. At the 

 wicket of one of these the animal stopped, and my 

 sudden appearance rather astonished two women 

 w T ho were sitting in the door porch busily spinning 

 cotton. " Woi Gypt, Woi Gypt," they repeatedly 

 exclaimed, as they got up from the ground, just in 

 time to meet Walderheros, who now came running 

 up. He soon explained the mistake of the mule, 

 and taking hold of the bridle, led her about one 

 hundred yards farther along the lane, to a house 

 the most miserable looking of any I had yet seen 

 in the town. 



Here, however, I was informed Lieut. Barker 

 had resided for nearly four months, previously to 

 his return to Aden, and I had been advised, in 

 Ankobar, to live in the same house, at least until a 

 better one could be obtained from the Governor. 

 The landlady was a poor Mahomedan woman, 

 named Miriam, a widow with two children, one a 

 grown up youth of seventeen, named Ibrahim, and 

 the other a daughter, not more than three years 

 old. 



Arrangements were immediately made for my 

 accommodation, and the news of my arrival soon 

 spread about the town. Numerous visitors, Chris- 

 tian and Islam, thronged the entrance of the house 

 all day, the floor being occupied by the more in- 

 fluential ones. I lay in a little recess, just long 

 and deep enough to receive my bedstead, a low 

 wooden frame, with a bottom of interlaced strips 



