KHRABTU. 159 



like thing occurring to them, at the same time 

 balancing the open hand horizontally, giving the 

 outer edges of it an undulatory movement, a mode 

 of expressing surprise, very common among this 

 people. 



Khrabtu, the name of the place where we halted, 

 was an open space, where three dry watercourses 

 met, surrounded by high crumbling cliffs of a dark- 

 coloured lava rock. A little pool of dirty water, 

 at some distance from the camp, was the only 

 representative of the streams which, during the 

 rains, flow through this ravine into the plain we 

 had just crossed. Around us were large mimosa 

 trees, the lower branches of which were hung with 

 the decaying and rotten remains of the uprooted 

 palm and other trees and shrubs which had been 

 brought down, and thus entangled, by the floods of 

 the previous year. In what I should presume, during 

 the time of the inundations, were small islands, 

 young doom palms made a thick jungle with their 

 large, strong foliage, and after the camels were un- 

 loaded, it appeared a great object with the drivers 

 to collect large bundles of the green leaves, and 

 during the rest of the day all w r ere occupied in 

 removing the strong midrib of each long lobe, the 

 strips being preserved, as the material with which 

 they sewed up the holes and worn-out corners 

 of the salt-bags, that were beginning to be some- 

 what the worse for the journey. The Hy Sou- 

 maulee, who had no mats, or palm-leaf bags to 



