THE HALTING-PLACE. 235 



conversation, by remarking, " Ah, I see, she does 

 not want a country of stones like this." 



The Kafilah halted for the day close under the 

 southern bank of the plain, a precipitous clifT of 

 an easily disintegrated volcanic stone, the debris of 

 which, from detached rocks of several tons weight 

 to small angular fragments, were strewed along its 

 base some distance into the plain. A little stream 

 was the chief agent of denudation ; in a very 

 serpentine course, it flowed towards the other side, 

 each bank fringed with dwarf shrubs, and its 

 crystal waters set in a bright enamel of a most 

 delicate kind of grass, which, like a bed of green 

 soft moss, extended along its borders. It burst 

 through a narrow and very recently formed channel 

 from the lava-strewn plateau of Mahree above, and 

 in the rear of our camp passed with a rushing im- 

 petuosity, which gradually decreased into the 

 gentlest ripple, as it flowed over its pebbly bed near 

 to the spot where, on our first arrival, we found 

 our friends Ohmed Medina and Garahmee. 



Here, among the thick bushes, I took up my 

 residence for the day, surrounded by the Hy Sou^ 

 maulee, whose heavy war-knives I had undertaken 

 to improve in outward appearance, by fixing a 

 bright dress naval button into a hollow piece of 

 brass, usually placed as an ornament upon the end 

 of the scabbard, but which, without the button to 

 cover the otherwise bare extremity, presented an 

 appearance that was not satisfactory to my educated 



