348 THE WIFE OF MOOSA 



to take us out of the narrow valley tract of 

 Kuditee, and to bring us again into the country 

 of the Debenee, the chief of which division of this 

 extensive tribe was named Abu Bukeree. 



Ohmed Mahomed took an opportunity of telling 

 me that when he accompanied the British Mission 

 on their journey to Shoa, their Kafllah then went 

 one day's journey to the north, for the purpose of 

 avoiding the Wahama at Kuditee. The Tajourah 

 people had hoped by this means to have defeated 

 the machinations of Mahomed Allee, the favoured of 

 the Embassy, to assume here the Bas ul Kafilahship. 

 Although so short a journey, numerous were the 

 mischances of the camels to-day, who were con- 

 tinually falling from the bad management of their 

 loads, consequent upon our hurried start. I was 

 not very sorry either when we halted, for I felt 

 quite tired, and fell fast asleep upon the ground 

 whilst my hut was being erected. Moosa rather 

 suddenly awakened me to introduce an elderly lady, 

 his wife. She brought me a present of a skin of 

 milk and a fowl, the sight of which rather 

 surprised me, for I had not seen one since leaving 

 Aden, either at Tajourah or on the road. Much 

 curiosity was evinced by my Bedouin friends to 

 know if I had ever seen one before, and for some 

 time they imagined, as I did not know the name of 

 it in Arabic, that it must be a great rarity to me ; 

 but I satisfied them, at last, of its being an old 

 acquaintance of mine by giving a regular crow. 



