LEAVE AZBOTEE. 475 



nomalee. Himyah and a Tajourah merchant were 

 put in charge of the Kafilah, the latter, who had a 

 mule, lending it to Ohmed Medina, so that four of 

 us were mounted. We all looked very gay in our 

 new or clean clothing, and the mules pranced 

 along, shaking their heads like a band of animal 

 performers delighting in sweet sounds, for, fastened 

 around their necks were some pounds of music in 

 the shape of large iron bells, suspended from 

 tinkling brass chains, which occasioned together a 

 very harmonious jingle, not so soft, perhaps, as an 

 iEolian harp, but which, considering our situation, 

 was quite as striking in effect. 



We proceeded at a quick rate, for the escort, 

 with some followers from the Kafilahs, like a lot of 

 boys just broke loose from school, were racing and 

 shouting nearly the whole way, tearing through the 

 low bushes and shrubs like water rushing over a 

 noisy fall. In this manner we travelled along for 

 some distance, by sunrise reaching the gently 

 sloping banks of the small stream running along 

 the bottom of the valley of Kokki, its channel cut 

 through a stratum of very coarse pebbly gravel, and 

 strewn with large rolled stones. 



About half-way between Azbotee and Kokki we 

 passed a small kairn of stones, nearly five feet high, 

 covered with decayed branches of several kinds of 

 trees. This was the grave of a greatly revered 

 sheik, and all of my companions supplied them- 

 selves with a little of the foliage of any tree that 



