476 THE VALLEY OF KOKKI. 



was near to them. I and the others who were 

 mounted had each a small branch given to us, 

 which, like those of the others, we threw upon the 

 kairn as we passed. Some few of the " mollums," 

 or best learned of the party, recited a short prayer 

 from the Koran, whilst I and the shamefully 

 ignorant satisfied ourselves by calling out two 

 or three times, "Myhisee tymbeeda!" ("Good 

 morning, I hope you sleep well !") The successive 

 repetitions of this expression, as each careless 

 Bedouin deposited his natural wreath and then ran 

 on, was most amusing, and I thought of a lot of 

 children performing some ceremony they had been 

 taught was right, but cared very little how or why 

 it was done. 



The trees in the valley of Kokki more nearly 

 approached the size of English oaks or pines than 

 any I had yet seen, but I disappointed my friends 

 by not alluding to their height or thick trunks. 

 Ebin Izaak at last remarked that I had never seen 

 any like them in my country. I replied, that 

 except whilst young, the trees of England were 

 never less than these, nor did they strike me as 

 being astonishingly large, although I supposed they 

 would appear so to him, accustomed only to the 

 dwarf mimosa-trees of Adal. 



We halted here for two hours, during which 

 time a large herd of cattle, conducted by a few 

 men, were brought to the stream to drink. Both 

 men and cattle had every appearance of being 



