ABHA il 
person, but, that if he wished to be paid for what we had received, I 
must refer him to Hamed Chamie, to whom I had entrusted every 
arrangement of this nature. I was advised by the Ras's people to give 
him thirty dollars, being assured by them, at the same time, that 
this would be the last expense of the kind, there being no person 
between this place and Antalow, who would think of making any 
demand upon us. As the Baharnegash had really been very friendly, 
I ordered Hamed Chamie to give him twenty dollars, which, to my 
surprise, was received with great satisfaction. I now gave orders 
for the mules to be loaded, when the Baharnegash came up, with a 
very serious air, and informed me that he had intelligence of a 
large body of armed men, three thousand in number, who had as- 
sembled in order to intercept us, and that unless he were with us we 
should run great risk of being plundered ; he again therefore 
begged that we would stay till the morrow. I told him, in return, 
that we were not easily alarmed, being well provided with fire- 
arms in case of molestation, and, if we were overpowered by 
numbers, the aggressors would be answerable with their lives to 
the Ras, who, I had no doubt, would take exemplary vengeance on 
them ; more words, therefore, on the subject were useless, since I 
was determined to proceed immediately in spite of every obstacle. 
This put an end to the scheme which had been planned for our 
detention ; in which I have every reason to believe that Negada 
Moosa, if not Hadjee Hamed, was concerned. 
At half past eight we left Abha, and waited on the first rising 
ground about half an hour till all our baggage came up. We were 
at first somewhat surprised at seeing great numbers of the villagers 
with goats, calves, and other cattle closely following, or passing by 
VOL. III. c 
