We left our camping ground as the sun began to dip behind the hills shutting in the khor. Our way now lay in a more northeasterly direction, and the sun threw the hills and valleys we were approaching into a marvelous medley of glorious color, and more than one of us regretted that we had not brought our color boxes with us. Sometimes we seemed to catch a glimpse of the heather-clad Highlands of Scotland. Then a twist in the khor we were traversing suggested the rugged passes of Afghanistan. Gazelle and ariel stole among the foot hills or stood gazing at us as near as a stone's throw. One of our party, Mr. Gwynne, commenced stalking a gazelle, but, darkness setting in, the beast got away. For the rest of the journey to Suakim, however, he had good sport, and saved us many a time from going hungry with his shooting for the pot.

About 34 miles from Ariab we came to one of the most interesting spots of the whole journey - the extensive Valley of Khokreb, wherein lay the deserted dervish dem, or stronghold. Here some followers of Osman Digna used to levy toll on all caravans and persons moving toward Suakim, or taking routes south. The dem consisted of a number of well built tokuls, or straw huts, standing in their compounds, with stabling for horses and pounds for cattle. The whole was surrounded with a staked wall, in front of which was a zariba of prickly mimosa bush, to stop a sudden onrush of an enemy. The place was intact, but there was not a living soul within it, or in the vast valley in which it stood, that we could see. In fact, our whole journey up to the present seemed to be through a country that might have been ravished by some plague or bore some fatal curse. As the light of the moon prevailed, we came upon an extensive plain shelving upward toward steep hills. Specks of bright light stood out against the distant background, and we presently found that the moonlight was glinting on spear heads, and soon a line of camels crept toward us, and marching as escort was a small guard of Hadendowahs, with spear and shield.

We found the convoy to be a detachment of a caravan of 160 camel loads of stores sent from Suakim to Berber by that enterprising Greek, Angelo, of the former town. They had been on the road already eight days, having to move cautiously owing to rumors of dervish activity, but had arrived so far safely. We bivouacked for several hours in the Wadi of Salalat, which was quite parklike with its fine growth of sunt trees.

When we had crossed the frontier between Bisheren and Hadendowah country we were in comparative safety regarding any molestation by the natives, for we were escorted by the son of the sheikh of one of the subtribes of the latter country. At all events, I must have been a sore temptation for any evil disposed Fuzzy Wuzzy; for, owing to my camel being badly galled by an ill-fitting saddle, I would find myself for many hours entirely alone picking my way by the light of the moon, the poor brute I was riding not being able to keep pace with the rest. All the following day our route lay over stony plains of a bolder type than any we had yet seen, and when in the heart of the Hadendowah Hills we came suddenly upon a scene in its weirdness the most extraordinary and most appallingly grand I had ever seen. A huge wilderness lay before us like the dry bed of a vast ocean, whose waters by some subterranean convulsion had been sucked into the bowels of the earth, leaving in its whirling eddies the debris of submarine mountains heaped up in rugged confusion or scattered over its sandy bottom. Porphyry and black granite bowlders, in every conceivable form and size, lay strewn over the plain.

Sometimes so fantastic did their shapes become that the least imaginative of our party could picture the gigantic ruins of some mighty citadel, with its ramparts, bastions and towering castle. For many hours we were traversing this weird and desolate valley, and when the sun cast long shadows across our track as he sank to rest, his ruddy light falling upon the dark bowlders, polished with the sand storms of thousands of years, stray pieces of red granite would catch his rosy glint, and sparkle like giant rubies in a setting of black pearls.

We found more life in ten miles of the Hadendowah country than during the whole of the first part of our journey. Flocks of sheep, goats and oxen passed us coming to the wells, or going to some pasturage up in the hills, but few natives came near us, and there were no signs of habitation anywhere. The wells we now passed were mere water holes similar to those met with up country in Australia. The flocks of the natives would hurry down at eventide and drink up all the water that had percolated through the sand during the day, befouling the pools in every conceivable way. Natives seem to revel in water contaminated by all kind of horrors. They wash the sore backs of their camels, bathe their sheep and drink from the same pool. At one large hole round which a number of natives were filling their girbas we halted, and procured some of the liquid, which was muddy and tepid, but wholesomer. A native caravan had camped near by and the Hadendowah escort of spearmen crowded round us.

The Fuzzy Wuzzy is a much more pleasant object when seen through a binocular than when he is close to you. His frizzy locks are generally clotted with rancid butter, his slender garment is not over clean. He is a very plucky individual, as we know, thrifty, and lives upon next to nothing, but many live upon him. Several graybeards came up to salute their sheikh, who was traveling with us, and this they did by pressing his hand many times, and bowing low, but they glanced at us with no amiable eyes, and suddenly turned away. There was no absolute discourtesy; they simply did not want to be introduced. Probably they remembered the incident at Tamai, where many of their friends were pierced with British bullets. So they slung their shields, trailed their spears and turned away.