We were soon out of Wadi Lammas, and went over stony plains with basalt scattered over them, and no possible place to encamp, which I was keenly on the look-out for. We went through a curious little pass, not high, but a very narrow cutting just wide enough for us to ride through, for 300 yards, and then we had to wind down steeply at the other side over rocks. I began to feel that I had no control over my legs and I hardly cared to change my position for going up or down hill, and once when my camel slipped down about 5 feet, I started to fall off headlong, but a Bedou caught me by my leg and held me on. If I had fallen, as the path was very narrow, the camel would surely have stepped on me. I should certainly have cracked my skull first. Camels are not like horses—they do not object to stepping on people.
A late sultan of Shukra fell from his camel and was trampled on, and 'though the Koran was read to him, and herris or talismans were put on him, his breath would not stay in him, but came out in half an hour.' Herrises are put on camels to make them strong; my husband's camel had one, of which its master was very proud.
At last we came to the Wadi Samluf, and I begged that we might stop and have a camel fetched for water. I had to be dragged from my camel, and laid in the cinder-like sand till the tent was pitched, for, as my malarial fever was constant, and I had no tertian intervals, I lost my strength completely. Both my husband and I, and several others were very ill, and we were not strong enough to get at our medicine chest. The water was very bad. The Sultan Salem and other grandees camped at the more dangerous open mouth of the valley.
The place where we pitched the tents was very pretty. There were trees and very fantastic peaky rocks against the sky, and a great step about 3 feet high, which had once been a wave of basalt, black on the yellow sand.
The camel-men used to spread their beds and light their fire on this sort of stage by night, but they spent the day under the trees.
The last night we were in the Wadi Samluf there was a great noise—guns firing, parties going out to reconnoitre, and shouting—but it turned out that the new-comers who arrived at such an unseasonable hour were sent by the sultan of Shukra to welcome and escort us.
From this spot I had to be carried to the sea, seventeen miles, on my bed, which was strengthened with tent-pegs and slung on tent-poles. From the little sultan downwards there was not one who did not help most kindly. We went down gently 3,000 feet. I cannot describe this journey, except that it was so very winding that I seemed to see the camels meeting and passing me often. Fortunately the crossing of the low hot Abyan was short.
I dreaded the journey, as I thought my bearers would not keep step, but they did wonderfully well, though of course they had no path to walk in, for two men and the bed were far too wide for any path there was. I saw one man double up his legs and go over a boulder 3 feet or 4 feet high; and they kept me very even too, and only dropped my head once; the bearers changed as smoothly as if they were accustomed to it, and were always saying something kind to me.
I was not pleased at first at being carried off very suddenly head first, but it was certainly sweeter not having all those men in front of me, and I rejoiced in a delicious sea-wind, which blew stronger and stronger, and just seemed to keep me alive. I was very grateful to them, and took good care never to ask if we had still far to go.
How glad I was to find myself in a rushing, roaring, rabble rout of men, women, and children tearing along beside me!—not a thing I generally like, but now it told me of the end of my weary journey. I was deposited on my bed in a tower, tent-pegs and poles removed, and left with a spearman on the doorstep to keep off intruders. The rest of our miserable fever-stricken party came in half an hour later. The sultan of the Fadhli came to our tent to see us—a pleasant-faced mustard-coloured man; and also his wife, the daughter of an Aden sheikh, a very handsome woman. They were very kind in sending milk, watermelons, and any little luxury they could. The sultan lived in a fine brown building with a stunted tower, a glorified Arab house, but nothing like those in the Hadhramout. They send sharks' fins to China from here, as well as from Sokotra and the Somali coast. This is probably Ptolemy's Agmanisphe Kome. It is just the right distance from Arabia-Emporium, i.e. one day; so we found it. There was the greatest difficulty in getting a boat, for none of the ships wished to go to Aden, for fear of quarantine, as they would be supposed to be coming from the plague-stricken Bombay. My husband promised 100 rupees for every day, and the sultan compelled a captain whose baggala was loaded for Mokalla to take us to Aden, by refusing to give him his papers otherwise.
