At Adab they would not allow us to dip our vessels in their well, nor take our repast under the shadow of their mosque: even the women of this village ventured to insult us, peeping into our tent at night, and tumbling over the jugs in a manner most aggravating to the weary occupants. The soldiers had abandoned us and gone to sleep in the village.
A dreary waste of sand led past Kerren to Badorah. I arrived first with Imam Sharif, a servant, and a soldier. We dismounted, as there was some surveying to be done. The people were quite friendly, we thought, though they crowded round me shouting to see the 'woman.' I went to some women grouped at a little distance, and we had no trouble as long as we were there. We had left before the camels came and heard that the rest of the party had been very badly received, stones were thrown, and shouts raised of 'Pigs! Infidels! Dogs! Come down from your camels and we will cut your throats.' We attributed this to Saleh Hassan, for he made enemies for us wherever we went. At this village they were busy making indigo dye in large jars like those of the forty thieves. We were soon out of the Nahad country.
Our troubles on the score of rudeness were happily terminated at Haura, where a huge castle, belonging to the Al Kaiti family, dominates a humble village, surrounded by palm groves. Without photographs to bear out my statement, I should hardly dare to describe the magnificence of these castles in the Hadhramout. That at Haura is seven stories high, and covers fully an acre of ground beneath the beetling cliff, with battlements, towers, and machicolations bearing a striking likeness to Holyrood; but Holyrood is built of stone, and Haura, save for the first story, is built of sun-dried bricks, and if Haura stood where Holyrood does, or in a rainy climate, it would long ago have crumbled away.
Haura is supposed to be the site of an ancient Himyaritic town. We were told that the sultan of Hagarein is not entirely under Makalla, but that he of Haura is.
The castle of the sultan is nice and clean inside, and it was pleasant, after some very reviving cups of coffee and ginger, and some very public conversation, to find our canvas homes all erected on a hard field—a pleasant change from our late dusty places. Mahmoud obtained a fox, which was his first mammal, saving a bushy-tailed rat. We were sent a lamb and a box of honey, and soon after the governor arrived to request a present. He asked thirty rupees but got twenty, and the new soldiers in place of the Nahadi men were to have five rupees on arrival at Koton. We were now nearing the palace of Sultan Salàh-bin-Mohammad al Kaiti of Shibahm, the most powerful monarch in the Hadhramout, who has spent twelve years of his life in India, and whose reception of us was going to be magnificent, our escort told us.
As we were leaving Haura, just standing about waiting to mount, I felt something hard in one finger of my glove which I was putting on. I thought it was a dry leaf and hooked it down with my nail and shook it into my hand. Imagine my terror on lifting my glove at seeing a scorpion wriggling there. I dropped it quickly, shouting for Mahmoud and the collecting-bottle, and then caught it in a handkerchief. This was the way that Buthia Bentii introduced himself to the scientific world, for he was of a new species. It turned out that the 'oldest soldier' was father to the sultan of Haura. He went no farther with us.
The next day, three miles after leaving Haura, we quitted the Wadi Kasr and at last, at the village of Alimani, entered the main valley of the Hadhramout. It is here very broad, being at least eight miles from cliff to cliff, and receives collateral valleys from all sides, forming, as it were, a great basin. Hitherto our way had been generally northward, from Makalla to Tokhum, north-east, and then north-west; now we turned westward down the great valley, though still with a slight northward tendency.
We passed Ghanima, Ajlania on a rock to the right, and Henan and the Wadi Menwab behind it on our left. Wellsted, in his list of the Hadhramout towns, mentions Henan as Ainan, and as a very ancient town, on the hill near which are inscriptions and rude sculptures.
For seven hours we travelled along the valley, which from its width was like a plain till we were within a mile of the castle of Al Koton, where the sultan of Shibahm resides. Thus far all was desert and sand, but suddenly the valley narrows, and a long vista of cultivation was spread before us. Here miles of the valley are covered with palm groves. Bright green patches of lucerne called kadhlb, almost dazzling to look upon after the arid waste, and numerous other kinds of grain are raised by irrigation, for the Hadhramout has beneath its expanse of sand a river running, the waters of which are obtained by digging deep wells. Skin buckets are let down by ropes and drawn up by cattle by means of a steep slope, and then the water is distributed for cultivation through narrow channels; it is at best a fierce struggle with nature to produce these crops, for the rainfall can never be depended upon. We had intended to push on to Al Koton, but Sultan Salàh sent a messenger to beg us not to arrive till the following morning, that his preparations to receive us might be suitable to our dignity, as the first English travellers to visit his domains. So we encamped just on the edge of the cultivation, about a mile off, at Ferhud, where under the shade of palm-trees there is a beautiful well of brackish water, with four oxen, two at each side to draw up the water.
Outside the cultivation in its arid waste of sand the Hadhramout produces but little; now and again we came across groups of the camelthorn, tall trees somewhat resembling the holm oak. It is in Arabic a most complicated tree. Its fruit, like a small crab apple, is called b'dom, very refreshing, and making an excellent preserve; its leaves, which they powder and use as soap, are called ghasl, meaning 'washing'; whereas the tree itself is called ailb, and is dearly loved by the camels, who stretch their long necks to feed off its branches.