Rougher and steeper grew the road as we proceeded. At length in the middle of a rocky ascent a shout from behind, answered by one of the men, announced the arrival of the long-expected party, who had seen our signal and were following us; and a few minutes later, in the starlight, for the moon had not yet risen, we could discern dark shadows hurrying along after us on the track. A wild crew they were too, six or seven of them armed with matchlock-guns and spears. Of all the antiquated weapons I have come across upon my travels, these guns of the Yemen are the most curious. The stocks are straight, and end in a lump like a croquet-ball, which forms the shoulder-piece; the barrels are long, and nearly always rusty. A hole in the barrel communicates with a pan on the outside, into which a little loose powder is dropped. The trigger possesses no spring except a weak rebounding arrangement. The nipple is formed like a fork, into which slides the fuse, made of aloe-fibre and slow burning. When the trigger is pulled the “match” descends into the loose powder, and the gun may go off or no. The chances are about equal, I should think. For an hour more we crept along the dark road. Thorny mimosas tore our clothes and baggage and the poor mules’ legs, and at places threatened to bar our passage altogether. Then we left the path, and descending by a steep rocky slope, we entered a deep nullah, half a mile or so along which a halt was called, and my guides informed me that this was to be our night’s resting-place. Fastening the strip of canvas sheeting, or rather such as remained of it after the sandstorm, over the boughs of a thorn-tree, as protection from the heavy dew, we lit a fire and set to work to cook our supper of tough old goat and rancid butter. This bivouac in the ravine below the large village of Azab was the last night spent out in the open; for although we continued for the next few days to take advantage of the darkness to push through the most difficult country, we were able to rest in the _cafés_ of villages, and after Yerim, in the regular caravanserais, some of which had pretensions even to being clean and comfortable. Next morning I was able to see more of my surroundings. We had spent the night in the rocky course of a stream, in some of the pools of which was water. Opposite us the hills rose almost precipitously, strewn with boulders, and here and there tangled in clumps of mimosa-trees and other thorny brushwood. Away up the nullah stood Azab, a village perched on the very summit of a high hill, a confusion of walls and towers.