An hour later, leaving the valley and mounting a steep ascent, we crossed an elevated plateau, finally arriving at the village of Sôk el-Thuluth. I had been given no idea of whither we were going or where our new guide considered it safe for us to rest; and when, on nearing the village, he told me that I might stay there as long as I liked, it was a most pleasant surprise. The streets of the little place were deserted except by the dogs; but after knocking long and loudly at a door, we succeeded in awakening a woman, who turned out to be the proprietress of the small _café_ and caravanserai of the place. She was a good kindly soul, and did not grumble at being turned up at one A.M. on a cold morning. Admitting us into a cave-like room with a stone arched ceiling, reeking with the pungent odours of strong tobacco and coffee—not to mention the odours of its Arab occupants, who lay sleeping about the door rolled up in their dirty sheepskin coats—she lit a fire, put water on to boil, and then commenced by violently kicking the Arabs in order to awake them, calling to them to turn out and make room for a more honoured guest. I persuaded her to leave them in peace,—more out of regard, it must be said, for my own slumbers than for theirs; and calling to Saïd and Abdurrahman to make up my bed on the roof, was soon asleep. When I awoke it was dawn. What a sight met my eyes! Never had I before, and I think never since, seen such a view as lay before me. Sôk el-Thuluth, or “Tuesday market,” as its name implies, is situated above the junctions of the Wadi Banna and Wadi Thuba, on a spur of the mountains of the main valley. Below me lay the great valley up the straight course of which we had been travelling for the last two nights. Over its green fields floated a transparent hazy mist, through which I would watch the river sparkling and flashing like a silver serpent, as it passed on its way to the desert and the sea. Along its banks the dark-foliaged trees stood out clear and defined. On either side of this silver streak lay terraced fields, rising step by step from the water’s edge to where the mountain-slopes became too steep for cultivation. Here they were covered with thick jungle undergrowth, while above rose precipice upon precipice, crowned, thousands of feet in the pink morning sky, by broken crags and pinnacles of rock, touched with snow. At my very feet, for I was on the house-top, the villagers, rejoicing in the glorious morning, were passing out to their labours, and the flocks and herds bleated as they sought their pasturage. Women carrying beakers wended their way to the spring; while the men, spears in hand, their long glossy locks tumbling in unrestrained glory over the shoulders, added a fierce element to a scene of the most perfect peace and beauty. It was worth all the desert travel and all the dangers of our night marches to see what I saw then. This was Arabia Felix! As I gazed the