Leaving Metneh in the afternoon, we pushed on through Bauan, with its strange market, toward our night’s resting-place. The road still continues to ascend, and is in most parts very rough and bad, rendering travelling by no means pleasant. However, any unpleasantness from this was amply repaid by the magnificent view that from time to time met our gaze. The track was leading us along the summit of a mountain-top, which to the north looked straight down into a great valley thousands of feet below. What a wonderful valley it was, full of coffee-groves, and luxuriating in all the glories of gorgeous vegetation, amongst which banana-leaves could be plainly distinguished, waving their great green heads! Amongst all this verdure, clinging as it seemed to the mountain-sides, were villages, each crowned by its _burj_ or fort, the whole perched on some overhanging rock. On to their very roofs we seemed to look. Often on the road I would rest for a few minutes to gaze in wonderment on this entrancing scene, until, as evening came on, filmy mists rose from the valley, and concealed from view all but the opposite mountain-peaks, torn and rugged, which rose above the sea of iridescent cloud like great cathedral steeples. What a land it is, the Yemen! What a world of romance and history lies hid in those great mountain valleys! What tales the little, sparkling, dancing rivulets could tell, for often, I wot, their limpid waters have run red with blood! Night fell, and the scene became one of still grey silence, weird and strange. After reaching an altitude of ten thousand feet above the sea-level the road began to descend, and we passed once or twice through villages, crowned by their strange towers, until at length Sôk el-Khamis, our night’s resting-place, was reached. There are several of these villages in its vicinity, and one we passed was occupied by Turkish troops, whose riotous laughter and singing jarred on the peaceful sounds of night, the humming of the insects and the soft hoot-hoot of the rock owls. We stopped at one of these strange tower-like buildings, and my guard informed me that this was our halting-place. After repeated knockings at a heavy wooden door we were admitted into a yard, and from thence entered the house—the way led by a dirty mountaineer in little else but a sheepskin coat, who, with a small oil-lamp, lighted us up a flight of stone stairs into the guest-chamber. A poor enough place it was, and none too clean, its ceiling blackened by the fumes of charcoal-fires, its floor of rough stones and mortar, the ups and downs of which a carpet ill disguised. This was, however, the sole accommodation, and our host plaintively asked us to make ourselves as comfortable as we could, while he went off to search for provisions, adding that the Turkish garrison at the neighbouring village had exhausted the supply.