that even in our room, with a fire, we suffered considerably. However, one can bear the cold, provided one is free from fever; and, tired and weary after a sleepless night, I lay like a log, and, in spite of the cries of sentries and the occasional blowing of a bugle, did not awake until grey dawn was creeping up, and my men were loading the mules. CHAPTER X. MENAKHA TO HODAIDAH. The road from Menakha to the coast leads one for the first few miles along the mountains on the southern side of the valley, gradually ascending the while, until, an hour or so after leaving the town, an altitude of eight thousand feet above the sea-level is reached. At this spot a spur in the mountain is crossed, near to which is the remarkable village of Kariat el-Hajra, a rock crowned with tall stone houses, many of which are built in the strange fashion of towers. A precipice surrounds the village on every side, the lower slopes of which are cultivated in terraces. The place has the appearance of being a large and important one, and from its position must be exceedingly strong. The country immediately surrounding this spot is very beautiful, there being an abundance of water and no lack of trees, while the terraces and fields were, at the time of my visit, green with young grass and crops, and gorgeous with wild-flowers. Leaving Hajra on the right, the road begins to descend, and soon another village, more extraordinary than that we had already passed, came into sight. This is Attara. From an expanse of terraced slope rises a single pinnacle of rock some hundreds of feet in height, split perpendicularly into two divisions. On the very summit, on which there is only just room for it to stand, is a large building, apparently a house and tower. Although unable to see the track by which this, to the eye, apparently unscalable position is reached, my men informed me that there is a stairway cut in the solid rock, by means of which the inhabitants ascend and descend. Close nestling under the pinnacle is the rest of the village, built tier above tier on the steep mountain-side. The path by which we were descending zigzags down until one arrives in a sort of amphitheatre, of which the village forms an apex. The ground here is richly cultivated with coffee-trees and bananas, growing upon terraces. In one place the jungle seems to have gained possession of what was originally cultivated land, and appears in a mass of euphorbiæ and other strange trees and plants. Here, too, jasmine grows in wonderful abundance, the whole air being filled with its sweet fragrance.