Zigzagging down the mountain-side, we arrived before mid-day at the _café_ of Wisil, wonderfully perched on the very edge of the precipice. The place is poor enough, but a few shady huts of grass and mats have been erected round a little terraced garden, over the wall of which one gazes far down into the valley beneath. Here under a shady tree we spread our carpet and refreshed ourselves, revelling in the magnificence of our surroundings. This resting-place was situated at an elevation of a little over four thousand five hundred feet above the sea-level, so that since the morning we had descended some three thousand feet. [Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF EL-HAJRA.] From this spot is obtained perhaps the most extraordinary view of the terraced mountains we had as yet obtained. These surrounding ranges are celebrated for their coffee, principally Jibel Masar and Safan, both of which lie to the north of the road. Away above the terraces the mountains rise in perpendicular precipices, and nearly every peak is crowned with one of the curious towers already described. The view from Wisil was the last we were to see of its kind, for we were fast leaving the mountains behind and descending to the plains, or Teháma, and even from here the change to the country was appreciable, for far away to the west the great mountains became lower, and the horizon was bounded with rough barren hills, very like those we had seen around Jibel Menif, when we left the desert beyond Lahej. A weird old lady served us with coffee and food at our resting-place—a parchment-skinned grinning old hag, half clothed in torn dark-blue rags, with a lot of what looked like dirty bandages wound round her head; but she was a cheery old gossip, and Saïd took advantage of her to exhibit his wit and sarcasm, much to her amusement as well as our own. [Illustration: _View near Wisil._]