Out into the desert, with slow patient gait, passed our camels. What a wonderful night it was! I had seen the desert before in other lands, but never to compare to this. In Egypt the nights are cold; here a soft balmy breeze bore on its wings the scent of the mimosa bushes, which dotted the sandy surface. A heavy dew was falling, and seemed to awake every drop of fragrance of the little yellow fluffy buds. Above us a sapphire sky, brilliant with stars and moonlight. Around us miles upon miles of sandy plain, shimmering silver. Beyond the humming of the insects there was not a sound except the thud-thud of our camels’ soft feet upon the softer sand. So still, so tranquil it all seemed, that one scarcely dared to breathe. One felt that one was passing through some strange dreamland, whose earth was silver sprinkled with sapphires, whose heavens were sapphires dotted with diamonds. Those who have not known the nights of the desert can never realise them. It passes the pen of man to describe. It is like the periods in fever when the fever leaves one, for it is these nights that nature has given us in compensation for the burning, scorching days. It was but the first of my night-marches—there were many more to come; yet I never tired of them. The rhythmic gait of the camel, the gliding along under the myriads of stars, never wearied me. One could not weary of anything so surpassingly beautiful. At a spot, irrecognisable in the desert, our men shouted to the camels to lie down, and we dismounted. Saïd spread my carpet, while the Bedouins collected the dry mimosa twigs, and by the light of the little fire they lit I could see my camels regaling themselves with evident relish on the dry bushes, the thorns of which were an inch or two in length. Then commenced the drinking of coffee, and the gurgle of the hubble-bubble, until, calling to the grunting animals again, we loaded our camels and set out. [Illustration: PALACE OF THE SULTAN OF LAHEJ.] As early dawn began to tint the eastern sky we entered the oasis in which Howta, the capital of the Sultan of Lahej, is situated. The aspect of the country completely changed. In place of the pale yellow sand, dotted with stunted bushes, there were wide fields of durra, or millet, growing in all the luxury of a damp tropical soil. The fields are divided from one another by hedges of rank vegetation, and little channels, here above the level of the surrounding land, here running in and out amongst the durra stalks, supplied unlimited water to the crops. From amidst the tangled mass of dazzling green rise palm-trees, many of them hung with trailing creepers.