After half an hour's visit I was led by the Hajj through the streets of Zayla [29], to one of his substantial houses of coralline and mud plastered over with glaring whitewash. The ground floor is a kind of warehouse full of bales and boxes, scales and buyers. A flight of steep steps leads into a long room with shutters to exclude the light, floored with tamped earth, full of "evening flyers" [30], and destitute of furniture. Parallel to it are three smaller apartments; and above is a terraced roof, where they who fear not the dew and the land-breeze sleep. [31] I found a room duly prepared; the ground was spread with mats, and cushions against the walls denoted the Divan: for me was placed a Kursi or cot, covered with fine Persian rugs and gaudy silk and satin pillows. The Hajj installed us with ceremony, and insisted, despite my remonstrances, upon occupying the floor whilst I sat on the raised seat. After ushering in supper, he considerately remarked that travelling is fatiguing, and left us to sleep. The well-known sounds of El Islam returned from memory. Again the melodious chant of the Muezzin,--no evening bell can compare with it for solemnity and beauty,--and in the neighbouring mosque, the loudly intoned Amin and Allaho Akbar,--far superior to any organ,--rang in my ear. The evening gun of camp was represented by the Nakkarah, or kettle-drum, sounded about seven P.M. at the southern gate; and at ten a second drumming warned the paterfamilias that it was time for home, and thieves, and lovers,--that it was the hour for bastinado. Nightfall was ushered in by the song, the dance, and the marriage festival,--here no permission is required for "native music in the lines,"--and muffled figures flitted mysteriously through the dark alleys. * * * * * After a peep through the open window, I fell asleep, feeling once more at home. FOOTNOTES [1] "A tradition exists," says Lieut. Cruttenden, "amongst the people of Harar, that the prosperity of their city depends upon the exclusion of all travellers not of the Moslem faith, and all Christians are specially interdicted." These freaks of interdiction are common to African rulers, who on occasions of war, famine or pestilence, struck with some superstitious fear, close their gates to strangers. [2] The 6th of Safar in 1864 corresponds with our 28th October. The Hadis is [Arabic] "when the 6th of Safar went forth, my faith from the cloud came forth." [3] The Abyssinian law of detaining guests,--Pedro Covilhao the first Portuguese envoy (A.D. 1499) lived and died a prisoner there,--appears to have been the Christian modification of the old Ethiopic rite of sacrificing strangers.