The "End of Time" volunteered to keep watch that night. When the early dawn glimmered he aroused us, and blew up the smouldering fire, whilst our women proceeded to load the camels. We pursued our way over hard alluvial soil to sand, and thence passed into a growth of stiff yellow grass not unlike a stubble in English September. Day broke upon a Somali Arcadia, whose sole flaws were salt water and Simum. Whistling shepherds [14] carried in their arms the younglings of the herds, or, spear in hand, drove to pasture long regular lines of camels, that waved their vulture- like heads, and arched their necks to bite in play their neighbours' faces, humps, and hind thighs. They were led by a patriarch, to whose throat hung a Kor or wooden bell, the preventive for straggling; and most of them were followed (for winter is the breeding season) by colts in every stage of infancy. [15] Patches of sheep, with snowy skins and jetty faces, flocked the yellow plain; and herds of goats resembling deer were driven by hide-clad children to the bush. Women, in similar attire, accompanied them, some chewing the inner bark of trees, others spinning yarns of a white creeper called Sagsug for ropes and tent-mats. The boys carried shepherds' crooks [16], and bore their watering pails [17], foolscap fashion, upon their heads. Sometimes they led the ram, around whose neck a cord of white leather was bound for luck; at other times they frisked with the dog, an animal by no means contemptible in the eyes of the Bedouins. [18] As they advanced, the graceful little sand antelope bounded away over the bushes; and above them, soaring high in the cloudless skies, were flights of vultures and huge percnopters, unerring indicators of man's habitation in Somali-land. [19] A net-work of paths showed that we were approaching a populous place; and presently men swarmed forth from their hive-shaped tents, testifying their satisfaction at our arrival, the hostile Habr Awal having threatened to "eat them up." We rode cautiously, as is customary, amongst the yeaning she-camels, who are injured by a sudden start, and about 8 A.M. arrived at our guide's kraal, the fourth station, called "Gudingaras," or the low place where the Garas tree grows. The encampment lay south-east (165°) of, and about twenty miles from, Zayla.