After observing the aneroid barometer at the point which we estimated at 200 feet below the summit, and glancing at our watches, which marked about 2.30 P.M., we turned downwards, and set out as fast as our legs would carry us, cutting across the zigzag track now deeply covered with snow. Before long we got shelter from the violence of the wind, and began to feel the tingling of returning circulation in the hands and feet. In places the ground was steep enough to require a little caution in traversing the rocky slopes, partly grown over by tufted bushes, all now veiled in fresh snow; but little delay ensued, and in less than two hours we reached the bottom of the ravine where the track passes close to the Saint’s tomb. The shouts of our Shelluh guides had announced our approach, and we were met by the smiling faces of our Mogador attendants, who had judiciously made themselves as comfortable as circumstances permitted by keeping up a fire in the hut. In the valley little snow had fallen, and that was half melted, and continued to fall in that intermediate condition between snow and rain that forms slush, a word of odious import except for its associations with the Christmas holidays. We learned that the sheik, Si Hassan, was waiting for us some way lower down in the valley, and without halting we pushed on to meet him. Long waiting in cold and wet does not mend any man’s temper, and the sheik, already much annoyed that his injunctions not to let us go beyond the Saint’s tomb had been ineffectual, was doubtless in a savage humour when we at length appeared, after successfully breaking through all the restraints he had contrived. Yet he managed to put a good face on the matter, offered his congratulations on our safe return, and invited us to partake of some food that was provided in a spot where an overhanging rock gave partial shelter. This did not save the poor fellows who had done their best to keep us within the intended limit from a desperate ‘blowing-up,’ and many threats of future vengeance. Drenched and cold as we were, the invitation to halt was anything but tempting; but in this country the obligations of hospitality are binding on the receiver as well as the giver, and it was necessary to wait some time and eat a few mouthfuls before proceeding on our homeward way to Arround.