Of course, the car was a source of intense interest and excitement. At first the tribesmen were too afraid of it to go anywhere near it, but when they saw it stand quite still at Allan's orders, and that it had no bite, curiosity overcame fear, and, one by one, they crept up and nervously touched it. At this stage Allan sounded the Claxton, and, with shrieks of terror, they all bolted. But Idu, who had come over the mountains in it, and, therefore, had lost all fear of the monster, felt a devil of a fellow, and, with a flourish, assured them it was not the roar inside which made it go, and that it would do no one any harm. So they came back to it once more, and, after some persuasion, were induced to sound the Claxton themselves. Once familiar with it, they laughed like children each time it barked, and I began to wish I had taken the thing off before we started. After supper Idu prepared my blankets under the shelter of a small bush, but, before turning in, I sat down on the ground for a final smoke, placing the hurricane lamp from the car on the hard smooth earth in front of me. The light naturally attracted myriads of insects of all sorts, many of which I had never seen before, and which are, I feel sure, unknown in India. Beetles of many sorts swarmed around, both in the air and on the ground, whilst a scorpion, the biggest I have ever seen, darted out from the darkness to inspect the light. He was a brown fellow, not an iridescent blue, like the Burmese variety, though he was quite as big. With his tail curled right over his back, and sting ready to strike, he looked a formidable person, and it was comic to watch the haste with which all the lesser fry scuttled out of his way, and, though he made many attempts to secure his supper, I did not see him succeed, so swift were his intended victims in escaping from their dreaded enemy. We were, as usual, up in the morning before daybreak, and en route before the rest of the camp was astir. The going that morning proved fairly good, the chief obstacle being huge clumps of a coarse, rank grass, which we had to circumvent. We had proceeded some distance when Idu, whose eyes seemed able not only to see in the dark, but through hills and fields of crops, suddenly exclaimed, "I can see men in front of us. We had better halt while I go forward and find out whether they are friends or enemies." We stopped the car, for we were now on the borders of Jiand's territory, and these men might be his followers treating us to an ambush. Idu leapt out, and, advancing under cover with the eel-like movements all these Raiders possess, reconnoitred the position. Obviously all was well, for, shortly afterwards, he sauntered back in the open and told me that it was quite all right. The men he had seen were Rekis, and they were now coming to speak to me. Soon afterwards fifteen well-armed, powerful-looking men on camels ambled up to us, and I was grateful indeed to know they were friendlies and not Jiand's men.