'I must, then, speak to the sultan about him, for you.' I said, 'The sultan has decided what he will do with him, and I don't think he will like it.' 'Haidar Aboul will not go with you.' This made us very angry, as we had seen that Saleh had been tampering with him, lending him his donkey and his sandals when he walked, and whispering with him. He tried to separate everyone from us. Haidar had promised to go with us all the way, and later Imam Sharif brought him to me when I was at home alone, and made him repeat his promise, and assurance that he had never told Saleh he would not go. Saleh also wanted money, but was refused; he got 100 rupees a month, and 200 were prepaid at Aden. He gambled, and my husband wished to keep the contents of our money-bags for our own use. We calculated that at the cheapest, for soldiers and _siyara_ and camels, Bir Borhut would cost 130_l._ Saleh had put all the servants in a most terrible fright, and a soldier had told them that if we went beyond Shibahm we should all be killed, and that we should find no water by the way. So we had to explain to them the plan of going by Wadi bin Ali, and to comfort them as well as we could. These people never seem to think that we value our own lives as much as they do theirs. Meshed was also closed against us. The sultan of Siwoun and the seyyids had sworn on the Koran not to let us proceed on our journey; the Kattiri had also sworn and sent messages to the Tamimi of Bir Borhut, the Jabberi of Wadi bin Ali, and the Nahadi, and they were all against us. We had another day of anxiety and uncertainty as to when we should really start, as the camels were not collected till late. We watched eagerly from our tower, counting them as they arrived by twos and threes. We were rather in despair as as we sat dining in a yard, for at this time we were started with our own cookery, and dined near the kitchen, which Matthaios had been able to make in an arched recess of the inclosure, where there were high hills of date-stones, kept to be ground to paste for cattle-food. He could not be allowed to defile a Mohammedan kitchen. After a very few minutes, however, my husband had an idea, which was to go to Sheher somehow, and turn up inland from thence; there were plenty of Tamimi there to help us, and we could thus get to the east side of the Kattiri. Saleh was to know nothing till all was settled. February 7 was a very weary day of waiting; for we had mended and cleaned everything we possessed, and we packed and hoped the camels would come, expecting to be off on the morrow, but it was not till evening that people, I cannot remember of what tribe, came to bargain with us, and the bargaining continued next morning; so we made all baggage ready to be tied into bundles, for we had no doubt we should start on the 8th at latest.