Ten more Jabberi joined us, so when we reached Sa'ah in two hours and a half, we were more than eighty people, with twenty-five camels, two horses, and three donkeys. We dismounted in a dense crowd, in a field of dry earth cut up into squares with hard ridges, so our floors were most uncomfortable. Naturally we dared do no damage by having them dug smooth. On our arrival at our camping ground and while we were waiting for our tents to be ready, always a weary, irksome time to the wayworn traveller, I was surrounded by women all masked. They seemed highly astonished at a safety-pin I was taking out, so I gave, or rather offered it, to an old woman near me. She wanted to take it, but several men rushed between us and roared at us both, and prevented my giving it to her. I stood there holding it out and she stretching out her hand, and one or two men then asked me for it for her, so I put it down on a stone and she took it away and seemed pleased, but a man soon brought it back to me on the end of a stick, saying 'they did not know these things and were afraid of them.' There was no news of the Tamimi and many told us they would not come, but we still kept up our vain hopes, as they had promised to come and wait a day or two for us, bringing with them a _siyara_ of the Minhali and of the Hamoumi. However, we were never allowed to get to the trysting-place, as we afterwards thought, because the Jabberi wanted to keep the fleecing of us in their own hands. Not one of our party, with the exception of Imam Sharif, wished to go to Bir Borhut, and they all encouraged each other in discouraging us. About a mile before reaching Sa'ah we saw an old fortress on a spur jutting out of the precipice, with a cut road leading to it, so of course we determined to visit it. We accordingly set out about two o'clock, my husband and I, Saleh on the donkey, some soldiers, some of our _siyara_ of Jabberi, and my camera. But we came to a standstill when first four, then nine, and at last fourteen men were seen on the top of the ruins, pointing guns at us. They said they would not let us advance without paying, and we feared to come to terms as our Jabberi first said they were Amri, and then a tribe of Jabberi with whom they were at war. In this uncertainty we had to turn back and my husband complained to the sheikh of Sa'ah, who said that this blackmailing had been planned by one of our three best Jabberi, Seid-bin-Iselem, who went with us, and that he would send men of his own with us in the morning. In the morning they came, sure enough, and first asked for a dollar 'to buy coffee,' but my husband said 'No; he would give bakshish if he found writing, but if he found no writing he would give nothing, and in any case, nothing till we returned.' As we heard no more of them after they had retired to think over it, we were sure there could be no inscription. Besides we had seen that the corner-stones were the only cut ones; the others were all rough.