Right up to the tops of the mountains, which reach an elevation of about 3,000 feet, the ground is fertile and covered with grass, on which large herds of cattle feed; clusters of sycamores and limes growing here and there give to the undulating hills quite a park-like appearance. As we happened to be there in the dry season, the grass was all brown and slippery, and there stood around us acres upon acres of hay with no one to harvest it; but after the rains the aspect of the Gara hills must be as green and pleasant as those of Derbyshire. The dry grass often catches fire, and from the mountains in various directions we saw columns of smoke arising as if from the chimneys of a manufacturing district. The country through which we travelled for the next two days is covered with thorny bushes and anthills, and is more like Africa than Arabia. The anthills, though very extensive, were not so fantastic as those we saw in Africa. We were going eastward over high ground; we decided to halt for two nights near a pretty little hole full of maidenhair fern, where there was water. It was nice and clean at first, but even at the end of the first day it was much diminished and very muddy. Travellers like ourselves must be a great nuisance drinking up the scanty supply of water which might last the inhabitants for a long while. We had hoped to get a good rest after our many days of marching, but while we were here there came on the most frightful hurricane from the north; it blew steadily for two days and nights and put all rest out of the question. With difficulty could we keep our tents erect; when we were in ours we had to be tightly tied in and sit next to the sunniest wall; in the evening when the wind abated a little we used to sit by a large fire, dressed in blankets. The piercing blasts quite shrivelled up our poor unclad conductors, who crouched in an inert mass round log fires which they made. We were obliged to remain inactive, for they said the camels would not move during this wind, though I believe the cause of inaction rose more from their own dislike to travel in the cold; and so inert were they that we could hardly get them to fetch us water from the neighbouring spring, their whole energy being expended in fetching huge logs of wood to keep the fires burning, and I think they were all pleased when the time came to descend to the lower regions again and a warmer atmosphere. We were afraid to start before the sun was up for fear the camels would be too cold to move, and he did not visit us very early. Sheikh Sehel promised to take us across the Gara border into Nejd if we wished; but as it would have entailed a considerable delay and parley with the sheikhs of the Nejd Bedouin, and as we could see from our present vantage ground that the country would afford us absolutely no objects of interest, we decided not to attempt this expedition.