We were two days getting to Sheher, anchoring both nights; the first, as 'dirty weather' was causing alarm, was a very noisy one, the servants and sailors talking and singing all night to be in readiness. The second night we were put to bed very quietly among the strange and weird stacks of rocks at Ras Dis, and had a heavy shower of rain, which, of course, penetrated our matting roof. When we reached Sheher, a messenger was sent ashore with a letter to Sultan Hussein, and a message was returned inviting us to take up our quarters in the same unfinished palace where we had lived ten months before. One of the first people to greet us was the _nakhoda_ of the ship on which we had gone to Aden from Sheher. The word _reis_ for captain is never used. Ghaleb Mia was at the house to meet us, and we were much interested by finding that the governors of everywhere round about were in Sheher to give up their accounts. He of Hagarein was scowling, but they of Dis, Kosseir, and Haura seemed friendly and pleased to see us. We heard good accounts of various patients, and were especially pleased to hear that the daughter of the governor of Dis, who had for some time been bedridden with a bad leg, had been well ever since our visit--quite cured by Holloway's ointment. The next day there were great negotiations and plannings as to our future course. Our scheme was that we should go from Sheher to Inat in the Hadhramout valley, down to Bir Borhut and Kabr Houd, and thence eastward to Wadi Mosila, back to Sheher by the coast, and then try to go westward--or, as to us appeared preferable, to go up by the Wadi Mosila to Wadi Hadhramout, and then to try to get to the west without returning to Sheher. There we stuck for some days, listening to any gossip we could hear, and taking evening walks by the sea, guarded by soldiers. We were told that Sultan Salah of Shibahm had lost his head wife, the sister of Manassar of Makalla, but had consoled himself by marrying four others about two months afterwards, and had divorced two of them already. The family of Al Kaiti are not very good friends among themselves; a soldier discharged by Salah of Shibahm is always quickly engaged by Hussein of Sheher, and if Hussein dismisses a servant he is sure of a place with Manassar. They stop each other's letters and annoy each other in many ways, but are always ready to unite if any strange foe assails their family. Manassar had quarrelled with his wife, the daughter of Salah, because Salah, on the death of his wife, had refused to marry a third daughter of Manassar, as his dying wife requested. Hussein had only one wife and no children.