There had been great trouble with the Hamoumi, and only three months before two soldiers had been killed about half a mile from Sheher. Ghaleb Mia and Hussein Mia dared not go to Inbula or anywhere outside their walls without forty or fifty men, and when Salah's daughter, who is married to the seyyid, came to Sheher, she had to come by a circuitous route, with an escort of five hundred men. When a Bedou has committed a murder, he runs to the houses of the seyyids, where there is sanctuary, and gets absolution on paying four or five hundred dollars, according to the rank of the murdered man. Thus travelling is difficult unless you have paid _siyar_, and a relation of the _siyara_ is kept in prison at Sheher. All this time the behaviour of the sultans and their hospitality to us were very different to what it had been the year before; they sent us no presents of food, nor did they ever invite Imam Sharif to a meal, which they had constantly done when we were last there. Their manner was stiff and constrained, and they said they themselves had been badly treated for their kindness to us and that they were now considered Kafirs themselves. The fact is that all the Mohammedan world was in a state of restless activity, as the jehad, or holy war, was being preached. And now I will tell a most remarkable circumstance, quite the most extraordinary in this book. Sultan Hussein told my husband _on February 1_ that a consul had been murdered at Jedda. We were most excited about this, and anxiously inquired about it when we reached Aden, but heard that no murder had taken place, _nor did it till May_, when several consuls were murdered. This proves that it must have been a very long-arranged plan, and that the sultan knew of it and thought it had had time to be carried out. No doubt all this accounted for his bad reception of us. After a good deal of illusory delay, the sultan declared he could not in any way be responsible for our safety if we went anywhere from Sheher, so we had to bow to the inevitable and put ourselves on board a dhow belonging to Kutch, bound for Aden. The captain and sailors were all Hindoos, and to our amusement our Mohammedan party were as unclean as ourselves. The crew would not let us touch their fire and water, and filled our vessels themselves without touching them, very good-humouredly, and they made up an extra galley for us by putting some sand in a wooden box, and here Christians and Moslems had perforce to cook together. Of course we did not mind, but there was much laughter at the expense of the others, in which indeed they joined, for they bore their adversity amiably when it brought strange cooking-fellows. On reaching Aden we still desired to penetrate into the Jebel Akhdar, so looked out for a ship going to Maskat. We could find none, therefore we embarked for India with all our company. I am not going to describe India, but will only tell of our money difficulties.