So ignorant were we and everyone at Maskat as to what money was in use in Dhofar, that we were persuaded that it was necessary to take an immense quantity of small change in the shape of copper coins about the size of a farthing, supposed to be Omani. We had four wooden boxes bound with wire, about 1 foot long and 5 or 6 inches high and wide, delivered to us, all closed up, and said to have a certain sum in each. Soon after we set out we opened one of these boxes to get out some money and have it ready, but found in it so many and various kinds of coins, all the same size, that we opened all the boxes, making quite a mound on the ground, to sort out the German East Africa, English East Africa, Zanzibar, and other useless coins, and then packed them neatly up, an awfully troublesome and dirty job. We kept out what we thought would pass, but behold! all were useless; no one would look at anything but Maria Theresa dollars and Indian coins down to two-anna pieces--nothing lower. All these boxes, therefore, had to return to Maskat, and when paying off the interpreter, Hassan, a most respectable person with large, round, gold spectacles, my husband asked him to be kind enough to take his money in these boxes and change at Maskat. No, he would only have good silver dollars; and sadly he rued his want of good-nature. We two and Lobo, whom we retained, went to a hotel in Bombay, but Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur, his four men, our Goanese cook, Hassan, and a certain young Afghan, Ahmet, who had been a sort of odd man and tent-pitcher, went to a caravanserai; and after Hassan's steamer had departed to Maskat, Imam Sharif came and told us the doleful tidings that Ahmet had disappeared with the good silver dollars and the gold watch and chain of Hassan. No doubt he then regretted he had not taken the boxes of copper. [Illustration: MAP OF MOUNT ERBA and surrounding country to illustrate the explorations of Mr. J. THEODORE BENT _Stanford's Geog.^l Estab.^t, London_ London: Smith, Elder & Co.] AN AFRICAN INTERLUDE: THE EASTERN SOUDAN CHAPTER XXIII COASTING ALONG THE RED SEA In the winter of 1895, though we still wished to continue our investigations in Arabia, we found it impracticable, owing to the warlike state of the tribes there, so we decided to turn our attention to the other side of the Red Sea, and travel once more in Africa. Parts of Africa have to be discovered and other parts rediscovered. Each little war and each little journey contributes to the accomplishment of both these ends with surprising rapidity, but the geographical millennium is looming in the distance when the traveller will no longer require his sextant and theodolite, but will take his spade and pruning-hook to cultivate the land this generation is so busy in discovering.