All our promised verdure resolved itself into a few mimosa-trees and desert plants, and we encamped in great discomfort in a raging sandstorm, quite out of patience with our guide for his deceit. The wind was very wild and cold. We did not enjoy Sellala at all. Our tent had to be tied up in a tiny sandy cleft, and a huge boulder was under my bed. We had only two winds to trouble us there, though, instead of all four, which were raging outside. About 200 yards from the well was Ali Hamid's village, a collection of some six or eight huts, in one of which dwells old Ali Hamid himself, the aged sheikh of this powerful branch of the Kourbab tribe; and the only evidence that we had of greater prosperity was that the women here wear gold nose-rings and have long gold earrings and more elaborate ornaments hanging from their plaited hair. Ali Hamid looked very old and decrepit. He had a long hooked nose and exceedingly unpleasant face, and when we saw him we quite believed him to be, as they say, a hardened old slave-dealer. Perhaps the most remarkable fact about him was that he had a mother living, a wizened old crone who inhabited a tiny hut at Mohammed Gol, and reputed to be 135 years old by her friends, though I question if she was much over 90. Old age is rare among these nomads, and hence they make the most of any specimen they can produce. We sat in the village for some time, and purchased various camel ornaments--tassels which they hang from their necks, and curious adornments decorated with cowries, which they place before the covered awning beneath which great ladies conceal themselves when on a camel journey. Ali Hamid's son took us the next day on fast-trotting camels to visit some graffiti on basaltic rocks about eight miles distant. Here we found representations of animals chiselled on the hard rocks, similar to those we saw in Wadi Gabeit; we could recognise gazelles, camels, and elephants, and we thought the artist also had intended to depict giraffes, mongooses, and other strange beasts. Scattered amongst these animals are several Sabaean letters, the two [Symbol: script] (_ya_) and [Symbol: script] (_wa_) being very conspicuous. These scribblings were evidently done by the miners who were on their way from the coast to Wadi Gabeit, having landed at a convenient little harbour close by called Salaka. There is also one of the ruined towers not far from this spot, and the letters point to the fact that some of the miners here engaged must have been of Sabaean or Southern Arabian origin. Sheikh Ali Hamid came often to see us, with many other sons, besides Mohamed, who had travelled with us, and a few of the latter's children, clothed and naked. They used to sit in a semicircle round the door of our tent.