Our onward journey took us past a lovely creek, called Khor Haghia, running two miles inland, with silted mouth and overhanging yellow and white rocks. The bright blue water and green mangroves made a brilliant picture. About a quarter of a mile inland there is a deep pot of salt water, evidently left behind by the ocean when it receded from the shores of Sokotra; it is about 200 feet across, and has its little beach and seaweeds all complete, with its trees and bushes in its cliffs. We lunched at the brackish well of Dia, and at sunset reached the hideous plain of Eriosh, or Eriush, which has a flat surface of rock, about a quarter of a mile in extent and partly covered with dried mud, and of such soft stone that we could easily cut into it with pebbles. It is covered with purely Ethiopic graffiti, almost exactly similar to those we saw on the steps of the church and on the hillsides around Aksum in Abyssinia--long serpent-like trails of Ethiopic words, with rude drawings interspersed of camels, snakes, and so forth. Riebeck, who went inland from Itur, says these are Greek. Conspicuous amongst them are the numerous representations of two feet side by side, frequently with a cross inserted in one of them; there are many separate crosses, too, on this flat surface--crosses in circles, exactly like what one gets on Ethiopic coins. We met with another inscribed stone to the east of the island, bearing similar lettering. Hard by this flat, inscribed surface are many tombs of an ancient date. These tombs, which are found dotted over the island, bear a remarkable resemblance to the tombs of the Bedja race, once dwelling on the shores of the Red Sea to the north of Sawakin, and subject to the Ethiopian emperor; they consist of enormous blocks of unhewn stone, inserted in the ground to encircle and cover the tombs, and this forms another link connecting the remains on the island with Abyssinia. [Illustration: THE PLAIN OF ERIOSH, SOKOTRA.] When the Abyssinian Christian monarchs conquered Arabia in the early centuries of our era, and Christianised a large portion of that country, they probably did the same by Sokotra, and, inasmuch as this island was far removed from any political centre, Christianity probably existed here to a much later period than it did in Arabia. Marco Polo touched here, and alludes to the Christians of the island. In speaking of two isles near Greater India, inhabited respectively by men and women, he adds: 'They are Christians, and have their bishop, subject to the Bishop of Socotora. Socotora hath an archbishop not subject to the Pope, but to one Zatuli, who resides at Baldach, who chooseth him.'