We had an exceedingly hot ride of it, and the wind was so high that our position on our donkeys was rendered even more precarious than usual. The desert sand whirled around us: we shut our eyes, tied down our hats, and tried to be patient; for miles our road led through the tumuli of those mysterious dead, who once in their thousands must have peopled Bahrein; their old wells are still to be seen in the desert, and evidences of a cultivation which has long ago disappeared. As we approached the edge of this vast necropolis the mounds grew less and less, until mere heaps of stones marked the spot where a dead man lay, and then we saw before us the two villages of Rufa'a. Of these, one is known as Rufa'a Shergeh, or South-western Rufa'a; the other, which belongs to the young Prince Mohammed, is called Rufa'a Jebeli. The Rufa'a are much older than Moharek, or Manamah; they are fortified with castellated walls of mud brick. Many of the El Khalifa family reside here in comfortable houses. South-western Rufa'a is quite a big place, and as our arrival became known all the village turned out to see us. The advent of an English lady among them was something too excessively novel: even close-veiled women forgot their prudery, and peered out from their blue coverings, screaming with laughter, and pointing as they screamed to the somewhat appalled object of their mirth. 'Hade bibi!' ('there goes the lady'), shouted they again and again. No victorious potentate ever had a more triumphant entry into his capital than the English 'bibi' had on entering South-western Rufa'a. Sheikh Khallet was ready to receive us in his _kahwa_ or reception-room, furnished solely by strips of matting and a camel-hair rug with coarse embroidery on it; two pillows were produced for us, and Arabs squatted on the matting all round the wall, for it was Sheikh Khallet's morning reception, or _majilis_, just then, and we were the lions of the occasion. Our host, we soon learnt, rather to our dismay, was a most rigid ascetic--a Wahabi to the backbone. He allows of no internal decorations in his house; no smoking is allowed, no wine, only perpetual coffee and perpetual prayers; our prospects were not of the most brilliant. Some of the Wahabi think even coffee wrong. After a while all the company left, and Sheikh Khallet intimated to us that the room was now our own. Two more large pillows were brought, and rugs were laid down; as for the rest we were dependent on our own very limited resources. We had brought our own sheets with us. [Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF SHEIKH SABA'S HOUSE AT RUFA'A, BAHREIN]