Finally, when he could not get what he wanted, and we saw it was not safe to trust ourselves in the hands of so shifty a man, he became so insistent that my husband told him 'he had seen enough of him; he might leave our camp; we would not travel with him.' Off went the sultan in such a hurry that he left his stick behind, and sent us a message that we were not to pass another night in his country. We sent back a message that we would not stir till morning. When the sultan was gone we had tea, and I was talking to a dirty little boy of five called Boubakr and a bigger one called Ali, to whom I was giving lumps of sugar dirtied by the journey. We were laughing well at the sultan, calling him all sorts of names expressing our scorn of his meanness, when to our amusement we found these were his sons. He came himself about dawn next day to say we were to go back over the Wadi Banna, and not the shortest way to the part of the Fadhli country, which is beyond the Yafei, unless we gave him more money. We would not speak to him ourselves, so he had to talk with the servants (who were continuing packing) all the while, and, we let him see the greatest amusement on our part. Musaben was most anxious to go on, but the difficulties delighted Matthaios, as he was so frightened that he wished to go back at any price. When we did go, about six o'clock, we only went a very little way in the prescribed direction, then turned round, and took the path we desired, our army now being a rearguard, rushing up hillocks to watch for pursuers. We reached Al Khaur, a village with many ruined castles, and camped in frightful dust. The Wazir Abdullah bin Abdurrahman had been sent by the Fadhli sultan to welcome us. He proved a very agreeable travelling companion. He is young and refined looking. We saw a great deal of cattle about. There is a sheer rock overhanging the village 1,000 feet above the plain. My husband ascended Jebel Sarrar to see the ruins. A fine paved road, protected by forts, climbs up past a curious square stone said to be full of money, and goes zigzag through a narrow gully like the walls at Zimbabwe. My husband having heard of the stone from the wazir, very much astonished the guides by pointing it out to them and saying 'There is money in that stone.' At the top there is a very strong fortress with many walls, and three cisterns just like the smaller of the tanks at Aden, with steps down into them, all covered with cement. This has been a very strong fortification, protecting and overlooking the whole of the Abyan from Jebel Goddam beyond Shukra to Jebel Shemshan at Aden. The Abyan is the low plain by the sea.