We took advantage of the curiosity of the Aodeli, who had just arrived with a _kafila_, to make them stay in our camp and question them. The El Khaur mountains look most fascinating to see only from a distance: they are inhabited by lawless tribes owing allegiance to no man, and, having no wholesome fear of the Wali of Aden before their eyes, would murder any traveller who ventured among them; they are all Bedouin. The Aodeli are a very large tribe, and say they have 4,000 men for war; the Markashi can put 500 or 600 in the field; and the Fadhli 2,000. Lauda, the chief town of the Aodeli, is much bigger than Shibahm; there are many Arabs. The sultan is Mohamed-bin-Saleh. It is six hours from Mis'hal--thirty-four miles--and is situated below the mountains. Above it is El Betha--Sultan Saleh. Belad el Megheba, in the upper Yafei country, is under Sultan Hakam Mohamed-bin-Ali. Sabad el Baida Resass (where there must be lead) is not under the Turks; El Aodeli live there. Neither is Sahib Lauda under the Turks; the inhabitants are Augheri. This has a very soft guttural--the Arabic _ghin_. [Illustration: PLAIN OF MIS'HAL AND AODELI TRIBE] Our next stage was Bir Lammas, about four miles off, mostly across the monotonous plain. We passed four dars and villages. In time of war the Fadhli sultan comes and occupies one of these dars. We met sheikhs walking with little battle-axes on long poles--weapons in war, and in peace used for chopping wood, at all times emblems of their rank. The plain at length broke away, and we got into the narrow, and not very deep, wooded Wadi el Mimin. It has very precipitous sides of basalt, brown in colour, and making a very untidy attempt at being columnar. Bir Lammas is a great, and I must add, very dirty, halting-place for caravans going to Shukra, on the Tarik el Arkob, to El Kaur and the Wadi Hadhramout. We were two nights at Bir Lammas. I was too ill to go about at all, but I could not resist going out to see some baboons which came to look at us from the low cliffs. I am sure their leader must have been 4 feet long without his tail. My husband, who went for a climb, came to pretty close quarters with a striped hyena. We were encamped about 380 yards off from the well, and thought it a very pretty place, with acacia-trees and creepers hanging in long trails and making arbours of all of them. The women do all the work here, having to fetch water from Bir Lammas and Ghenab for Mis'hal. The children, up to fourteen years of age, tend the flocks, and the men stroll about or sit in very warlike-looking conclaves, with guns and spears. Young children have wooden jembias to accustom them to their use, and it is funny to see tiny urchins of three or four hurling reeds at each other in imitation of their elders with more deadly weapons. The Bedouin seem born in an element of war; one we heard of had lasted fifteen years, but was happily now stopped for a little while.