It appears to me highly probable that the systematic destruction of the frankincense and myrrh trees through countless generations has done much to alter the character of this Akaba, and has contributed to the gradual silting up of the Hadhramout and its collateral valleys, to which fact I shall again have occasion to refer. The aspect of this plateau forcibly recalled to our minds that portion of Abyssinia which we visited in 1892-93; there is the same arid coast-line between the sea and the mountains, and the same rapid ascent to a similar absolutely level plateau, and the same draining northwards to a large river-bed in the case of Abyssinia, into the valleys of the Mareb and other tributaries of the Nile, and in the case of this Arabian plateau into the Hadhramout. Only Abyssinia has a more copious rainfall, which makes its plateau more productive. It had not been our intention to visit the Wadi Al Aisa, but to approach the Hadhramout by another valley called Doan, parallel and further west, but our camel-men would not take us that way, and purposely got up a scare that the men of Khoreba at the head of Wadi Doan were going to attack us, and would refuse to let us pass. A convenient old woman was found who professed to bring this news, a dodge subsequently resorted to by another Bedou tribe which wanted to govern our progress. The report brought to us, as from the old woman, was to this effect: A large body of sheikhs and seyyids having started from Khoreba[9] to meet and repel us, Mokaik's father had left home to help us. As we had now abandoned Khoreba, Mokaik said he was anxious to hurry off to meet his father and prevent a hostile collision. Mokaik was told _he_ could not go as he was responsible for our safety, but that some others might go. 'No,' said Mokaik, 'they cannot be spared from the camels; we will get two men from the village.' My husband agreed to this, but when Mokaik proposed that my husband should at once pay these men, he told Mokaik that he must pay them himself, as he was paid to protect us. This attempt at extortion having failed, we passed a peaceful night and subsequently found Mokaik's father, Suleiman Bakran, safe at home, which he had never thought of leaving. Our first peep down into the Wadi Al Aisa, towards which our Bedouin had conducted us, was striking in the extreme, and as we gazed down into the narrow valley, with its line of vegetation and its numerous villages, we felt as if we were on the edge of another world. The descent from the table-land to the Wadi is exactly 1,500 feet by a difficult, but very skilfully engineered footpath. The sun's rays, reflected from the limestone cliffs, were scorchingly hot. The camels went a longer way round, nearer the head of the valley, but, so difficult was our short cut that they arrived before us, and the horse, and the donkey.