Leaving Khaila, where we remained two nights and saw the New Year in, we passed a good many towered villages: Larsmeh was one, Hadouf another, also Subak and others. We passed the mouth of the Wadi Doan, which runs parallel to Wadi Al Aisa, and has two branches, only the largest having the name Doan. The mouth is about three miles below Khaila; five miles more brought us to Sief, where we halted for a night. It is also inhabited by pure Arabs, who treated us with excessive rudeness. It is a very picturesque spot, perched on a rock, with towers and turrets constructed of sun-dried brick; only here, as elsewhere in these valleys, the houses being so exactly the same colour as the rocks behind them, they lose their effect. The rich have evidently recognised this difficulty and whitewash their houses, but in the poorer villages there is no whitewash, and consequently nothing to make them stand out from their surroundings. One can pretty well judge of the wealth of the owners of the various towers and castles by the amount of whitewash. Some have only the pinnacles white, and some can afford to trim up the windows and put bands round the building. At Sief several men came once or twice and begged my husband to let me go out that the women might see me, but when I went out they would not allow me to approach or hold any intercourse with the Arab women, using opprobrious epithets when I tried to make friendly overtures, with the quaint result that whenever I advanced towards a group of gazing females they fled precipitately like a flock of sheep before a collie dog, so we discovered that it was the men themselves who wished to see me. These women wear their dresses high in front (showing their yellow-painted legs above the knee) and long behind; they are of deep blue cotton, decorated with fine embroidery, and patches of yellow and red sewn on in patterns. It is the universal female dress in the Hadhramout, and looks as if the fashion had not changed since the days when Hazarmaveth the Patriarch settled in this valley and gave it his name.[10] The tall tapering straw hat worn by these women when in the fields contributes with the mask to make the Hadhrami females as externally repulsive as the most jealous of husbands could desire. I am pretty sure that this must be the very same dress which made such an unfavourable impression upon Sir John Maundeville, when he saw 'the foul women who live near Babylon the great.' He says: 'They are vilely arrayed. They go barefoot and clothed in evil garments, large and wide, but short to the knees, long sleeves down to the feet like a monk's frock, and their sleeves are hanging about their shoulders.'