In the meantime we were terrible bones of contention, and had the Wadi Hadhramout all by the ears. We were very anxious indeed as to whether we could proceed any farther or should have to go back, and whether we could do either safely. We wanted to go right along the Wadi Hadhramout and to see Bir Borhut or Barahout, a _solfatare_ as far as we could make out, but Masoudi in the tenth century speaks of it as the greatest volcano in the world, and says that it casts up immense masses of fire and that its thundering noise can be heard miles away. On the heights near is much brimstone, which the Bedouin find useful for gunpowder. They consider this place is the mouth of hell and that the souls of Kafirs go there. In Iceland there is similar accommodation for those souls. Von Wrede thinks it was the Fons Stygis of Ptolemy, but M. de Goeje thinks that Ptolemy alluded to some place farther west and south of Mareb. Certainly the position given by Ptolemy does not coincide with that of Bir Borhut. From 'Arabian Society in the Middle Ages,' by S. Lane-Poole, I take the following notices of this place:-- El Kaswini says of Bir Borhut: 'It is a well near Hadhramout and the Prophet (God bless and save him) said "In it are the souls of infidels and hypocrites." It is an Addite well in a dry desert and a gloomy valley, and it is related of Ali (may God be well pleased with him) that he said, "The most hateful of districts to God (whose name be exalted) is the valley of Barahout, in which is a well whose waters are black and foetid, where the souls of infidels make their abode."' El Asmai has narrated of a man of Hadhramout that he said: 'We find near Barahout an extremely disgusting and foetid smell, and then news is brought to us of the death of a great man of the chiefs of the infidels.' Ajaib el Makhloukat also relates that a man who passed a night in the valley of Barahout said: 'I heard all night (exclamatives) of "O Roumeh! O Roumeh!" and I mentioned this to a learned man and he told me that it was the name of the angel commissioned to keep guard over the souls of the infidels.'