For a little while longer I sit listening to the noises of the night. The wind falls abruptly, and the sea calms down. Shoals of fish dash through the shallow waters with a noise like the splashing of cattle crossing a ford. I lie down at last on my camp bed, placed for coolness on the veranda, and dose off. I am awakened by the maddening throbbing of a drum, beaten to warn the faithful to pray and prepare the last meal of the night. I look at the time; it is only one o'clock and people may eat up to four. Oh, why do they beat that wretched drum at this hour? On, on it throbs. In despair I take my pencil, and write until the throbbing ceases. It has ceased now. To-day, the 29th June, is the last evening of Ramathan, that is if we see the new moon. Yesterday evening the townspeople failed to catch a glimpse of her, and even though one man came from El Kori to say he had seen her in the western sky for a few seconds, and though the big gun at Djibouti fired ever so many shots at sundown, our Kathi must needs have four witnesses sworn on the Koran ere he could grant permission to the people to break their fast. As for the big gun, have we not heard, but a few days ago, that the peace treaty has been signed, and might not the firing we hear from the French side be on that score. So all this day the Zeilawis have fasted, and at intervals the French gun has boomed out. I am certain we are a day behind, but the Kathi was quite right to run no risks. Just now Buralli, and Mahomed the interpreter, came to ask for permission to bury an Arab close to the Sheikh's tomb. He was a very influential man who has died, according to the sub-assistant-surgeon's diagnosis, of carbuncle on the neck. Of all days in the year this is the best one to die, for on it the gates of Paradise are unlocked--no one is denied--and the Arab is considered to be a very fortunate man. Not that he had ever done anything to make his reception at heaven's gate in any way doubtful, but the accident of the day makes things certain. My servant, who is something of a radical, was much impressed with the fact, after I had granted permission for the body to be interred near the tomb (which, being near to the town, is closed to the public as a burying ground) that a distinction could still be made between a rich man and a poor man, even after death. Well, to-day ends the Mahomedan old year, and it is, practically, in this part of the world, New Year's Eve.