A burst of savage acclamation, which rose shrill and high in the noontide heat from the assembled population, was succeeded by a solemn pause as the dread tidings were imparted to the relatives of the fallen. A path was cleared through the now hushed and silent phalanx, whilst muffled females, beating their bare breasts, passed towards the biers between the open ranks. The boldest and the bravest had been untimely cut off; and their widows, throwing themselves upon the lifeless bodies, indulged for a season in the most piercing shrieks and extravagant grief. But the deep loud chaunt of the elders, "It is the decree of the Most High," drowned the hysterical sobs of the bereaved; and the host again moved on in boisterous mirth to indulge, after the successful foray, according to the bent of their inclinations, and prepare for a series of achievements, which have since cleared the surrounding plains. To this day none but the boldest dare, after nightfall, to enter the valley of skulls. The moans of the Galeyla warriors who fell in the affray are heard amidst the funereal sighing of the wind; the plaintive song of the Bedouin maid still chronicles the event; and long will be remembered in the red house of Mudaito the night of the massacre of Gootabella. Volume One, Chapter XXI. SANKUL, AND SUGGAGEDAN. DAWAYLAKA AND AMADOO IN THE LIMITS OF THE GALEYLA MUDAITO. Ascending by an extremely bad road the broken range to the southward, which commands a fine prospect over the valley of Gobaad, the kafilah reached Sankul on the 17th. It forms the focus of several small dales converging from the table-land, and shut in from all breeze by the surrounding steep black cliffs of basalt, passing into hornblende. A small cave near the encamping ground was occupied by a colony of industrious bees, and at the only well, flocks of the diminutive black-faced Berbera sheep were drinking from a trough formed of an ox-hide stretched between four stakes, to which the water was transferred in gourds by greasy Bedouin shepherdesses. The evening was passed in perpetual wrangling with these matrons during the operation of filling up the water-skins; and sad presage was afforded of a coming day of drought, which the exhausted and sinking cattle of the caravan were hourly waxing less able to endure.