Affairs nevertheless began now to assume a more desperate appearance than ever. The night of this day of good tidings setting-in with a storm of dust, followed by a heavy fall of rain, a party of Bedouins scoured unperceived through the camp, and in spite of every precaution swept off many articles of trifling value. Amongst the booty was a tub of sugar-candy, which, on the hue and cry being raised, the rogues were fain to abandon, together with the bedding of one of the escort. An incessant bombardment of large stones was kept up during the whole night from the thick underwood in the vicinity, directed as well against the sentries on duty, who paced the same weary ground for the ten thousandth time, as against the position occupied by the sleepers, one of whom, having emerged for a moment from the tarpaulin which the rain had rendered indispensable, received a severe contusion. Mohammad Ali, in a state of evident alarm, came as soon as the shower had abated to say that there existed no prospect of the march being resumed in accordance with the solemn promise of the Ras el Kafilah; and that feeling longer unable to answer for the lives of the party amongst such a congregation of lawless ruffians, he was desirous of conducting to Shoa on horseback all who felt so disposed, leaving the heavy baggage to be secured by his father as far as circumstances would admit. Should matters unfortunately reach the decided crisis which there seemed every reason to apprehend, the son of Ali Abi was clearly the staff whereon to rely, his intercourse with Europeans having rendered his manners more frank and ingenuous than those of his selfish and shuffling rivals; but although _kalams_ and altercations had again commenced, a sense of duty for the present precluded the adoption of his project. Morning of the 29th dawned upon no preparations for departure, and a fresh source of detention was indeed found to have arisen from a new claim for precedence put in by Ibrahim Shehem, the litigious member of the tribe Abli, which ranks in the Danakil nation next to that of Adali, to which the brother of the reigning Sultan belongs. Another tedious day of insult and debate ensued; but the question was at length disposed of by the congress, who decided the fiery little warrior to hold place second to Izhak in the conduct of the kafilah, to the exclusion of Mohammad Ali, through whose tribe the party were now to pass.