The Ras el Kafilah, at whose hands the Franks experienced about the same amount of respect and tolerance as a rich Jew in the days of Coeur de Lion, here imperiously demanded daily rations of rice and dates for the band of spearmen left as an escort by the Akil of the Hy Somauli; and on being informed that this very unreasonable request could not be complied with, in consequence of the tedious delays on the road having reduced the supplies so low as to be barely sufficient to last to Abyssinia, his brow became suddenly overcast, he relapsed into his wonted ill-humour, rejected a tendered sheep with indignation, and flung out of the tent in a passion. It rained heavily during the greater part of the night, and an early summons to rise found the party again drenched to the skin. The inclement weather had not by any means tended to restore Izhak to smiles; and his mats having proved quite insufficient to preserve him from full participation in the pleasures of the nocturnal bath, the effect upon his temper was but too manifest. "Don't whistle, don't whistle!" he exclaimed with a sneer to one of his charge, who was so amusing himself within hearing; "what are you whistling for? I have loaded the camels under a prayer from the sacred Koran, and you are doing your best to break the spell, and call up gins by your whistling. `_La illah illallah, wo Mohammad rasul illah_;'" "there is no God but God, and Mohammad is the Prophet of God." "_Fein tero_? In the name of the three kaliphs where are you going to?" again vociferated the testy old man, in a terrible passion, to the same luckless individual, who, with a loaded rifle in his hand, had now left the road in pursuit of an antelope. "`_Taal henna_!' `Come back, will you!' _Wullah_! you'll be getting your throat cut presently by the Buddoos, and then I shall be asked what has become of you. Can't you keep the road? This ugly defile is named `the place of lions,' and one of them will be eating you anon." Another march of fifteen miles brought the caravan to Meinha-tolli, where some hollows had been filled by the recent heavy fall of rain; but large droves of horned cattle having soiled in them, the muddy water was so strongly tainted as to be barely drinkable under any disguise. The country throughout bears signs of violent volcanic eruption of later times, which has covered one portion with lava, and another with ashes and cinders. At the outset the road led over the usual basaltic ground, strewed with fragments of obsidian, but after crossing Arnoot, a deep ravine choked with refreshing green bushes, in which the exhausted beasts obtained a most welcome supply of muddy water, the stony valleys gave place to sandy plains, clothed with short yellow grass, and intersected by low ranges of hills.