"Where the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together." A formidable band of "Bones" were already squatted at a respectful distance, to watch the progress of events, and no sooner had the teeth been hewn out than they laid aside their bows and quivers, and having stripped the thick hide from off the ribs, attacked the mountain of flesh with the vigour of a South African horde. Donkeys and women were laden with incredible despatch, and staggering under huge flaps of meat, the archers had soon left the scene of operations. Two reservoirs, each lying at the distance of a musket shot, had meanwhile been visited--the one a sulphuric basin of considerable extent, the other a vast sheet of water, embosomed in trees, dotted over with wood-clothed islets, and teeming with hippopotami. But this was neutral ground; and the fears of the Danakil conjuring into existence a host of lurking foes, the period allowed for investigation was brief. Bidding adieu with light hearts to the muddy Hawash, the party resumed its march so soon as the camel furniture had become sufficiently dry; and skirting the Dubbelli lake, from the waters of which Behemoth blew a parting salute, passed the Bedouin hamlet of Mulku-kuyu in the Dofah district, to a fourth pond bearing the euphonous title of Ailabello. Prettily situated in a secluded green hollow, and presenting about the same circumference as its neighbour, below which it is considerably depressed, this pool resembles a circular walled cistern, and is obviously the basin of an old crater. Its waters, alkaline, bitter, and strongly sulphureous even to the smell, receive constant accessions from a hot mineral well at the brink, and possessing the singular detergent property of bleaching the filthiest cloth, many of the Danakil were for once to be seen in flaunting white togas. Thence the road lay over a grassy plain, covered with volcanic sand and ashes, and shut in by cones of trivial altitude, forming another field of extinct craters, many very perfect, and each environed by its individual zone--whilst the circumjacent country, embracing a diameter of eight miles, exhibited through the superincumbent soil, tracts of jet black lava.