Widely different was the mood of the son of Ali Abi, chief of the Rookhba, as he rushed into the pavilion on the exit of his rival, the hereditary Sultan of the Danakil. Lucifer, when gazing forth upon the newly created Paradise, and plotting the downfall of the sinless inmates of the garden of Eden, looked not half so fiend-like as Mohammad Ali, whilst, trembling with jealousy and rage, he demanded the reason of having been so insultingly omitted in the distribution of valuables? "Am I then a dog," he continued, in the highest indignation, "and not worth the trouble of propitiating? whereas that old dotard yonder is to have his empty skull bound with rich shawls from India, and his powerless relatives decorated from head to foot. Inshallah, we shall see anon whether the Sultan of the sea-beach, or the son of Ali Abi, keeps the key of the road to Habesh." Unlike the succession of every other government in the universe, the nominal sovereignty of the united tribes composing the Adaiel of Danakil nation, whereof Tajura is the seat, is alternately vested in the Adali and the Abli, a Sultan drawn from the one, being succeeded by his Wazir, who is invariably a member of the other, whilst the individual to fill the post vacated by the latter, is elected by suffrage from the family of the Sultan deceased. The town is besides the rendezvous of the petty chiefs of all the surrounding clans, who, to the number of eight or ten, claim an equal voice in the senate, and with about an hundred litigious followers each, make it their head-quarters during the greater portion of the year. Mohammad Ali is the principal of these, and his powerful tribe occupying a central position on the road to Abyssinia, he asserts the right to escort all parties proceeding thither--a right which the Sultan denies. The necessity of propitiating at one time, and in the same place, two rival savages, possessing equally the means of annoyance, whilst neither is sufficiently strong to afford protection against the interference of the other, rendered the negotiation one of considerable difficulty and delicacy; nor was it without a vast expenditure of honied words, that the ruffled temper of the malcontent was finally soothed, and he was persuaded to waive the assertion of his recognised claim, until a more suitable opportunity.