This was a day of excitement: even the mules kept their ears pricked up. After a short nine miles we had camped below the Jebel Kibár, and we had remounted our animals to ascend a neighbouring hill commanding a bird's-eye view of the Hismá plain. There was evidently much excitement amongst the Bedawi shepherds around us; and presently Ahmed el-‘Ukbí, our messenger, appeared in sight, officially heading the five chiefs of the Ma'ázah, who were followed by a tail of some thirty clansmen. Only two rode horses, wretched garrons stolen from the Ruwalá, the great branch of the Anezah, which holds the eastern regions; the rest rode fine sturdy and long-coated camels, which looked Syrian rather than Midianite.[EN#154] We returned hurriedly to make arrangements for the reception: our Shaykhs could not, without derogating, go forth to meet the strangers; but the latter were saluted with due ceremony by the bugler and the escort, drawn up in line before the mess-tent. After the usual half-hour's delay, the "palaver," to speak Africanicè, "came up," and M. Lacaze had a good opportunity of privily sketching the scene. The Shaykh, Mohammed bin ‘Atíyyah, who boasts (falsely) that he commands more than half the two thousand males composing the tribe, is a tall, sinewy man of about fifty, straight-featured, full-bearded, and gruff-voiced: his official style of speaking from the throat, a kind of vaccine low, imitated in camp for many a day, never failed to cause merriment. His costume rose to the height of Desert-fashion, described when pourtraying Shaykh Khizr the ‘Imráni; his manners were those of a gentleman below the Pass, and above it he became an unmitigated ruffian, who merited his soubriquet El-Kalb ("the Hound"). On one side sat his son Sálim, a large, beardless lad, who had begun work by presenting us with a sheep--Giorgi (cook) said it cost us £40. On the other was his eldest brother and alter ego: the wrinkled Sagr (Sakr) has been a resident at Cairo, and still boasts that he received the "tribute" of a horse from the Viceroy, whom he affects to treat as an equal or rather an inferior. The others were old Sagr's ill-visaged son Ali, and, lastly, a cunning-eyed villain, ‘Abayd bin Sálim, the rightful heir to the chieftainship, which, however, he had been unable to keep. All the Shaykhs were dressed in brand-new garments and glaring glossy Kúfíyahs ("head-kerchiefs"); they trade chiefly with Mezáríb in the Haurán; and, during the annual passage to and fro of the Damascus caravan, they await it at Tabúk, and threaten to cut off the road unless liberally propitiated with presents of raiment and rations. The Murátibah (honorarium) contributed by El-Shám would be about one hundred dollars in ready money to the headman, diminishing with degree to one dollar per annum: this would not include "free gifts" by pilgrims. The Ma'ázah are under Syria, that is, under no rule at all; and they are supposed to be