Of the Hismá in its present state, we may say as of Ushant, Qui voit Ouessant, voit la mort. Nothing can be done towards working the mines of Midian until this den of thieves is cleared out. It is an asylum for every murderer and bandit who can make his way there--a centre of turbulence which spreads trouble all around it. Under the sham rule of miserable Shám (Syria), with its Turkish Wális, men like the late Ráshid Pasha, matters can only wax worse. Subject to Egypt, the people will learn discipline and cease to torment the land. Happily for their neighbours there will be no difficulty in reducing the Ma'ázah. They are surrounded by enemies, and they have lately been obliged to pay "brother-tax" to the Ruwalá as a defence against being plundered: the tribute consists of one piece of hair-cloth about twenty cubits long. On the north, as far as El-Ma'án, they meet the hostile Beni Sakr (Jawázi), under the Shaykh Mohammed ibn Jázi; southwards the Baliyy, commanded by Shaykh ‘Afnán, are on terms of "blood" with them; eastward stand the ‘Anezah and the warlike Sharárát-Hutaym, who ever covet their two thousand camels: westward lie in wait their hereditary foes, the Huwaytát. Shaykh Furayj, the tactician, has long ago proposed a general onslaught of his tribesmen by a simultaneous movement up the Wadys Surr, Sadr, Urnub, and ‘Afál: they seemed to have some inkling of his intentions, as they hastened to conclude with him a five months' ‘Altwah or "truce." Finally, a small disciplined force, marching down the Damascus-Medínah pilgrimage-road to the east, and co-operating with the Huwayta't on the west would place this vermin between two fires. The tale of my disappointment may conclude with an ethnological notice of those who caused it. The Ma'ázah is a Syro-Egypto-Bedawi clan, originally Arab, or rather Syrian, but migratory, as are all Arabs. It now extends high up the valley of the Nile, and it is still found in the Wady Musá (of Suez) and on the Za'faránah block. Even in Egypt it is turbulent and dangerous: the men are professional robbers; and their treachery is uncontrolled by the Bedawi law of honour--they will eat bread and salt with the traveller whom they intend to murder. For many years it was unsafe to visit the camps within sight of Suez, until a compulsory residence at head-quarters taught the Shaykhs manners. The habitat in Arabia stretches from the Wady Musá of Petra, where they are kinsmen of the Tiyáhah, the Bedawin of the Tíh-desert; and through Ma'án as far as the Birkat el-Mu'azzamah, south of Tabúk. Finally, they occupy the greater part of the Hismá and the northern Harrah.