In the afternoon I made an excursion with Overweg to Jebel Durmán, situated at the distance of a mile and a half south-east. It is rather a spur of the plateau jutting out into the broad valley, and, with its steep, precipitous, and washed walls, nearly detached and extremely narrow as it is—a mere neck of rock—looks much like a castle. Upon the middle of its steep side is a small zawíya belonging to the Zintán. The prospect from this steep and almost insulated pile could not, of course, be very extensive, as the mount itself is on the general level of the plateau; but we obtained a fine view over the sea of heights surrounding the broad valley and the several tributaries of which it is formed. Night was setting in, and we returned to our tent. [Illustration] Having heard our Zintáni make frequent mention of an ancient castle with numerous sculptures, and situated at no great distance, I resolved to visit it, and set out tolerably early in the morning of the 9th of April, accompanied by the Arab and one of our shoushes. We had first to send for one of our camels, which was grazing at about three miles’ distance, in the sandy bottom of the wady south-east from our encampment. It was only on this occasion that I became aware of the exact nature of the valley of Mizda, and its relation to the Wady Sófejín; for we did not reach this latter wady until we had traversed the whole breadth of the sandy plain, and crossed a mountain-spur along a defile called Khurmet bu Mátek, at the distance of at least eight miles from our encampment. This is the famous valley mentioned, in the eleventh century, by the celebrated Andalusian geographer El Bekri. Figs and olive-trees adorn its upper part, which is said to stretch out as far as Erhebát, a district one day and a half beyond Zintán; barley is cultivated in its middle course, while wheat, from which the favourite dish ʿajín is made, is grown chiefly in its lower part near Tawárgha. The valley seems worthy of better fortune than that to which it is reduced at present; for when we marched along it, where it ran S. 20 W. to N. 20 E., we passed ruins of buildings and water-channels, while the soil exhibited evident traces of former cultivation. I listened with interest to the Zintáni, who told me that the valley produced an excellent kind of barley, and that the Kuntarár, as well as the people of Zintán, his countrymen, and the Welád Bu-Séf, vied with each other in cultivating it, and, in former times at least, had often engaged in bloody contests for the proprietorship of the ground. When I expressed my surprise at his joining the name of his countrymen with those of the other tribes hereabouts, he gave me the interesting information that the Zintán had been the first and most powerful of all the tribes in this quarter before the time of the Turks, and held all this country in a state of subjection. Since then their political power and influence had been annihilated, but they had obtained