For three days longer the travellers journeyed southward, through the valleys branching out from Djebel Toweyk, encamping for the night near some of the small towns. “In the early gray of the fourth morning,” says Palgrave, “we passed close under the plantations of Rowdah down the valley, now dry and still, once overflowed with the best blood of Arabia, and through the narrow and high-walled pass which gives entrance to the great strongholds of the land. The sun rose and lighted up to our view wild precipices on either side, with a tangled mass of broken rock and brushwood below, while coveys of partridges started up at our feet, and deer scampered away by the gorges to right or left, or a cloud of dust announced the approach of peasant bands or horsemen going to and fro, and gardens or hamlets gleamed through side openings or stood niched in the bulging passes of the Wady itself, till before noon we arrived at the little hamlet of Malka, or ‘the junction.’ “Its name is derived from its position. Here the valley divides in form of a Y, sending off two branches—one southerly to Derey’eeyah, the other southeast-by-east through the centre of the province, and communicating with the actual capital, Ri’ad. “Aboo-’Eysa had meditated bringing us on that very evening to Ri’ad. But eight good leagues remained from Malka to the capital; and when the Na’ib had terminated his cosmetic operations, the easterly turning shadows left us no hope of attaining Ri’ad before nightfall. However, we resumed our march, and took the arm of the valley leading to Derey’eeyah; but before reaching it we once more quitted the Wady, and followed a shorter path by the highlands to the left. Our way was next crossed by a long range of towers, built by Ibraheem Pasha, as outposts for the defence of this important position. Within their line stood the lonely walls of a large, square barrack; the towers were what we sometimes call Martello—short, large, and round.