“Barakat and myself prepared for our departure; we purchased a few objects of local curiosity, got in our dues of medical attendance, paid and received the customary P. P. C. visits, and even tendered our respects to the negro governor Belal, where he sat at his palace door in the Kôt, holding a public audience, and looking much like any other well-dressed black. No passport was required for setting out on the road to Kateef, which in the eyes of government forms only one and the same province with Hasa, though in many respects very different from it. The road is perfectly secure; plundering Bedouins or highway robbers are here out of the question. However, we stood in need of companions, not for escort, but as guides. Aboo-’Eysa made inquiries in the town, and found three men who chanced to be just then setting out on their way for Kateef, who readily consented to join band with us for the road. Our Abyssinian hostess supplied us with a whole sack of provisions, and our Hofhoof associates found us in camels. Thus equipped and mounted, we took an almost touching leave of Aboo-’Eysa’s good-natured wife, kissed the baby, exchanged an _au revoir_ with its father, and set out on the afternoon of December 19th, leaving behind us many pleasant acquaintances, from some of whom I received messages and letters while at Bahreyn. So far as inhabitants are concerned, to no town in Arabia should I return with equal confidence of finding a hearty greeting and a welcome reception, than to Hofhoof and its amiable and intelligent merchants. “We quitted the town by the northeastern gate of the Rifey-’eeyah, where the friends, who, according to Arab custom, had accompanied us thus far in a sort of procession, wished us a prosperous journey, took a last adieu, and returned home. After some hours we bivouacked on a little hillock of clean sand, with the dark line of the Hofhoof woods on our left, while at some distance in front a copious fountain poured out its rushing waters with a noise distinctly audible in the stillness of the night, and irrigated a garden worthy of Damascus or Antioch. The night air was temperate, neither cold like that of Nedjed, nor stifling like that of Southern India; the sky clear and starry. From our commanding position on the hill I could distinguish Soheyl or Canopus, now setting; and following him, not far above the horizon, the three upper stars of the Southern Cross, an old Indian acquaintance; two months later in Oman I had the view of the entire constellation. “Next morning we traversed a large plain of light and sandy soil, intersected by occasional ridges of basalt and sandstone.