The second day’s journey brought Wellsted to a small encampment, where the chief’s wives were abiding. They conversed with him, unveiled, gave him coffee, milk, and dates, and treated him with all the hospitality which their scanty means allowed. The Beni Geneba tribe numbers about three thousand five hundred fighting men; they are spread over a large extent of Southern Arabia, and are divided into two distinct classes—those who live by fishing, and those who follow pastoral pursuits. A race of fishermen, however, is found on all parts of the Arabian coast. In some districts they are considered a separate and degraded people, with whom the genuine Bedouins will neither eat, associate, nor intermarry; but among the Beni Geneba this distinction does not exist. Wellsted might have penetrated much farther to the westward under the protection of this tribe, and was tempted to do so; but it seemed more important to move northward, and get upon some one of the caravan tracks leading into Central Arabia. He therefore returned to the camp of the Beni-Abu-Ali, where the friendly people would hardly suffer him to depart, promising to build a house for him if he would remain a month with them. For two days he travelled northward, over an undulating region of sand, sometimes dotted with stunted acacias, and reached a district called Bediah, consisting of seven villages, each seated in its little oasis of date palms. One striking feature of these towns is their low situation. They are erected in artificial hollows, which have been excavated to the depth of six or eight feet. Water is then conveyed to them in subterranean channels from wells in the neighboring hills, and the soil is so fertile that irrigation suffices to produce the richest harvest of fruit and vegetables. A single step carries the traveller from the glare and sand of the desert into a spot teeming with the most luxuriant vegetation, and embowered by lofty trees, whose foliage keeps out the sun. “Some idea,” says Wellsted, “may be formed of the density of this shade by the effect it produces in lessening the terrestrial radiation. A Fahrenheit thermometer which within the house stood at 55°, six inches from the ground fell to 45°. From this cause and the abundance of water they are always saturated with damp, and even in the heat of the day possess a clammy coldness.”