WHILE employed in the survey of the southern coast of Arabia in the spring of 1835, Lieutenant Wellsted was occupied for a time near the cape called Ras el-Aseïda, in Hadramaut, about one hundred miles east of Aden. On this cape there is a watch-tower, with the guardian of which, an officer named Hamed, he became acquainted; and on learning from the Bedouins of the neighborhood that extensive ruins, which they described as having been built by infidels, and of great antiquity, were to be found at some distance inland, he prevailed upon the officer to procure him camels and guides. One day, having landed with a midshipman in order to visit some inscriptions at a few hours’ distance, the Bedouins who brought the camels refused to go to the place, but expressed their willingness to convey the two Europeans to the ruined city. Hamed declined to accompany them, on the plea of sickness, and they were unsupplied with provisions or presents for the Shekhs of the villages on the way. Still the chance was too tempting to be lost. Wellsted decided to trust himself to the uncertain protection of the Bedouins, sent his boat to the surveying vessel with a message that it should meet him at a point farther to the westward at the end of three days, and set out for the ruins late in the afternoon. Leaving the sea-shore at sunset, they struck northward into the interior, and travelled until after midnight, passing several villages of the Diyabi Bedouins, a very fierce and powerful tribe, who are dreaded by all their neighbors. Scraping for themselves beds in the sand, the travellers slept until daybreak without being disturbed. The path soon after mounted a ledge about four hundred feet in height, from the summit of which they obtained an extensive but dreary view of the surrounding country. Their route lay along a broad valley, skirted on each side by a lofty range of mountains. By eight o’clock the sun became so oppressive that the Bedouins halted under the shade of some stunted tamarisk trees. “Within these burning hollows,” says Wellsted, “the sun’s rays are concentrated and thrown off as from a mirror; the herbs around were scorched to a cindery blackness; not a cloud obscured the firmament, and the breeze which moaned past us was of a glowing heat, like that escaping from the mouth of a furnace. Our guides dug hollows in the sand, and thrust their blistered feet within them. Although we were not long in availing ourselves of the practical lesson they had taught us, I began to be far from pleased with their churlish demeanor.”