I then rose, and the servant took back the coffee-pot; upon which Hassan ordered his servant out of his presence, saying, “No, no; give me the coffee if we are in peace;” and he drank it accordingly. Now, says he, past is past; the Atouni are to meet us at the [152]mouth of Beder; your people are better armed than mine, are Turks, and used to fighting. I would wish you to go foremost, and we will take charge of your camels, though my people have 4000 of their own, and they have enough to do to take charge of the corn. “And I,” said I, “if I wanted water or provision, would go to meet the Atouni, who would use me well. Why, you don’t know to whom you are speaking, nor that the Atouni are Arabs of Ali Bey, and that I am his man of confidence, going to the Sherriffe of Mecca? The Atouni will not hurt _us_; but, as you say, you are commander of the caravan, we have all sworn we will not fire a shot, till we see you heartily engaged; and then we will do our best; to hinder the Arabs from stealing the Sherriffe of Mecca’s corn, for _his sake only_.” They all cried out El Fedtah! El Fedtah! so I said the prayer of peace as a proxy; for none of the Turks would come near him. Opposite to where we were encamped is Terfowey, a large mountain, partly green-marble, partly granite, with a red blush upon a grey ground, with square oblong spots. About forty yards within the narrow valley, which separates this mountain from its neighbour, we saw a part of the fust or shaft of a monstrous obelisk of marble, very nearly square, broken at the end, and towards the top. It was nearly thirty feet long, and nineteen feet in the face; about two feet of the bottom were perfectly insulated, and one whole side separated from the mountain. The gully had been widened and levelled, and the road made quite up to underneath the block. We saw likewise, throughout the plain, small pieces of jasper, having green, white, and red spots, called in Italy, “Diaspo Sanguineo.” All the mountains on both sides of the plain seemed to be of the same sort, whether they really were so or not, I will not say, having had no time to examine them. The 22d, at half past one in the morning, we set out full of terror about the Atouni. We continued in a direction nearly east, till at three we came to the defiles; but it was so dark, that it was impossible to discern of what the country on each side consisted. At day-break, we found ourselves at the bottom of a mountain of granite, bare like the former.