The pass was called Yafir, and, by the boiling thermometer, showed an altitude of 6704 feet. It was almost the highest point on this range. From a cedar tree I cooked my breakfast under, on facing to the north I saw at once the vast waters of the Gulf, all smooth and glassy as a mill-pond, the village of Bunder Gori, and the two buggaloes lying in its anchorage-ground, like little dots of nut-shells, immediately below the steep face of the mountain. So deep and perpendicular was it, that it had almost the effect of looking down a vast precipice. But how different was the view on turning to the south! Instead of this enormous grandeur--a deep rugged hill, green and fresh in verdure, with the sea like a large lake below--it was tame in the extreme; the land dropped gently to scarcely more than half its depth, with barely a tree visible on its surface; and at the foot of the hill, stretched out as far as the eye could reach, was a howling, blank-looking desert, all hot and arid, and very wretched to look upon. It was the more disappointing, as the Somali had pictured this to me as a land of promise, literally flowing with milk and honey, where, they said, I should see boundless prairies of grass, large roomy trees, beautiful valleys with deep brooks running down them, and cattle, wild animals, and bees in abundance. Perhaps this was true to them, who had seen nothing finer in creation; who thought ponies fine horses, a few weeds grass, and a puny little brook a fine large stream. At noon we reloaded, and proceeded to join the camels and men sent forward on the previous day. The track first led us a mile or two across the hill-top, where I remarked several heaps of stones piled up, much after the fashion of those monuments the Tibet Tartars erect in commemoration of their Lahma saints. These, the Somali said, were left here by their predecessors, and, they thought, were Christian tombs. Once over the brow of the hill, we descended the slopes on the south, which fell gently in terraces, and travelled until dark, when we reached a deep nullah, here called Mukur, in which we found our vanguard safely encamped in a strong ring-fence of thorn bushes.