In the evening we were honoured with a Ngoma Khu, or full orchestra, for which a dollar was but a paltry bakhshish, were noise worth coin. The spectators appeared by no means a comely race, but they were healthier and in far better condition than the churls of Wasin. I saw, however, amongst them many cases of leprous white spots on the palms and soles. We took leave at night, provided by the Díwáns with a bullock and half-a-dozen goats, with fruit, and with milk. These headmen, who prefer to be entitled Sultan, are in the proportion of half-a-dozen per village, each one omnipotent within his own walls. In their presence the many-headed may not sit on chairs, carpets, or fine mats; use umbrellas, wear turbans, nor walk in the pattens called Kabkab: moreover, on solemn occasions such as this none but the Diwan may pace and whirl through the Pyrrhic dance. Said bin Salim described them as a kind of folk that want to eat—in fact, des escrocs: they accompanied us, however, gratis, on our various excursions, and when we went out shooting, our difficulty was to shirk an escort. Knowing that Arab and Persian colonies had been planted at an early epoch in this part of the Sawahil, I accepted with pleasure a guide to one of the ancient cities. Setting out at 8 A.M. with a small body of spearmen, I walked four or five miles S. West of Tanga on the Mtangata road over a country dry as Arabian sand, and strewed with the bodies of huge millepedes. The hard red and yellow clays produced in plenty holcus and sesamum, manioc and papaws; mangoes and pine-apples were rare, but the Jamli, or Indian damson (in Arabic Zám and in Kisawahili Mzambaráni), the egg-plant, and the toddy-tree grew wild. The baobabs were in new leaf, the fields were burned in readiness for rain, and the peasants dawdled about, patting the clods with bits of wood. At last we traversed a Khor, or lagoon drained by the receding tide, and insulating the ruins: then, after a walk of five miles over crab-mounds, we sighted our destination. From afar it resembled an ancient castle. Entering by a gap in the enceinte, I found a parallelogram some 200 yards long, of solid coralline or lime, in places rent by the roots of sturdy trees, well bastioned and loop-holed for bows and muskets. The site is raised considerably above the mean level of the country, attesting its antiquity: it is concealed from the seaside by a screen of trees and by the winding creek, that leaves the canoes high during the ebb-tide; full water makes it an island. In the centre, also split by huge coiling creepers, and in the last stage of dilapidation, are the remains of a Mosque showing signs of a rude art. I was led with some pretension to a writing, perpendicularly scratched upon a stuccoed column: it proved to be the name of a lettered Msawahili—Kimángá wá Muamádi (Mohammed) Adi (Walad) Makame—and the character was more like Kufic than anything that I had ever seen at Harar. The ruins of houses are scattered over the