It was five o’clock on Monday morning, July 2d, that I set off from Aden with my camel boy Salih, and we did not stop until we reached the village of Wahat, nearly at noon. Starting again at seven o’clock, we followed the Arab custom of marching the whole night with the caravan. There was no breeze, and it was very hot. Vegetation does not begin until you enter Wady Merga. Here we had fresh dates, and made our camp under a big acacia tree. The road begins to rise rapidly as we follow the Wady northwards, and at midnight we pass Suk-el-Juma, or Friday market. This part of the road, they tell us, is dangerous, and so the Bedouins who accompany our eighty-two camel caravan swing the lighted wicks which they use to fire their flint-lock shotguns. Only one man in the party had a Springfield rifle. On July 4th we fell in with some Arabs who wanted to seize me as a spy of the British government and keep me as a prisoner until money was paid for my release. After some difficulty we persuaded them that I was not a British subject, and that no money would be paid even if they kept me a prisoner for many days. The following day we had another adventure. Climbing up the valley and past fields of verdure, where men were plowing and women were weeding the gardens, we suddenly stumbled upon a Turkish castle, where an unmannerly negro official was in charge. He said no strangers were allowed beyond the Turkish frontier, seized all my baggage, confiscated my books and maps, and sent me under guard to Taiz, the next important town. On the afternoon of this same day, a heavy thunderstorm burst upon us from a clear sky, the wind became a hurricane, some of the camels stampeded, our umbrellas turned inside out, and, worst of all, a mountain torrent, swollen by the sudden rains and hail, carried away a donkey and part of our baggage. Drenched to the skin, we at last forced the camels up the slope to the house of an Arab, and were hospitably entertained, around a big fire which he built, on Arab coffee and sweetmeats.