We were now three thousand feet above sea level, and it was very cold at night even in July. We pressed on the next day, travelling through a country where every one fears his neighbour. I asked my guide why he had not prayed since we left Wahat, and his answer was, “If I pray on the road, my heart gets soft, and I fear to shoot an Arab robber because he may be a Moslem.” We saw many centipedes and scorpions sleeping after their rain bath, and warming themselves on the rocks. Every turn of the road brought us in sight of new villages, and everywhere the peasants have done their best to cultivate the soil by irrigation, until you can count a dozen terraces one above the other up the mountainside, in various shades of green of the different crops. Once and again we met caravans going down to the coast, carrying coffee or sheep-hides, as you see in the picture. One could hear the approach of a caravan by the camel drivers’ song. In a high, monotonous key and with endless repetition, they would sing verses like this about their camels: “O Lord, keep them from all dangers that pass, And make their long legs pillars of brass.” Two days later we arrived at the interesting old town of Taiz, and I think I was the first Western traveller to visit it since the days of Niebuhr in 1763. While waiting for the governor to investigate the seizure of my baggage and the question of my passport, I had a good opportunity to study the town. Taiz has a population of about seven thousand people; two or three very old mosques with minarets, a Jewish synagogue, and a very respectable market. Just back of the town rises a mountain called the Bride’s Castle, from the top of which you can see clear across to the African coast. The Turkish government takes its own time about such a little matter as the inspection of baggage and the granting of a passport, and it was July 26th before I left Taiz. Even then I was not released, but sent on from the local governor to the capital under guard of a mounted trooper, who rode a beautiful horse, while I followed on a mule. It was no hardship, however, to get away from Taiz, and once more to breathe the country air and climb the mountain passes.