with us as a delightful remembrance.  On the following day we were to depart.  Mohammed, while we were away, had been making preparations.  Two new camels had been bought, and a month’s provision of dates and rice purchased, in addition to a gift of excellent Yemen coffee sent us by the Emir.  Our last interview with Ibn Rashid was characteristic.  He was not at the kasr, but in a house he has close to the Mecca gate, where from a little window he can watch unperceived the goings on of the Haj encamped below him.  We found him all alone, for he has lost all fear of our being assassins now, at his window like a bird of prey, calculating no doubt how many more silver pieces he should be able to make out of the Persians before they were well out of his clutches.  Every now and then he would lean out of the window, which was partly covered by a shutter, and shout to one of his men who were standing below some message with regard to the pilgrims.  He seemed to be enjoying the pleasure of his power over them, and it is absolute.

To us he was very amiable, renewing all his protestations of friendship and regard, and offering to give us anything we might choose to ask for, dromedaries for the journey, or one of his mares.  This, although we should have liked to accept the last offer, we of course declined, Wilfrid making a short speech in the Arab manner, saying that the only thing we asked was the Emir’s regard, and wishing him length of days.  He begged Mohammed ibn Rashid to consider him as his vakil in Europe in case he required assistance of any kind, and thanked him for all the kindness we had received at his hands.  The Emir then proposed that we should put off our departure, and go with him instead on a ghazú or warlike expedition he was starting on in a few days, a very attractive offer which might have been difficult to refuse had it been made earlier, but which we now declined.  Our heads, in fact, had been in the jaws of the lion long enough, and now our only object was to get quietly and decorously out of the den.  We therefore pleaded want of time, and added that our camels were already on the road; we then said good-bye and took our leave.

There was, however, one more visit to be paid, this time of friendly regard more than of ceremony.  As we rode through the town we stopped at Hamúd’s house and found him and all his family at home.  To them our farewells were really expressions of regret at parting, and Hamúd gave us some very sound advice about going on with the Haj to Meshhed Ali, instead of trying to get across to Bussora.  There had been rain, he said, on the pilgrim road, and all the reservoirs (those marked on the map as the tanks of Zobeydeh) were full, so that our journey that way would be exceptionally easy, whereas between this and Bussorah, we should have to pass over an almost waterless region, without anything interesting to compensate for the difficulty.  But this we should see as we went on—the first thing, as I have said, was to get clear away, and it would be time enough later to settle details about our course.

Majid was there, and received from Wilfrid as a remembrance a silver-handled Spanish knife, whereupon he sent for a black cloth cloak with a little gold embroidery on the collar and presented it to me.  It was a suitable gift, for I had nothing of the sort, indeed no respectable abba at all, and this one was both dignified and quiet in appearance.  Majid at least, I am sure, regrets us, and if circumstances ever take us again to Haïl, it would be the best fortune for us to find him or his father on the throne.  They are regarded as the natural heirs to the Sheykhat, and Ibn Rashid’s does not look like a long life.

After this we mounted, and in another five minutes were clear of the town.  Then looking back, we each drew a long breath, for Haïl with all the charm of its strangeness, and its interesting inhabitants, had come to be like a prison to us, and at one time when we had had that quarrel with Mohammed, had seemed very like a tomb.

We left Haïl by the same gate at which we had entered it, what seemed like years before, but instead of turning towards the mountains, we skirted the wall of the town and further on the palm gardens, which are its continuation, for about three miles down a ravine-like wady.  Then we came out on the plain again, and at the last isolated group of ithel trees, halted for the last time to enjoy the shade, for the sun was almost hot, before joining the pilgrim caravan, which we could see like a long line of ants traversing the plain between us and the main range of Jebel Shammar.

It was, without exception, the most beautiful view I ever saw in my life, and I will try to describe it.  To begin with, it must be understood that the air, always clear in Jebel Shammar, was this day of a transparent clearness, which probably surpasses anything seen in ordinary deserts, or in the high regions of the Alps, or at the North Pole, or anywhere except perhaps in the moon.  For this is the very centre of the desert, four hundred miles from the sea, and nearly four thousand feet above the sea level.  Before us lay a foreground of coarse reddish sand, the washing down of the granite rocks of Jebel Aja, with here and there magnificent clumps of ithel, great pollards whose trunks measure twenty and thirty feet [34] in circumference, growing on little mounds showing where houses once stood—just as in Sussex the yew trees do—for the town seems to have shifted from this end of the oasis to where it now is.  Across this sand lay a long green belt of barley, perhaps a couple of acres in extent, the blades of corn brilliantly green, and just having shot up high enough to hide the irrigation furrows.  Beyond this, for a mile or more, the level desert fading from red to orange, till it was again cut by what appeared to be a shining sheet of water reflecting the deep blue of the sky—a mirage of course, but the most perfect illusion that can be imagined.  Crossing this, and apparently wading in the water, was the long line of the pilgrim camels, each reflected exactly in the mirage below him with the dots of blue, red, green, or pink, representing the litter or tent he carried.  The line of the procession might be five miles or more in length; we could not see the end of it.  Beyond again rose the confused fantastic mass of the sapphire coloured crags of Jebel Aja, the most strange and beautiful mountain range that can be imagined—a lovely vision.

When we had sufficiently admired all this, and I had made my sketch of it, for there was no hurry, we got on our mares again and rejoicing with them in our freedom, galloped on singing the Shammar song, “Ma arid ana erkobu delúl lau zeynoli shedadeha, biddi ana hamra shenûf, hamra seriyeh arruddeha,” a proceeding which inspired them more than any whip or spur could have done, and which as we converged towards the Haj caravan, made the camels caper, and startled the pilgrims into the idea that the Harb Bedouins were once more upon them.  So we went along with Mohammed following us, till we reached the vanguard of the Haj, and the green and red banner which goes in front of it.  Close to this we found our own camels, and soon after camped with them, not ten miles from Haïl in a bit of a wady where the standard was planted.

Our tents are a couple of hundred yards away from the Haj camp, which is crowded together for fear of the dangers of the desert.  The pilgrim