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We had many an interesting stroll round the sultan's gardens at Al Koton, and watched the cultivation of spices and vegetables for the royal table, or rather floor; the lucerne and clover for his cattle, the indigo and henna for dyeing purposes, and the various kinds of grain. But on the cultivation of the date-palm the most attention is lavished; it was just then the season at which the female spathe has to be fructified by the male pollen, and we were interested in watching a man going round with an apron full of male spathes. With these he climbed the stem of the female palm, and with a knife cut open the bark which encircles the female spathe, and as he shook the male pollen over it he chanted in a low voice, 'May God make you grow and be fruitful. No portion of the palm is wasted in the Hadhramout: with the leaves they thatch huts and make fences, the date stones are ground into powder as food for cattle, and they eat the nutty part which grows at the bottom of the spathes, and which they called kourzan. On a journey a man requires nothing but a skin of dates, which will last him for days, and, when we left, Sultan Sal

The little port, in a nest of verdure, encircles the azure bay, where our steamer, merely a white speck in the distance, lies at anchor.

"The desert over which we had passed, ninety miles from water to water, is an immense triangular plain, bounded on one side by the Colorado, on the west by the Cordilleras of California, the coast chain of mountains which now encircles us, extending from the Sacramento river to the southern extremity of Lower California, and on the north-east by a chain of mountains, running southeast and northwest.

"And must we part again! this hour, this very hour; it cannot be!" She clings to him with agony, and kneels to him with adoration. No hope, no hope! a quick return promised with an air of foreboding fate. His stern arm encircles her waist. He chases the heavy tear from her fair cheek, and while he bids her be glad in his absence with her handmaids peals the sad thunder of the signal gun.

Her thoughts are of the future, rather than of the present. True to a mother's instinct, she encircles her child with a protecting arm, but her face is turned, not to his, but to the world. Both are looking steadfastly forward to the great work before them. Their eyes have the far-seeing look of those absorbed in noble dreams.

Its banks are low, and a dense wall of papyrus encircles it. On its western shore rises a range of hills running north.

Leafy branches are twined round two hoops, one of which rests on the shoulders of the wearer, the other encircles his claves; holes are made for his eyes and mouth; and a large nosegay crowns the whole. In this guise he appears suddenly in the village at the hour of vespers, preceded by three boys blowing on horns made of willow bark.

"Around your waist?" says a voice from behind her, and, suiting the action to the word, some one encircles her slender waist with "stout brawny arms." "Guy! I have told you in plain English that I will not allow you to take such freedom with me. This time, I say, 'Je vous difends sirieusementde mettre vos bras...."

A silken sash, generally of scarlet colour, encircles the waist; and its fringed ends hang over the hips. The hunting-knife is stuck under it. He wears boots of red leather, and huge spurs with bell rowels; and he is never seen without the "seraph". The last is his bed, his blanket, his cloak, and his umbrella.

At the base they are walled up with big lumps of lava, and two of them have board fronts, painted black, while the remainder are patched up with turf and rubbish of all sorts, very much in the style of a stork's nest. A low stone wall encircles the premises, but seems to be of little use as a barrier against the encroachments of live-stock, being broken up in gaps every few yards.