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There were the two wazirs, the son-in-law, the sultan of Haura, and a good many servants with carpets for us to sit on, and a teapot. We sat there for about two hours doing nothing but look at the green, an occupation for which this house is expressly built. A gun announced the arrival of the men of Al Jabber, and the sultan sent a man to kill a goat and receive them.
Flocks of sheep and goats were being grazed all around us; and the owners made no difficulty, as they would have done further north, in selling us half a dozen. We then entered the Wady Haura, where the caravan camps.
It will be in the recollection of the reader, that instead of marching on Lima, he wasted nearly two months at Haura, and that from the pestilential character of the climate, a fearful amount of sickness amongst the troops was the consequence.
Lady Cochrane immediately proceeded to Haura, and effected the object; after which she remained for a month at head-quarters, residing at the house of a Peruvian lady, Donna Josefa Monteblanco. A passage was also, by Lady Cochrane's influence, procured for the lady in the Andromache, on board which ship Captain Sherriff politely invited me to meet her.
Haura is supposed to be the site of an ancient Himyaritic town. We were told that the sultan of Hagarein is not entirely under Makalla, but that he of Haura is.
San Martin, aware of the villainy of his pretended supporters in the Chilian ministry, and dreading the result, put me on my guard by writing to me the following letter: Haura, Feb. 21, 1821. My esteemed Friend, I am expecting information from you with great anxiety, and sincerely hope that it may be as favourable as that which I received in Ancon when I was in similar uncertainty.
We were soon out of the Nahad country. Our troubles on the score of rudeness were happily terminated at Haura, where a huge castle, belonging to the Al Kaiti family, dominates a humble village, surrounded by palm groves. Without photographs to bear out my statement, I should hardly dare to describe the magnificence of these castles in the Hadhramout.
This huge castle was built by the grandfather of the Sultan Manassar, sultan of Makalla, but, owing to some difference about his wives, he left the two topmost stories unfinished. No one lives in it, so we had the whole of this immense pile of buildings to ourselves. It belongs to Manassar. It is larger than Al Koton by far, and that is also exceeded in size by Haura.
As we were leaving Haura, just standing about waiting to mount, I felt something hard in one finger of my glove which I was putting on. I thought it was a dry leaf and hooked it down with my nail and shook it into my hand. Imagine my terror on lifting my glove at seeing a scorpion wriggling there.
That at Haura is seven stories high, and covers fully an acre of ground beneath the beetling cliff, with battlements, towers, and machicolations bearing a striking likeness to Holyrood; but Holyrood is built of stone, and Haura, save for the first story, is built of sun-dried bricks, and if Haura stood where Holyrood does, or in a rainy climate, it would long ago have crumbled away.
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