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There was a great deal of gun-firing when the Jabberi went by with the sheikh of the Kattiri, and our next interest was a letter from Al Koton, saying 'that the Tamimi, who had sworn on their heads and their eyes to do so, had never appeared, and that the Jabberi wanted 110 dollars, exclusive of camel hire, to go with us, the camels only to go a short distance, and then we must change.
The men go in crowds to India, Batavia, and elsewhere, sometimes remaining absent twenty years from their wives and families, and indeed we were told of one case in which a husband had been away for forty years. They return at last to spend their gains and die in their native sanctity. We reached Al Koton on January 30, and found our friend the sultan very well indeed.
For seven hours we travelled along the valley, which from its width was like a plain till we were within a mile of the castle of Al Koton, where the sultan of Shibahm resides. Thus far all was desert and sand, but suddenly the valley narrows, and a long vista of cultivation was spread before us. Here miles of the valley are covered with palm groves. Bright green patches of lucerne called kadhlb, almost dazzling to look upon after the arid waste, and numerous other kinds of grain are raised by irrigation, for the Hadhramout has beneath its expanse of sand a river running, the waters of which are obtained by digging deep wells. Skin buckets are let down by ropes and drawn up by cattle by means of a steep slope, and then the water is distributed for cultivation through narrow channels; it is at best a fierce struggle with nature to produce these crops, for the rainfall can never be depended upon. We had intended to push on to Al Koton, but Sultan Sal
We had begun to suspect we were being deceived as to his illness, for when the wazir and Saleh, who seemed in league together, heard the seyyid son-in-law, who came straight from Al Koton soon after the letter, telling us that the sultan was much better, they looked disconcerted, whispered together, and the wazir said, 'You should not talk of what you know nothing about.
The castle of the sultan is nice and clean inside, and it was pleasant, after some very reviving cups of coffee and ginger, and some very public conversation, to find our canvas homes all erected on a hard field a pleasant change from our late dusty places. Mahmoud obtained a fox, which was his first mammal, saving a bushy-tailed rat. We were sent a lamb and a box of honey, and soon after the governor arrived to request a present. He asked thirty rupees but got twenty, and the new soldiers in place of the Nahadi men were to have five rupees on arrival at Koton. We were now nearing the palace of Sultan Sal
The Jabberi had gone away, as my husband said he must think over this; so we consulted together. We at first quite decided to return to Al Koton, and try to reach the coast by Wadi al Ain and, if we could not have the camels, to load our own three animals with necessaries and money, leaving all else behind, and perhaps to slip by Siwoun in the night.
Our departure from Al Koton on February 12 was almost as serious an affair as our start from Makalla. Sultan Sal
The sultans at Sheher had only three. We had already sent Zubda back to Al Koton. The soldiers were very fond of terrifying my horse, when passing a village and I wanted to stare about, to show him off. In avoiding Sarrar we got into great difficulties with the loose sand.
The Bedouin here, like the Turkomans, live in scattered abodes, little groups of two or three houses dotted about, and solitary homesteads. It belongs to the Kattiri tribe, who are at war with the Yafei. They once owned Sheher and Makalla and took Al Koton, but in a war in 1874 the Yafei were supported by the English; hence their friendship for England.
The Jabberi afterwards said the Mandob way was much the longest, so we changed again. We delayed several days longer at Al Koton, hoping against hope that the sultan of Terim would grant us permission to pass through his territories, that we might prosecute our journey.
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