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So much was said about the dangers of the onward road that Saleh was sent with the letters for Shibahm and Sheher and told to hold them tight, and say that if we could not deliver these in person we should return to the wali of Aden and say that the sultan of Hagarein would not let us go on. This frightened him, so he made a very dear bargain for fifteen camels, and we were to leave next day.
Our expedition all passed a peaceful night, thankful to be in security after eighteen days of anxiety, never knowing what ambushes we might be led into; but Talib we heard did not sleep at all and was quite ill from fright, as contrary to his wishes he was, said the sultan, to be taken to Sheher with us on the morrow.
After a good deal of illusory delay, the sultan declared he could not in any way be responsible for our safety if we went anywhere from Sheher, so we had to bow to the inevitable and put ourselves on board a dhow belonging to Kutch, bound for Aden. The captain and sailors were all Hindoos, and to our amusement our Mohammedan party were as unclean as ourselves.
So Talib was recalled, and told that we would go back; that we were now convinced of the dangers of this road, as we saw he was afraid himself, and as he had told us of two places where murders were always committed. The money was to be placed on the Koran and taken thence by Talib, with an oath that, if the sultan of Sheher thought it unnecessary, it should be refunded.
There had been great trouble with the Hamoumi, and only three months before two soldiers had been killed about half a mile from Sheher. Ghaleb Mia and Hussein Mia dared not go to Inbula or anywhere outside their walls without forty or fifty men, and when Sal
Theodore Bent's expedition was not sanctioned by Government, in spite of the fact that the Indian Government had actually placed at my husband's disposal a surveyor, Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur. We had no assistance beyond two very inferior letters to the sultans of Makalla and Sheher, which made them think we were 'people of the rank of merchants, they afterwards said.
We passed plenty of people coming up, and one day we met a caravan of 150 camels from Sheher with Hadhrami merchants returning from India to enjoy the fruits of their rascality, and end their days on the sacred soil of Arabia. There were little tents on the camels for women, and they seemed to us to have very few armed men. The stream Ghail Omr is the first running one we saw since Al Ghail.
The servants all thought that as soon as might be after getting to Sheher we should take ship for Aden, and many were the plans made for vengeance upon Saleh once he was safe in our clutches on board that ship.
When we reached Sheher, a messenger was sent ashore with a letter to Sultan Hussein, and a message was returned inviting us to take up our quarters in the same unfinished palace where we had lived ten months before. One of the first people to greet us was the n
After a very few minutes, however, my husband had an idea, which was to go to Sheher somehow, and turn up inland from thence; there were plenty of Tamimi there to help us, and we could thus get to the east side of the Kattiri. Saleh was to know nothing till all was settled.
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