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The character of the valleys is pretty much the same as that of those to the south of the main valley, only they are narrower and much lower, and thus the deep indenture of the valley system of the Hadhramout gradually fades away into the vast expanse of the central desert.
In fact, it scarcely ever rains in the Hadhramout. From the roof of our lofty castle we had an excellent view straight down the broad Hadhramout valley, dotted with towns, villages, palm groves, and cultivation for fully thirty miles, embracing the two towns of Siwoun and Terim, ruled over by the two brother sultans of the Kattiri tribe.
Close to Shibahm several collateral valleys from north and south fall into the Hadhramout, and a glance at the map made by our chartographer, Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur, will at once show the importance of this situation.
We had never put ourselves into the charge of such wild people as the Garas far wilder in every way than the Bedouin of the Hadhramout, inasmuch as they have far less contact with civilisation. The Bedou of Southern Arabia is, to my mind, distinctly of an aboriginal race.
We wanted to go right along the Wadi Hadhramout and to see Bir Borhut or Barahout, a solfatare as far as we could make out, but Masoudi in the tenth century speaks of it as the greatest volcano in the world, and says that it casts up immense masses of fire and that its thundering noise can be heard miles away. On the heights near is much brimstone, which the Bedouin find useful for gunpowder.
Once it was the chief commercial port of the Hadhramout valley, but now Makalla has quite superseded it, for Sheher is nothing but an open roadstead with a couple of baggalas belonging to the family of Al Kaiti, which generally have to go to Hami to shelter, and its buildings are now falling into ruins, since the Kattiri were driven away.
We heard that Wadi Shekhavi is the end of Wadi Mosila. It runs parallel to, and is almost as large as, the Wadi Hadhramout. Ghail Benzamin is the principal town in it. At last, feeling that our work and our researches were as thoroughly done as in our power lay, we arose and turned our faces toward England.
Secondly, we have the Arabs proper, a decidedly later importation into the country than the Bedouin. They live in and cultivate the lands around the towns; many of them carry on trade and go to India and the Straits Settlements, and some of them are very wealthy. They also are divided into tribes. The chief of those dwelling in the Hadhramout are the Yafei, Kattiri, Minhali, Amri, and Tamimi.
In the meantime we were terrible bones of contention, and had the Wadi Hadhramout all by the ears. We were very anxious indeed as to whether we could proceed any farther or should have to go back, and whether we could do either safely.
These valleys have, in the course of ages, been silted up by sand to a considerable height, below which water is always found, and the only means of obtaining water in the Hadhramout for drinking purposes, as well as for cultivation, is by sinking wells. The water of the main valley is strongly impregnated with salt, but is much sweeter at the sides of the valley than in the centre.
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