Ribe. Lat. 3° 55′ S., Long. 39° 40′ E., 500 feet.

Mochi, Kilimanjaro. Lat. 3° 18′ S., Long. 37° 23' E.,

5,000 feet.

Sagala, Taita. Lat. 3° 32′ S., Long. 38° 35′ E., 3,300 feet.

The observations were made by the Rev. Thomas Wakefield.
They were not made regularly, but are sufficiently numerous to enable us to deduce approximate

means.

The rain-water, during Mr. Wakefield's occasional absences, was allowed to accumulate, and then
measured. In 1877 the rainfall at Mombasa was 91-06 inches, almost the same as at the neighbouring
Ribe. This, how. ver, was an exceptionally wet year, the average not exceeding 51 inches.

The pressure has been reduced to 32° and corrected for gravity. The instrumental errors are not

known.

August
September
October

The observations at Mochi C. Miss. Station were taken by the Rev.
W. Morris and Rev. E. A. Fitch, those at Sagala by the Rev. W.
Morris and Mr. J. A. Wray. Instrumental errors not known.

5.4

July

80

85

November

96

86

59

54

59

79

80

77

76

77

83

84

The Exploration of Hadramout in Southern Arabia.-Report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. H. SEEBOHM (Chairman), Mr. J. THEODORE BENT (Secretary), Mr. E. G. RAVENSTEIN, Dr. J. G. GARSON, and Mr. G. W. BLOXAM. (Drawn up by Mr. BENT.)

OUR expedition left Aden on December 15, 1893, for Mokulla, the seaport from which we were to start inland for the Hadramout valley. The coast-line of this part of Arabia is peculiarly harbourless, and the only ports for the Hadramout valley are Mokulla and Sheher, the former being only available during the north-east monsoons, and the latter being merely an open roadstead. Sheher was until late years the most flourishing of the two places, but the transfer of the suzerainty over these places to the Al Kaiti family has resulted in Mokulla becoming by far the most thriving of the two, and Sheher is gradually falling into ruins.

Before describing the interior it will be well to explain the conditions of political affairs in the Hadramout and the origin of the Al Kaiti family which rules there. At present this is the most powerful family in the district, and is reputed to be the richest in Arabia.

About five generations ago the Sayyids of the Aboubekir family, at that time the chief Arab family in the Hadramout, who claimed descent from the first of the Caliphs, were at variance with the Bedouin tribes, and in their extremity they invited assistance from the chiefs of the Yati tribe, who inhabit the Yafi district, to the north-east of Aden. To this request the Al Kaiti family responded by sending assistance to the Sayyids of the Hadramout, and putting down the troublesome Bedouin tribes, and establishing a fair amount of peace and prosperity in the country, though even to this day the Bedouins of the mountains are ever ready to swoop down and harass the more peaceful inhabitants of the towns. At the same time the Al Kaiti family established themselves in the Hadramout, and for the last four generations have been steadily adding to the power thus acquired. Mokulla, Sheher, Shibam, Haura, Hagarein, all belong to them, and they are continually increasing by purchase the area of their influence in the collateral valleys, building substantial palaces, and establishing one of the most powerful dynasties in this much divided country. They get all their money from India and the Straits Settlements, for it has been the custom of the Hadrami to leave their own somewhat sterile country to seek their fortunes abroad. The Nizam of Hyderabad has an Arab regiment composed entirely of Hadrami, and the Sultan Nawasjung, the present head of the Al Kaiti family, is its general: he lives in India, and governs his Arabian possessions by deputy. His son Ghalib rules in Sheher, his nephew Manassah rules in Mokulla, and his nephew Salah rules in Shibam, and the governors of the other towns are mostly connections of this family. The power and wealth of this family are almost the only guarantee for peace and prosperity in an otherwise lawless country.

The configuration of the country is interesting and very peculiar; the coast-line all the way from Mokulla to Saihut is hopelessly arid and unproductive, except where hot springs come out of the ground. That at Ghail ba Wazir, about twelve miles from Sheher, is utilised for the cultivation of tobacco, palms, and fodder; that at Al Hami is exceedingly hot, so hot that when it rises the hand can hardly bear it; that at Dis also

fertilises a considerable area, and there are several others. Beyond these natural streams, or ghails as they are called, the coast-line is both waterless and featureless, and it is very narrow in most parts the line of mountains begins to rise about six miles from the coast, and continues an abrupt and almost unbroken line all along the coast. Several caravan roads penetrate into the interior up the short valleys, but in every case there is a very steep ascent, exceedingly arduous for camels and beasts of burden. At an elevation of 5,000 feet there is a plateau extending on all sides, as far as the eye can reach, divided by nature into two storeys, the upper one being about eighty feet higher than the lower, and representing what is left of a higher surface gradually disappearing in the course of ages. On the upper storey vegetation is entirely absent, and in many places the ground is covered with black basaltic stones scattered over the surface as if from a gigantic pepper-pot. In the gullies of this upper storey there are considerable traces of vegetation, and it is here that the myrrh trees and frankincense trees grew which once formed the wealth of this district. The subject of frankincense and myrrh is of course one of the most interesting in connection with the Hadramout, as this portion of Arabia was the one which supplied the ancient world with these precious drugs; and when one considers how they were anciently used, both for private and religious purposes, one can readily understand the commercial importance of these commodities. Claudius Ptolemy gives us accurate information as to the caravan routes by which the drugs were conveyed to the Mediterranean from the country of the Hadramitæ, or Chatramite as the Greeks, from their inability to sound the initial H, called it. Pliny also affords us valuable information on the subject, as do also the Arabian geographers of the earlier centuries of our era. From personal observation I should say that the ancients held communication with the Hadramout almost entirely by the land caravan route, as there are absolutely no traces of antiquity to be found along the arid coast-line, whereas the interior valley and its collateral branches are very rich in remains of the ancient Himyaritic civilisation. Evidently the trees which produced these drugs grew on the plateau. Myrrh trees are still very common on it, and every year Africans come over from Somaliland for the purpose of collecting the sap. During our wanderings we only once came across a specimen of the frankincense tree : it has evidently almost entirely disappeared from this locality, but is to be still found in abundance, I am told, further east, in the country of the Mahri tribe.

It is highly probable that the systematic destruction of the timber on this plateau during the course of countless ages has much to say to the present deplorable condition of the Hadramout and its collateral valleys. These are all being silted up by sand, which invades them from the central desert on the north and from the plateau on the south. This sand in many instances is forty feet deep, and entirely covers the running waters which for the purposes of cultivation have to be brought up by wells and led to the land intended for cultivation by an elaborate system of irrigation. There are very few running streams in this district, and every year we were told they are becoming fewer, and will undoubtedly very soon disappear altogether. The inhabitants of the Hadramout have a hard struggle to maintain against this invasion of their country by a natural catastrophe, and were it not for the custom of the inhabitants of going abroad to seek their fortunes, there is no doubt that long ago the country would have been abandoned, and the struggle for

existence given up. The strong fanaticism of the inhabitants and their belief in the sacredness of their country have been another very important factor in perpetuating its existence. Every man who leaves the Hadramout in search of fortune hopes to return and die in the odour of sanctity. No woman ever leaves the country, and there are cases on record of a wife being separated from her husband for forty years. On their return the wanderers relapse into the same condition of fanaticism and hatred of all external influence which has obtained in this country from time immemorial, and all they have gained is money with which to continue to live in their own valley, and erect the castles and palaces with which the whole line of the Hadramout is thickly studded.

The plateau when reached extends, as I have said, to an apparently unlimited extent in every direction; after one day's journey, however, it will be seen that valleys running northwards are cut out of this flat surface like slices out of a cake. The principal valleys which run into the big central valley from the south are the Wadi Al Isa, Al Eyn, Dowan, Rachy, Adym, and Ben Ali ; there are many others which we had not the time or opportunity to visit. The chief peculiarity of these valleys is that they descend very rapidly, and are at their head very nearly as deep as during the rest of their course. They seem as if they had formed part of a great inland fiord, from which the sea retired at some remote period, leaving the successive marks of many strands on the sandstone and limestone walls which shut in these valleys. Everywhere the descent into them is rapid and difficult, and no place I have ever seen in the world can possibly be more shut off and hemmed in by natural features as the broad main valley known as the Hadramout and its collateral branches. The old Arabian story of Sinbad descending into a deep valley on the back of a roc must have originated in some such country as this. It is remarkable how the camels contrive to get to and fro, and frequent accidents to the animals take place during the ascent and descent from the plateau. As seen from above, the aspect of these long narrow valleys is exceedingly curious; the walls of rocks are almost precipitous, about 1,000 feet in height. In many places the valleys are not a mile wide, and present one long unbroken line of villages, each with its palm grove, its cultivated land, its big castles and houses, and its surrounding hovels for the lower classes. Even the Bedouins have big houses here and settled abodes when on a journey or pasturing their flocks; they have no tents, and are little better than naked savages. But when they return home to their valley we find them living in large commodious houses several storeys in height, with the antlers of antelopes decorating them outside, and though only built of sun-dried bricks their architecture reminds one of the medieval towns on the Rhine. In fact, if one could substitute a flat surface of sand covering the river bed and place almost treeless mountains on either side one might well compare these valleys to those of Germany. The town of Hagarein is built on an isolated hill in the middle of the Wadi Kasr, with its walls and battlements, its turrets and machicolations it looks at a distance exactly like one of the fortified mediæval towns of Europe.

:

In most cases the narrower valleys are the most fertile, the water supply is far better than it is in the main valley, for at the head of the main valley are the salt hills of the Shabwa district, from which, as in