Our travel will now lie through the Baliyy country, and a few
words concerning this ancient and noble tribe may here be given.
Although they apparently retain no traditions of their origin,
they are known to genealogists as a branch of the Beni Kuda',
who, some fifteen centuries ago, emigrated from Southern Arabia,
and eventually exterminated the Thamudites. I have noted their
northern and southern frontiers: to the north-east they are
bounded by the vicious Ma'azah and the Ruwala-'Anezahs, and to
the south-east by the Alaydan-'Anezahs, under Shaykh Mutlak. Like
their northern nomadic neighbours, they have passed over to
Egypt, and even the guide-books speak of the "Billi" in the
valley of the Nile.

The Baliyy modestly rate their numbers at four thousand muskets,
by which understand four hundred. Yet they divide themselves into
a multitude of clans; our companion, the Wakil Mohammed Shahadah,
can enumerate them by the score; and I wrote down the
twenty-three principal, which are common both to South Midian and
to Egypt. The chief Shaykh, Mohammed 'Afnan ibn Ammar, can reckon
backwards seven generations, beginning from a certain Shaykh
Sultan. About ten years ago he allowed the tribe to indulge in
such dangerous amusements as "cutting the road" and plundering
merchants. It is even asserted, privily, that they captured the
fort of El-Wijh, by bribing the Turkish Topji ("head gunner"), to
fire high--like the half-caste artilleryman who commanded the
Talpur cannoneers at Sir Charles Napier's Battle of "Meeanee." A
regiment of eight hundred bayonets was sent from Egypt, and the
Shaykh was secured by a Hilah, or "stratagem;" that is, he was
promised safe conduct: he trusted himself like a fool, he was