camels' bodies. Indeed, it was very marvellous, with their long
spindle-shanks and great splay feet, and the awkward boxes on their
backs striking constantly against every little projection in the hill,
that they did not tumble headlong over the pathway; for many times, at
the corners, they fell upon their chests, with their hind-legs
dangling over the side, and were only pulled into the path again by
the combined exertions of all the men. Like Tibet ponies, when they
felt their bodies slipping helplessly over the precipices--down which,
had they fallen, they would have met instantaneous and certain
death--they invariably seized hold of anything and everything with
their teeth to save their equilibrium. The ascent was at length
completed after an infinity of trouble, and our view from the top of
the mountain repaid me fully for everything of the past. It was a
glorious place! In one glance round I had a complete survey of all the
country I was now destined to travel over, and what I had already gone
over.

The pass was called Yafir, and, by the boiling thermometer, showed an
altitude of 6704 feet. It was almost the highest point on this range.
From a cedar tree I cooked my breakfast under, on facing to the north
I saw at once the vast waters of the Gulf, all smooth and glassy as a
mill-pond, the village of Bunder Gori, and the two buggaloes lying in
its anchorage-ground, like little dots of nut-shells, immediately
below the steep face of the mountain. So deep and perpendicular was
it, that it had almost the effect of looking down a vast precipice.
But how different was the view on turning to the south! Instead of
this enormous grandeur--a deep rugged hill, green and fresh in
verdure, with the sea like a large lake below--it was tame in the
extreme; the land dropped gently to scarcely more than half its depth,
with barely a tree visible on its surface; and at the foot of the