A DESERTED VILLAGE, 97 cord made of the fibre of the <r///i//;;/-palm. The village of Mai Daro was at some distance from the Gash, and we never visited it ; I took a walk, however, up a hill at the back of our camp, and found the remains of a small village lately burned.

All that part of the country had suffered much from fire, it being impossible rightly to determine whether occasioned by accident or design. On the top of a hill not far off, was a deserted village, having evidently been abandoned in a hurry ; very likely the inhabitants had been driven away by the people of a neighbouring town, as the Base are any thing but a united people, and are constantly quarrelling among themselves. Most of the huts were placed in small enclosures made of the dried stalks of the dJmrra. In the dwellings we found cooking-pots, gourds for drinking, and roughly made wooden bedsteads ; our men appropriated some of the cooking-utensils for their own use. In one house was a huge earthenware jar, resembling one of the celebrated jars in the old story of Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves ; it had probably been used as a receptacle for grain, most likely dhurra. Terraces, looking quite like those built for the vines in France and Italy, were to be seen on the side of the hill on which this cereal had been grown.

In the evening the sheik of Mai Daro arrived in camp ; and we went through the ceremony of making aindn, or peace, with him and his people. We had done the same before at Koolookoo with our friend Longay, the sheik's son. It consisted in the sheik placing his naked sword on the ground, and drawing his foot along it, the blade passing between his bare foot and his sandal ; after which, he placed the palm of his hand on his sword, and uttered some cabalistic words indicative of peace and good-will towards us all.