On March 11 we started for Dis without any rows or brawls whatever. Dis is fifteen miles off. We never went down to the shore at all that day, but travelled over a barren, undulating country which runs out to sea and forms Ras Bagashwa. We went for half a mile close above the sea on a cliff 20 or 30 feet high, with many shells, some in an ordinary state, some half petrified, and some wholly so, but none embedded in the stone. After travelling three hours and a half we passed over and amongst a range of low hills, a volcanic jumble with earths of all colours, seams of gypsum stuck up edgeways, and many other things.
I used once to sigh and groan over not having brought a geologist with us, but I was wiser by that time. It was enough to think of his specimens and their transport, to say nothing of the responsibility for his safety. Still my husband and I often wished we knew more of geology than we did.
When the geologist does visit these parts he must make a special bargain with his camel-men, not based on his apparent, present, visible baggage, but upon what it may expand to. He might arrange to pay at the end according to the results of his journey. On one of the dreadful days with the Jabberi, the man whose camel carried the botanical boxes positively refused to load up, on account of having seen stones with lichen put in; and but for the fact of his being last and that all the other camels had started, we might have had to throw the things away.
There was nothing to see at Dis but a sudden oasis of fertility caused by a _ghail_, but the report of an inscription led my husband a long wild-goose chase. The district is very populous, and from the old forts near it evidently has been and is a very prosperous place.
We had a great many patients, and were nearly driven wild with starers.
To avoid the crowd we pitched our tent tight up against a field of sugar-canes, but so anxious were the populace to see me, that the whole field was trodden down and no one seemed to mind. There were perpetual shouts for the 'woman' to come out. On this part of the journey, as well as in the Hadhramout, I was always simply spoken of as the _Horma_ (plur. _Harem_) and never as _Bibi_ (lady).