'Southern Arabia, by Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., F.S.A., Author of 'The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland' 'The Sacred City of the Ethiopians' 'The Cyclades, Or Life Among the Insular Greeks' etc. and Mrs Theodore Bent' [‎424] (509/552)

424 BELED FADHLI AND BELED YAFEI
plain is ten or fifteen miles long, by about four or five miles
at its broadest. If irrigated it would yield enormously.
The well is of great depth, but the water very bad. My
husband ascended a mountain about 3,000 feet high, but only
400 feet above the plain, with a most remarkable view of
the Aodeli mountains, about twenty miles away, towering up
to a great height—far higher than the Yafei range, which
Mr. Tate gives as 7,000 feet: these are probably 10,000 feet.
The range must run for thirty or forty miles from east to
west, with few breaks and no peaks. We were not well the
last day at Mis'hal.
The Aodeli women paint red lines under their eyes and
down their noses and round their foreheads with a kind of
earth-dye which they call hisn. Sometimes there is a round
spot on the forehead and red triangles on the cheeks. One
woman had her face literally dyed scarlet all over. She had
a heavy necklace of beads and carried the sheep-skin coat,
that she could not wear in the hot plain, rolled up and laid
on her head. It is curious how dissatisfied dark people seem
to be with the colour of their skins, so often trying to lighten
it; the fairness of the English is in some places attributed
to the soap they use.
We took advantage of the curiosity of the Aodeli, who had
just arrived with a hafila, to make them stay in our camp
and question them. The El Khaur mountains look most
fascinating to see only from a distance; they are inhabited
by lawless tribes owing allegiance to no man, and, having
no wholesome fear of the Wali of Aden before their eyes,
would murder any traveller who ventured among them ; they
are all Bedouin. The Aodeli are a very large tribe, and say
they have 4,000 men for war ; the Markashi can put 500 or
600 in the field; and the Fadhli 2,000. Lauda, the chief
town of the Aodeli, is much bigger than Shibahm ; there
are many Arabs. The sultan is Mohamed-bin-Saleh. It is