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ARABIA INFELIX 
 
^^0^ 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
• • • s • • 
 

 A SCENE IN THE YAMEN HIGHLANDS. 
 
 Fiontispleoe* 
 
ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 OR 
 
 THE TURKS IN YAM EN 
 
 BY 
 
 G. WYMAN BURY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'the LAND OF VZ 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS & MAP|& 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO.. LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1915 
 
>-*\ 
 
 ^A^^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
vJ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Since this book went to press the Powers of Europe 
 have grappled in a struggle that is shaking the western 
 hemisphere. 
 
 Turkey, after wobbling for weeks on the brink of 
 hostilities, has been pushed over by her Turco-German 
 war-party. The whole incident shows how a strong 
 military clique can drive an unstable government to 
 disaster. 
 
 Turkey's attitude towards the British, who have 
 guaranteed the integrity of her empire for more than 
 half a century, is largely the outcome of Teutonic 
 intrigue, but our action in retaining her two new 
 battleships (the Sultan Osman and the Reshadieh) had 
 more to do with it than most of us imagine. The 
 subscription for those ships was a religious matter, to 
 which all classes had contributed their utmost. We 
 should not like our subscriptions for a new cathedral 
 to be arbitrarily diverted to the building of a mosque. 
 
 By the law of nations we were justified in our em- 
 bargo on those battleships, but sentiment is impervious 
 to logic, and popular feeling in Turkey became vio- 
 lently Anglophobe, though many of her greatest men 
 realized what her departure from neutrality would 
 mean. 
 
 325164 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 Turkey in Arabia will probably cease to exist — to 
 the advantage of both parties, for her Arabian pro- 
 vinces are a constant drain on Turkey's resources, and 
 Turkish rule is the curse of Arabia. 
 
 It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and 
 Yamen may yet snatch her independence out of this 
 world-wide welter, — whether she can use it to the 
 best advantage is another question. In any case that 
 * most distressful country * has my best wishes. 
 
 G. WYMAN BURY. 
 Cairo, 5/^ December, 19 14. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Yamen, Past and Present - - . i 
 
 II. The Vilayet and its People - - - 20 
 
 III. On and off the Road - - - - 41 
 
 IV. Sanaa -------69 
 
 V. Birds and Beasts - _ ... go 
 
 VI. Crops and Climate - - - - - 100 
 
 VII. Trade and Traders- - - - - 118 
 
 VIII. Native Life - - - - - -i33 
 
 IX. The Powers that be - - - - 155 
 
 X. The Alien's Lot - - - - - 184 
 
 XI. Current Events and a Forecast - - 195 
 
 Index ------- 209 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A Scene in the Yamen Highlands - - - Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 An Asiri --------28 
 
 A Dheranik Tribesman ------ 28 
 
 One of the < Hegilr '------ 30 
 
 Yamen Jews --------30 
 
 Eastward from Hodeida - - - - - - 41 
 
 The Call to Prayer at Hajeilah - - - - 47 
 
 The Road to Menalcha athwart the Spurs of Shibam 47 
 
 Hajrah ---------52 
 
 The Gibraltar of Yamen ----- 56 
 
 View from the Hotel at Menakha looking southward 
 across an Outer Court of the Mosque to the 
 Barracks, with the Heights of Shibam in the 
 Background -------56 
 
 Under the Slopes of Shibam ----- 58 
 
 From Menakha the road slopes southward down the 
 
 Eastern Edge of the Town - - - - 58 
 
 Among the Kopjes - - - - - - 59 
 
 'Shops' at Sok Al-Khamis ----- 59 
 
 Sanaa, with Mount NukAm in the Background - 69 
 
 Sanaa Plain from Jebal Aswad - - - - 69 
 
X ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 A Zeidi Mosque ------.75 
 
 A Yamen Well for Irrigation - - - - 75 
 
 Field-Terraces - - - - - - -103 
 
 A Highland Farmer - - - - - -104 
 
 A Market in the Foot-hills - - - - - 133 
 
 A Tihama Dance - - - - - - "^33 
 
 A Hard Enough Life - - - - - - i55 
 
 Some Powers that be- - - r - -I55 
 
 A Sowari - - -- - - - - 167 
 
 Arab Gendarmerie - - - - - - -167 
 
 Return of Zaptieh to the Hukoomah at Menakha - 173 
 
 The Club Groundsman — a Tihama Type - - 193 
 
 MAPS 
 
 The Ottoman Empire and its Neighbours - - i 
 
 Arabia Infelix --^----20 
 
 Road Map — Hodeida-Sanaa, and Section of Mean Alti- 
 tudes on a line through Hodeida-Sanaa - - 126 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 For fifteen years I have been connected with south- 
 west Arabia, which ancient sages have described, com- 
 paratively, as 'Happy.' The happiness of this region 
 has seldom been noticeable, and its woes have waxed with 
 ripening years until they bid fair to culminate in a crop 
 which the sword alone can harvest. 
 
 In a previous work I have dealt with the Aden hinter- 
 land and its protected tribes.^ To that I have little to 
 add at present except to note that these tribes preserve 
 their own autonomy and are under certain treaty obliga- 
 tions with the Aden Government. These obligations 
 are observed — when not inconvenient — in inverse ratio 
 to the protected tribe's distance from Aden. 
 
 We have no troops outside a ten-mile limit from the 
 fortress and do not interfere in tribal or inter-tribal 
 politics. 
 
 Within sight of Aden Club, across the harbour, some 
 fifty miles toward the north-west, rise the black jagged 
 peaks of Am-Amma, well within the Ottoman vilayet 
 of Yamen. 
 
 Turkey in Yamen is too close a neighbour for us to 
 disregard her troubles and, though we may ignore the 
 1 * The Land of Uz ' (Macmillan). 
 
ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 murders and petty broils that occur among the tribes 
 of the Aden Protectorate, a general upheaval might 
 compel our attention. 
 
 It is with Yamen and her affairs that I propose to deal. 
 To appreciate the situation a knowledge of her past 
 history is essential. This is difficult to acquire, as there 
 are few works on the subject accessible to the ordinary 
 reader, while her various historians differ widely on 
 important points. In the brief outline given in these 
 pages I have depended chiefly on Arab and Roman 
 writers, checked by local tradition. I am also indebted 
 to the Chronological Synopsis of Arabian History^ by 
 Redhouse, Huart's Histoire des Arahes^ and the pre- 
 liminary discourse of Sale's Koran. 
 
 Veiled in the mists of antiquity is the ancient Minean 
 kingdom, the earliest recorded rule in Yamen. All that 
 has come down to us is a list of some thirty monarchs 
 with most uncertain dates. The central government 
 was at Kama in Jauf. The old Most' Arabian tribes 
 mentioned by Sale were probably vassals of this kingdom, 
 which certainly flourished about 3000 B.C., and must 
 have been extensive, for Minean inscriptions to Ash- 
 taroth occur from Sinai to South Arabia. Jethro, the 
 fatlier-in-law of Moses, was a Minean priest of princely 
 lineage but lived almost on sufferance in the land of 
 Midian, for the Minean tide of immigration and con- 
 quest which imposed the Hyksos on Egypt had already 
 ebbed. 
 
 The first concrete fact in the history of Yamen is the 
 birth of Joctan, son of Eber, b.c. 2246. I identify 
 Eber with Heber the prophet, or Hud, as the Arabs call 
 him, who preached to the ancient Adites and warned 
 them of Divine vengeance. This is said to have over- 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 3 
 
 taken them in the form of a raging simoom along the 
 western margin of what is now known among Arabs as 
 Ruba al-Khali or the Empty Quarter and to Europeans 
 as the Great Red Desert. 
 
 As a matter of fact this obliteration of the people of 
 Ad was probably very gradual and caused by encroach- 
 ment of the desert due to a diminishing rainfall and 
 a prevalent north-easterly wind. These causes are still 
 at work on the south-west corner of the Empty Quarter. 
 But to return to Joctan or Kahtan, as the Arabs call him. 
 He was a native of the Hadramaut valley but settled 
 in Yamen and introduced architecture and agriculture 
 among the pastoral and tent-dwelling tribes. His son 
 Yarab (or Jerah of Genesis) was the progenitor of 
 Yamen Arabic and first separated the Arabian tongue 
 from ancient Hebrew. He it was who founded the 
 Sabean kingdom in Yamen on the ruins of the old 
 Minean dynasty, which had dwindled to a mere tribal 
 confederation in Southern Jauf and was known then and 
 since as Maan — the Arab title for the dynasty itself. 
 
 The following genealogy will give a fairly concise idea 
 of the Sabean kingdom and the Hamyarite dynasty into 
 which it merged : 
 
 Hud or Heber the prophet 
 
 Joctan or Kahtan 
 
 Jerah or Yarab 
 
 Yashab 
 
 Abd esh-Shems, nrst king of Sheba 
 
 ! 
 
 Kahlan Mizzah or Madhig Hamyar 
 
4 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Abd esh-Shems (servant of the Sun) introduced as a 
 state religion the Sabean cult or worship of the seven 
 heavenly bodies, the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets 
 then known. He made his capital at Sheba or Saba 
 (the Arabic for seven), where he built with forced labour 
 the famous reservoir and dam. This held up surface 
 drainage across a large valley, forming a lake which 
 supplied water to the district and ensured its fertility. 
 The Arab town of Mareb (about i oo miles east of Sanaa) 
 now stands on the site of this ancient city, where the 
 ruins of the great dam are still to be seen. 
 
 Kahlan succeeded his father. I discovered the sand- 
 silted ruins of a city bearing his name near Behan 
 al-Gezab, on the south-west corner of the Great Desert, 
 in 1900. 
 
 Hamyar succeeded Kahlan and founded the Ham- 
 yarite dynasty. All that remains of it now is the 
 tribe of Hamyar, a predatory lot of semi-nomadic 
 mountaineers that range the hills of Bal-Haf on the 
 South Arabian coast some 200 miles east of Aden. 
 
 I once met a clan called the Madhigi among the 
 foot-hills south of the Great Desert and north of the 
 Yeshbum valley. They claimed descent from Abd 
 esh-Shems, but admitted that their branch had never 
 held sovereign sway. They had come from the North. 
 
 There seems to have been a constant ebb southward 
 ever since the fall of the Hyksos ; Maan, for example, 
 drew in from the North and from Yamen to Southern 
 Jauf and ruled there as a paramount tribe about the time 
 of Mohamed. By then it had dwindled to a mere clan, 
 and was much persecuted during a political outbreak 
 under the early Khalifs. It fled from Jauf under the 
 leadership of Ali — a scion of the former ruling house — 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 5 
 
 and his nephew Abdullah. All founded the present 
 sultanate of Lower Aulaki in the eastern hinterland of 
 Aden, and Abdullah that of Upper Aulaki, while the 
 refugees of Maan, by conquest and alliance, have become 
 the most important tribal unit of the Aulaki confedera- 
 tion. 
 
 But to hark back to the house of Hamyar. 
 
 This dynasty held sway in Yamen, through varying 
 vicissitudes, until 523 a.d. Placing the rule of Abd 
 esh-Shems about b.c. 2150, we have some mention of 
 the building of the Caaba by Abraham and Ishmael in 
 B.C. 1880, and the respect shown by the kings of Yamen 
 for that building. The Egyptian conquest of Yamen, 
 commenced by Thotmes 11. (i 633-1 600 b.c.) and com- 
 pleted by his famous son Thotmes III., is our next 
 landmark. Under Queen Hatshepset of this family, 
 a voyage of discovery was made to the mystic land of 
 Punt, *the land of spices,' which I identify with the 
 Hadramaut valley and not with any region on the 
 western side of the Red Sea. I admit that the Hamyar- 
 ites had colonized Somaliland and East Africa to a 
 limited extent, explored gold mines and no doubt 
 created, or at least developed, the trade in aromatic 
 gums. The expedition is related in Egyptian sculp- 
 tured history on the walls of the temple of Der al-Bahari 
 at Thebes. 
 
 Egypt's hold on Yamen left little mark and must 
 have been brief, for a century later (b.c. 1497 to be 
 exact) we hear of a bona-fide Hamyarite king building 
 obelisks as boundary marks, and in b.c. i 150 of another 
 such monarch returning from an expedition of conquest 
 in Ethiopia. 
 
 Bilkis, the Biblical Queen of Sheba or Saba, is worthy 
 
6 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 of passing mention as a Hamyarite sovereign who 
 reigned about B.C. 970. Then follows a long gap in 
 Yamen history, and the next important landmark is the 
 collapse of the great dam at Saba, the flooding of the 
 whole district, and the destruction of the city with great 
 loss of life, in b.c. 427.^ This catastrophe led to the 
 dispersal of the local population and dealt a grave blow 
 to the central Hamyarite rule, for all the neighbourhood 
 of Saba, from being well-watered and fertile, became a 
 devastated wilderness amid barren hills, as it is to all 
 intents and purposes now. 
 
 Yamen, Saba and the Hadramaut had frequently been 
 united under one ruler with the title of Tobba, but the 
 glory of Hamyar was, from henceforth, on the wane. 
 Saba as a centre of administration had been wiped out, 
 and its sway over what is now known as the Aden 
 hinterland ceased to exist. The Hadramaut seceded, 
 under an offshoot of Hamyar it is true, but Yamen 
 alone remained of the actual Hamyarite kingdom. 
 
 In 18 B.C. we find Rome turning her attention to 
 Arabian conquest in her usual methodical manner. 
 
 First we hear of Juba II., King of Numidia (a 
 dependency of Rome that coincided approximately with 
 Algeria), writing what may be described as an Intelli- 
 gence report for the Emperor Augustus on the region 
 which was Rome's objective. This report was called 
 * de expeditione arabica ' and, to judge by such extracts 
 as Pliny quotes, must, have been the fullest and most 
 detailed description of western Arabia ever written by 
 a foreigner. 
 
 1 According to Redhouse, though some authorities place it much 
 later. I give this date as being in accord with local history and 
 tradition. 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 7 
 
 On the strength of this report a Roman expedition 
 was launched in command of Aelius Gallus, prefect of 
 Egypt, a Roman knight of marked military ability. 
 The expedition was also supported by the king of 
 Nebatea or Arabia Petrea, whose vizier, Syllaeus, acted 
 as chief expeditionary guide. Nebatean and Jew 
 mercenaries accompanied the column. 
 
 The actual march commenced at Egra — presumably 
 Akra, on the Arabian coast — about Lat. 26°, and pro- 
 bably the most southerly port to which Rome had access. 
 
 The column seems to have got on to the old pilgrim 
 road to Medina and thence toward Mecca, which was a 
 point of pilgrimage long before Islam. It passed two 
 days eastward of Mecca 'via Kama (once the centre of 
 Minean sway) and marched southward through Nejran 
 and Jauf, probably to avoid being hopelessly entangled 
 among the vast fortress-crowned hills of Yamen. 
 Roman and Arab fought desperately on the banks of 
 Wadi Kharid, which rises on the Sanaa plain and drains 
 northward, entering the south-west corner of Jauf. 
 The column swung clear of Sanaa, and the advance was 
 finally checked outside the ancient town of Radman in 
 Lat. 45° 14' and Long. 14° 33' by the tribes of Madhig 
 and Ans. Madhig has dwindled to a mere clan and 
 migrated southwards, as previously stated, but Ans is 
 still in the hills south of Sanaa, a powerful tribe in one 
 of the best coffee-growing districts of Yamen. 
 
 That Roman column, after a march of more than a 
 thousand miles, found its further progress barred in a 
 bitterly hostile country with a scanty supply of water, 
 and its line of retreat beset with defeated but undaunted 
 foes. If Arabs then were as they are now they must 
 have hung tenaciously on the flanks and rear of that 
 
8 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 retreating force, which yet managed to retrace its steps 
 and get back to its original point of departure, though 
 mauled by foes and decimated by privations and sickness 
 to the verge of annihilation. 
 
 Strabo, the historian of this campaign and a friend 
 of Aelius Gallus, has done much to fog the topography 
 of the region described in his efforts to save the reputa- 
 tion of his friend. Such efforts seem unnecessary, for 
 in the mind of anyone with experience of the Arabs 
 and their country, the whole enterprise must stand out 
 as a fine piece of tactics and organization in spite of its 
 failure. The water-supply alone was a serious problem 
 along much of the route followed, and it says much for 
 the morale of the troops engaged that the column ever 
 got back as a military unit. 
 
 The man with local knowledge who accompanies an 
 expedition must expect to be ignored in success and bear 
 the brunt of failure. Poor Syllaeus was no exception 
 to the rule ; they dragged him to Rome and cut his 
 head off. 
 
 Early in the Christian era we find the new religion 
 gaining ground in Yamen, side by side with Judaism, 
 imported thither by refugees from the sack of Jerusalem 
 under Titus in a.d. 70. 
 
 There were two Christian missions to Hamyar. The 
 first sent by Athanasius and the next (under the 
 Emperor Constantine) led by Theophilus Indus, who 
 built a church at Aden. 
 
 Nejran embraced Christianity about a.d. 500. Sale 
 describes the occasion in his preliminary discourse to the 
 Koran. It was at this epoch that a persecution of 
 Christians was commenced by the last Hamyarite 
 Monarch of Yamen, a bigoted Jew named Dhu Nowas, 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 9 
 
 or * lord of curls,' in which connection it may be 
 mentioned that the Jews of Yamen have still to wear 
 a curl or lock of hair on the side of the head. 
 
 The Christian Emperor of Constantinople communi- 
 cated with the Christian Negus of Abyssinia and placed 
 a Roman fleet at his disposal. There followed an 
 Ethiopian invasion of Yamen, in which Dhu Nowas was 
 defeated, and committed suicide by spurring his horse 
 into the sea. 
 
 Aryat, the successful Ethiopian general, was appointed 
 governor of Yamen by the Negus. 
 
 Abraha, another chief of the Abyssinian expedition, 
 rose against Aryat, and the two leaders fought in single 
 combat for ultimate rule. Abraha got his nose split, 
 but Aryat was stabbed from behind in most unsporting 
 fashion by a looker-on — a slave in Abraha's pay. 
 Abraha now ruled Yamen in the name of the Negus, and 
 built a fine church at Sanaa, of which there is little left 
 but the site nowadays. Two Arab pagans of the 
 Koreish, natives of Mecca, desecrated this church with 
 their excrement on the eve of a solemn festival, and 
 Abraha launched an expedition against Mecca to avenge 
 the sacrilege. This happened the year Mohamed w^as 
 born (a.d. 577), and is mentioned in Chapter 105 of 
 the Koran (entitled the Elephant), for Abraha is said to 
 have led the Abyssinian forces on an armoured elephant, 
 which refused to enter Mecca. The story goes that 
 high-soaring swallows dropped tiny pebbles on Abraha's 
 army, piercing man and horse until the host was almost 
 annihilated. Level-headed Moslem commentators point 
 to the word * herrashat,' which means small pebbles and 
 also the ' pitting ' of small-pox. A natural explanation 
 is that an epidemic of small-pox scattered the troops of 
 
lo ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Abraha, a theory supported by the fact that Abraha died 
 of * a loathsome disease ' shortly after his return to Sanaa. 
 Abrahams two sons ruled after him in succession — mere 
 debauched tyrants whose yoke Yamen would not endure. 
 Seif, a prince of Hamyar, appealed to the Emperor 
 Heraclius, who as head of a Christian State refused to 
 help him against the representative of Christian 
 Abyssinia. Seif managed to secure the aid of Khosru 
 Anushirwan (Chosmes II.) of Persia by bluffing to him 
 of the gold to be found in Yamen. A Persian expedi- 
 tion put an end to Abyssinian tyranny, but Seif was 
 slain in the coup d'etat that occurred. Five Persian 
 prefects were successively appointed, of whom the last, 
 Badhan, submitted to Mohamed. 
 
 The Prophet, at his death, left Arabia under one rule 
 and practically Moslem. Ali (Mohamed's nephew) had 
 entered Yamen in the tenth year of the Hejrah (a.d. 
 628) with a strong force, to convert the population to 
 Islam. This mission reached the shores of the Aden Gulf. 
 
 Said, the Christian bishop of Nejran,^ procured by 
 gifts an audience with the Prophet, who granted him 
 a document enacting that Moslems should defend the 
 diocese, that Christians should not be compelled to fight 
 for Islam or change their religion, and that their priests 
 should be free of tribute which, in the case of the laity, 
 should be reasonable. Also that Christian slaves should 
 serve Moslems without having to change their faith, and 
 that the churches, closed by All's mission, should be 
 re-opened. The earlier Khalifs are said to have granted 
 similar diplomas. 
 
 ^ Gregentius, a previous bishop of Dhafar (probably Yerim), had 
 persuaded Abraha to cease his savage persecution of non-Christian 
 Arabs. Gregentius had founded the Christian church in Nejran. 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT ii 
 
 During the delirium of his last hours the Prophet said 
 that all non-Moslems were to be banished from Arabia. 
 It is doubtful whether he really recovered consciousness 
 or had a lucid interval from Thursday, when he collapsed 
 in his harem, to Monday, when he died. Ayesha, his 
 most influential wife, said not ; though her evidence 
 was no doubt biassed by the fact that Mohamed pro- 
 claimed Ali as his successor during those last hours, and 
 Ali had incurred Ayesha's lasting hate for his attitude 
 when she once strayed behind the Prophet's caravan and 
 was found and brought into camp by a good-looking 
 stranger. 
 
 Ali's immediate succession was set aside, but the 
 decree concerning Moslems was afterwards used as a 
 weapon against Christians. There was no question of 
 expelling the Jews ; they had too great an economic 
 value as craftsmen and financiers even at that early date, 
 but all traces of Christianity disappeared from Nejran 
 after the time of Bishop Khos in the seventh century 
 A.D., though we read of a bishop of Yamen in the eighth 
 century and of a Christian priest as late as the tenth 
 century. 
 
 Yamen was then ruled by governors appointed by the 
 early Khalifs, and rose in arms to support Moawiya, one 
 of these governors, against the rule of Ali, the fourth 
 Khalif. She remained faithful to the Ommeiyad 
 dynasty, and passed to the Abbaside Khalifs together 
 with the other states of Arabia. 
 
 Yamen was rent by the Karmation heresy in a.d. 905, 
 when Mansur and Ali bin-Fadl seized the reins of 
 Government. The latter was assassinated by means of 
 a poisoned lancet, after a reign of the wildest excesses 
 at Sanaa, and Mansur died a year later, leaving a son, 
 
12 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 al-Hassan, whom the first of the Fatimite Khalifs 
 appointed to rule in Yamen. Al-Hassan was murdered 
 by the mountaineers of Shibam. 
 
 Hitherto Yamen had followed the Shiah doctrine, 
 repudiating all Khalifs before Ali, but under the 
 Fatimite dynasty the bulk of the population became 
 orthodox Sunnis until 1035 ^'^' Then a Persian Imam 
 rose at Boan and seized Sanaa with his Shiite followers. 
 This movement was crushed in 1047 ^7 ^^^ Yamen 
 house of Sulaihi, which also followed the Shiah doctrine. 
 The rule of this house was marked by murder and 
 feminine intrigue, during which Sanaa was taken and 
 re- taken, and a state of anarchy existed till 1138, when 
 Sultan Hatim of Yam came into power. He was con- 
 quered by a self-styled Imam, who proclaimed himself 
 in Nejran as 'he who trusts in God.' Sultan Hatim 
 hit on the smart idea of paying blood-money to settle 
 the feuds between his vassal tribes, before whose united 
 front the followers of the bogus Imam melted away. 
 
 Hatim died in 1161 a.d. and his son Ali ruled till 
 Yamen was conquered by an expedition under a brother 
 of Saladin. This house was supplanted in its second 
 generation by the Rasoulides, who were descended from 
 an officer of the original expedition named Rasoul. 
 This dynasty ruled from 1217 to 1441 through a series 
 of civil wars and a hotch-potch of upstart princes. 
 
 Then came another local house, the Tahir brothers, 
 one of whom was killed in battle against an Imam of 
 Sanaa. This house died out in 1488. 
 
 In 1 5 14 the Egyptian fleet took most of the Yamen 
 ports but Aden, which had successfully resisted Albu- 
 querque in 1 513. 
 
 Egypt came under Ottoman suzerainty in 1517, and 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 13 
 
 Sulieman Pasha, Turkish Governor of Egypt, occupied 
 the coastal towns of Yamen and laid the foundation of 
 Ottoman dominion there in 1538. 
 
 The Portuguese took Aden in 1540, but it was 
 re-taken by a Turkish admiral in 1599. 
 
 Hassan Pasha, Turkish Governor of Yamen, occupied 
 the whole vilayet in the name of the Sultan of Stamboul. 
 This occupation lasted till 1630, when the Sublime Porte 
 decided to evacuate Yamen on account of its remoteness 
 and the expense involved. 
 
 Yamen was then governed by a family descended from 
 a former Sharif of Mecca, a member of which, Mansur 
 al-Kasim, first took the title of Imam. He died in 
 1620, and it was a direct descendant of his who was 
 Imam of Yamen in 1763, when Niebuhr visited the 
 country. Niebuhr mentions him under the name of 
 al-Mahdi Abbas. The present Imam is of this house, 
 which claims descent from AH and Fatimah. 
 
 In 1 801 the Wahabi movement blazed across Central 
 Arabia and seized the Holy Places of Islam. A chief 
 of Asir sided with the movement and took many of the 
 coastal towns of Yamen as far south as Mokha in 1804. 
 Mohamed Ali Pasha of Egypt, charged by the Sultan 
 of Stamboul to go against the Wahabi s, tried to restore 
 Egypt's power in Arabia by seizing several towns on 
 the Yamen coast. These he restored to the Imam, 
 al-Mahdi Abdullah, on tribute. 
 
 The central rule in Yamen was now hopelessly dis- 
 integrated. Aden and its hinterland had become inde- 
 pendent of the Imams of Sanaa in 1728, and the British 
 bombarded and occupied that port in 1839. 
 
 When the Pasha of Egypt revolted against the Porte 
 in 1832, he sent Ahmed Pasha to occupy the Yamen 
 
14 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 coast and Massowa. The Egyptians were compelled to 
 evacuate by difficulties nearer home and the pressure of 
 the Quadruple Alliance (Britain, Russia, Austria and 
 Italy). 
 
 Sharif Husein of Abu Arish in Asir, a relative of the 
 Imam of Sanaa, then tried to bring the whole of Yamen 
 under his rule. He found this beyond his powers and 
 acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty. The Porte named 
 him Governor of Yamen in 1843, ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ o^ 
 Husein Pasha. He only ruled the coast, the interior 
 recognizing the Imam of Sanaa, dignified by the ancient 
 title of al-Mutawakkal, 'he who trusts (in God).' 
 Al-Mutawakkal took Husein Pasha prisoner in battle 
 (1848), but the Turkish nominee secured his liberty by 
 ransom and showed such energy after his release that he 
 reduced his relative al-Mutawakkal to the city of Sanaa 
 as sole vestige of the Imam's sovereignty. 
 
 In 1849 ^^^ Turks landed at Hodeida to re-establish 
 their power in Yamen. The Imam of Sanaa promptly 
 recognized Ottoman suzerainty, but when the Turks got 
 to Sanaa the townsmen rose and attacked the expedi- 
 tionary corps. Its commander, Tewfik Pasha, was 
 wounded in the street-fighting that ensued and retired 
 to Hodeida with the remnant of his men. The Imam 
 was beheaded by his irate subjects. 
 
 In 1869 the Suez Canal was opened, and the Porte 
 sent troops under Raouf Pasha to deal with Yamen in 
 earnest. 
 
 Hodeida was attacked in force by Mohamed Eyad, 
 Emir of Asir, in 1 871, in the hopes of driving the Turks 
 into the sea. The attempt was repulsed with great 
 slaughter, for the Asiri were out to do or die. On the 
 dead were found letters, signed by the Emir, which must 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 15 
 
 have tended to make them regardless of their earthly 
 fate. 
 
 To my brother Gabriel: 
 So and so, son of so and so, is coming to you ; admit 
 him to Heaven. 
 
 (Signed) Mohamed Eyad, 
 Emir of the Faithful. 
 
 The smashing up of this attack was followed by a 
 determined advance into Asir and the seizure of im- 
 portant fortresses in that province. 
 
 Raouf Pasha was invalided and succeeded by Mukhtar 
 Pasha, who landed at Hodeida and entered Sanaa by 
 capitulation in 1872, for the city was tired of its 
 incompetent and quarrelsome rulers and wanted peace. 
 The rest of Yamen was occupied successively, but not 
 without bloodshed. Turkish rule has been shaken by 
 several fierce rebellions. There was the great rising of 
 1 891, which was sternly suppressed after heavy fighting, 
 in which Sanaa had to be wrested from beleaguering 
 rebels by Ahmed Faizi Pasha. 
 
 Another rising in 1 904 led to the capitulation of Sanaa 
 through famine, and all posts inland of Menakha had to 
 surrender to the rebels. It was then that Ahmed Faizi 
 Pasha travelled day and night across Arabia, from his 
 appointment at Baghdad, to take ship at Yenbo and 
 return to Hodeida once more to tackle affairs in Yamen, 
 where he had shown firmness and ability. 
 
 He took command of the expeditionary column that 
 had been collected on the coast and rushed it across the 
 Tihama and up through the hills, fighting most of his 
 way into Sanaa, except on the actual ridge of Menakha, 
 which stood fast in the Sultan's name. 
 
 In 191 1 Sanaa was again beleaguered by insurgent 
 
i6 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 tribes in the name of the Imam. Mohamed AH Pasha 
 was then Governor. He was relieved by Izzet Pasha, 
 who succeeded him as military governor of Yamen. 
 
 Izzet Pasha inaugurated a policy which aimed at a 
 rapprochement with the Imam, for he was shrewd enough 
 to see that the military exigencies of the situation 
 demanded some such policy if Turkey was to preserve 
 even nominal sovereignty in Yamen. 
 
 For a long time the Porte refused to recognize such 
 a measure, but Izzet Pasha was in earnest about it and 
 returned to Stamboul in order to cabal for this object. 
 He left as his successor in Yamen, a civilian, Mahmoud 
 Nazim bey, who had been his right-hand man in negotia- 
 tions with the Imam and, being a Syrian, has a perfect 
 command of Arabic. 
 
 Mahmoud Nazim Pasha, as he is now called by 
 courtesy, is the present civil governor or 'vali' of 
 Yamen. 
 
 On September 22nd, 19 13, an Imperial firman was 
 publicly read at Sana proclaiming an entente with the 
 Imam ' for the sake of peace between Moslems.' This 
 firman merely ratifies accomplished facts, namely, that 
 Yamen civil and criminal law be no longer based on the 
 Turkish judicial code or ' Kanun,' but on the old Islamic 
 code or ' Sheria,' and that this code be administered by 
 nominees of the Imam, who draws a very substantial 
 annual subsidy for himself and his vassal chiefs. 
 
 The Imam's influence is now dominant in Sanaa and 
 of course paramount in all outlying districts that 
 acknowledge his sway, backed by Ottoman troops. This 
 influence gradually wanes toward the coast, and is not 
 recognized in Asir, where a rebel chief, known as the 
 Idrisi, is still in arms against Imam and Turk. 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 17 
 
 During the Turco-Italian war of 191 2, the Italians 
 blockaded the Yamen coast, using Massowa as a naval 
 base. This blockade seriously affected British subjects, in 
 whose hands is most of the Red Sea trade with the 
 Arabian littoral, but did little harm to the Turks, who 
 possess no maritime defences along that coast except at 
 Sheikh Said, and merely withdrew troops inland a space 
 when the Italians looked like bombarding. 
 
 Sheikh Said, a small town and fortress opposite Perim, 
 more than held its own, for the Turks have some heavy 
 modern guns there, mounted in well-concealed gun-pits 
 near the crest of a tall hill. 
 
 The Italians backed the Idrisi with arms and money, 
 and this upset Yamen far more than their blockade, for 
 the Idrisi got hold of the Farsan Islands, and his activity 
 in Asir was a constant menace. 
 
 The Farsan Islands have now been re-taken by Turkey, 
 and there seems some likelihood of a definite under- 
 standing with the Idrisi, for a Turkish Governor has 
 been appointed to Asir ; it remains to be seen whether 
 he can cope with the situation. 
 
 The Arabs themselves, remembering their past history, 
 mistrust the Imam, but support him from patriotic 
 motives, and they certainly dislike Turkish rule though 
 admitting that the Turks are in Yamen by invitation, 
 to a certain extent. 
 
 It is always easier to invite a guest than to get rid of 
 him if he does not want to leave. The Arabs consider 
 that the Turks have worn their welcome threadbare 
 and would be glad to see the backs of them. The Turks 
 are beginning to realize that the vilayet is a white 
 elephant to them, but are disinclined to withdraw lest 
 their prestige suffer in other parts of Arabia. 
 
1 8 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 In the bad, bold, palmy days of Abd ul-Hamid, 
 Ottoman officialdom in Yamen, from the Vali or 
 Governor down to the last-joined recruit of Arab 
 gendarmerie, ^milked' the vilayet for all it was worth 
 on behalf of Government and for private ends. 
 
 The Arabs still tell tales of a Vali (a man of real ability) 
 who did not disdain to sell corporal's stripes to the 
 gendarme who knew how to approach him. He is said 
 to have left Yamen with a comfortable fortune in specie 
 packed among his personal baggage. 
 
 There are no such abuses nowadays in Yamen. On 
 the contrary great concessions have been made, octroi 
 and transit dues have been abolished and there are no 
 taxes in the country now save tithes on land collected 
 when and where Ottoman rule can be enforced. Dues 
 are still levied at Customs ports and Municipal and 
 Market rates in Turkish towns. 
 
 Ottoman rule in Yamen becomes more and more 
 lenient, tact is the order of the day, and laissez-faire. 
 The lesser officials in outlying districts, where a scanty 
 entourage barely supports their dignity, find this regime 
 rather trying. I have myself sat in divan with a worthy 
 but weak old Mudir, and heard a flow of frenzied curses 
 poured on his venerable head by a local petty chief who 
 objected to some ruling of the Mudirat and successfully 
 reversed it by the violence of his rhetoric. The local 
 myrmidons of justice, armed to the teeth, poked their 
 heads in at the door to hear the row, but, beyond looking 
 shocked, took no definite action in the matter. 
 
 There is much to be seen and heard in local courts 
 amid the hills of Yamen that would refresh those jaded 
 minds that cling to official etiquette. The parties to a 
 civil suit will always wrangle in open court and some- 
 
YAMEN, PAST AND PRESENT 19 
 
 times fight desperately until separated by superior 
 force. 
 
 In a criminal case the prisoner always brings a 
 substantial meal with him in case of an adverse verdict, 
 and usually eats it while being interrogated to preserve 
 his dignity and collect his wits. "Prison," said a 
 debtor under sentence. " How can I go to prison when 
 I'm in the middle of a week's ploughing ? " The case 
 was finally settled by agreement. The ' Court ' is open 
 to all and, throughout the proceedings, market-women 
 will stroll in and proffer eggs and poultry to the Bench 
 at current rates. 
 
 At administrative centres there is more dignity but no 
 less leniency, yet the Arab population is covertly dis- 
 affected or openly hostile and, throughout the vilayet, 
 Turkey is confronted by the writing on the wall. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 
 
 Broadly speaking, the vilayet or governorship of 
 Yamen is bounded on the north by the 20th parallel of 
 latitude, on the south by the Aden Protectorate, on the 
 west by the Red Sea, while Long. 45 may be taken as its 
 eastern limit. 
 
 The southern border was clearly defined by an Anglo- 
 Turkish Boundary Commission (1902- 1905), but its 
 eastern limit is vague and apt to vary with the ebb and 
 flow of Ottoman politics. 
 
 The general geography of Yamen is simple enough. 
 
 There is first a coastal plain of varying width known 
 as the Tihama. This is backed by maritime ranges, 
 some actually on the coast as at Sheikh Said, while some 
 are thirty miles or so inland, as in the district of Hodeida. 
 These ranges sometimes culminate in isolated massifs of 
 considerable height, and beyond them, eastward, the 
 ground drops to inland plains intersected by the foot-hills 
 of the main mountain system. 
 
 This system forms the western scarp of the great 
 central plateau and rises like a wall, running north and 
 south with a mean altitude of some 8000 feet, and occa- 
 sional peaks of 9000-10,000 feet. The highest point of 
 this plateau is between Yerim and Ebb, in which 
 
London M«c3mll*ii & Co. Ltd. Stanford^ Geog! EstahP, London. 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 21 
 
 neighbourhood the two great wadis of Tiban and Bana 
 rise on opposite sides of the same watershed and drain 
 southward to the Aden Gulf. 
 
 This central plateau is much broken by mountain 
 ranges toward the south, and northward, in Asir, loses 
 much of its character among scattered ranges and the 
 encroaching arms of the inland desert. 
 
 Its western scarp drains into the Red Sea, through 
 such wadis as the Ashar, which comes out near Halli 
 point, the Arish, which drains the hills of the turbulent 
 Hashidi to the coast of Abu Arish, and Wadi es-Sirr, 
 with its tributaries, which reaches the coast north of 
 Loheia. All these are Asiri wadis that no one knows 
 much about, but the Sardid, the Siham and Wadi Zabid 
 — all streams of Central Yamen that drain into the Red 
 Sea — are well enough known and have been partially 
 surveyed by French engineers in connection with the 
 Hodeida- Sanaa railway scheme. 
 
 None of these can be called rivers, for they only flow 
 into the sea when in spate. Among wadis that drain 
 the eastern scarp and trend inland may be mentioned the 
 great Dawasir valley and its tributaries in Asir, which 
 drain into Nejd, Wadi Nejran, which flows through the 
 ancient Christian diocese and disappears in the Great 
 Desert, and Wadi Kharid, which rises on Sanaa plain and 
 loses itself somewhere in the sands of Jauf . 
 
 The eastern edge of this great plateau is not clearly 
 defined, but it descends gradually among broken and 
 sterile ranges until it merges into the drifts of the Great 
 Red Desert at an altitude of 3000-4000 feet. 
 
 Such are the extreme limits of the vilayet as claimed 
 by Turkey, but Ottoman rule in Yamen has, at present, 
 a much narrower field. 
 
22 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Hardly had Izzet Pasha come to terms with the Imam 
 than the Idrisi movement of 191 2 definitely alienated 
 the province of Asir. 
 
 Sheikh Idris, the head of this movement, is the 
 great-grandson of a Moor, a native of Fez, who bore the 
 family name of Idrisi. 
 
 The great-grandfather studied theology at Mecca, 
 where he formed a new tarikah or sub-sect of orthodox 
 Sunni. He had two prominent pupils at Mecca toward 
 the close of the eighteenth century : one was the original 
 Senussi and founder of that sect and the other Hassan 
 ibn-Murgan, who established the Murgani doctrine in 
 the Sudan. 
 
 This Idrisi's son (grandfather of the present Sheikh) 
 is buried at Sabbia — the Asiri capital — while his son is 
 buried in Dongola. The family seems to have travelled 
 about a good deal and all went in for theology. The 
 present Idrisi commenced his studies at the age of 
 twenty, at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, and in 1903 
 returned to Asir. He is now about forty, and has the 
 prestige of his house at his back. He was born in Asir, 
 and has Dongolese and Yameni blood in him on the 
 female side. He is said to be a man of education with 
 some knowledge of English. Sheikh Idris has had to 
 use a good many stage tricks to hold the allegiance of 
 the ignorant tribesmen on whom his power depends. 
 I might mention his faked miracle of turning water into 
 blood by means of aniline dye, or his startling changes 
 of make-up (probably procured in Egypt) which enable 
 him to appear before his astonished followers as an old 
 man, a youth, a negro, or even (Allah regard us) a 
 woman. 
 
 Nevertheless he is a man of affairs, and overland 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 23 
 
 pilgrims declare that the roads in Asir are safer than in 
 Turkish Yamen. 
 
 Theologian as he may be, his movement is political 
 and not religious, though he uses the alleged religious 
 laxity of the Turks as a weapon against them. He 
 demands autonomy for Asir and has hitherto refused 
 anything less ; even the governorship of that province 
 under Turkey, which was offered to him by the present 
 Vali in the spring of 1913. 
 
 Italian support gave him more prominence than he 
 could have hoped to attain unassisted, and now that has 
 been withdrawn he may be more amenable to terms, 
 more especially as the Turks have now in operation a 
 maritime blockade of the Asiri coast. 
 
 Another tribe that practically repudiates Turkish rule 
 — though far easier to handle than Asir — is the 
 Dheranik. These tribesmen dwell in the Tihama and 
 maritime hills in the district whose administration centre 
 is Beit al-Fakih,^ an ancient seat of learning and a town 
 of some 5000 inhabitants, where there is a battalion of 
 Ottoman troops and a Turkish district-governor or 
 Kaimakam. 
 
 Some years ago a previous Kaimakam was shot dead 
 at the door of his residence in Beit al-Fakih, by the 
 followers of a Dheranik chief whom he had ordered his 
 gendarmes to arrest. The chief and his followers 
 
 1 Literally * The house of the Sage ' (a local divine named Sayed 
 Ahmed ibn Musa, whose tomb is near that town and known as a 
 shrine of power). There is a legend that a Turkish pasha, im- 
 prisoned in a Spanish dungeon and chained to a block of stone, 
 invoked in vain all the saints known to him, finally recalling the 
 name of the Sage. He was at once transferred miraculously to 
 Beit al-Fakih, arriving there in chains with the block of stone 
 attached ! 
 
24 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 escaped in the confusion, and since then the Dheranik 
 have been out of hand. 
 
 They muster 10,000 men, and their paramount chief 
 — Mohamed Yehya Fashik — has his headquarters at 
 Huseiniya, a village nine miles north of Zabid. 
 
 Zabid, the ancient capital of the Tihama, is also a 
 garrison town and a centre of administration, with a 
 population of about 8000. It is outside Dheranik 
 limits, but the tribes of the district are also lawless and 
 predatory. 
 
 In 1 9 13 it was proposed to march a battalion from 
 Zabid to Hodeida via Beit al-Fakih, but the Dheranik 
 chief refused to let them through except at the prohibi- 
 tive rate of £T. i a head. 
 
 They went round through the Reimah hills eventually. 
 
 Further south, along the Tihama towards Mokha, 
 there are no Ottoman ports of importance and the 
 country is less disturbed. 
 
 The road from Mokha to Taiz is open, or was when 
 I last heard. 
 
 Mokha is a dead-alive, mouldering town, whose trade 
 as a port for coffee and hides has been killed by excessive 
 taxation in the past and its proximity to Aden. It is 
 chiefly noted among Anglo-Indian passengers as the only 
 town on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea with an 
 adequate lighthouse. The coffee that bears its name 
 is shipped from Aden or Hodeida. 
 
 Taiz is a large, walled town with a feverish climate, 
 tucked away among the hills, at an altitude of 4000 feet 
 or so. The town stands at the foot of the northern slope 
 of Jebal Sabar, a tall hill under extensive cultivation. 
 A steep rock rises within the walls, 300 feet above the 
 houses ; on this is the citadel-fortress of Kahra. 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 25 
 
 An early ' king ' of Taiz, named Ismail Malek, is buried 
 in the town, and a mosque has been reared over his body. 
 No one is allowed now to approach the tomb itself, which 
 has been carefully walled in. The story goes that an 
 importunate beggar — repulsed by the local governor — 
 prayed at this tomb, and received a miraculous document 
 in the dead king's handwriting, duly signed and sealed, 
 ordering the treasury to pay bearer the sum of 200 rials 
 (;£"2o). The authorities felt compelled to meet this 
 posthumous liability, but have taken care to prevent 
 similar incidents for the future. 
 
 From Taiz there is some sort of road or caravan-track 
 on to the main plateau to Sanaa via Ibb, Yerim and 
 Dhamar. 
 
 Ibb is a walled town on the summit of a hill, and has 
 a population of 4000. At Ibb, the old pilgrim road 
 made by a slave-vizier in the eleventh century a.d., cuts 
 across from the Hadramaut towards the Tihama, to skirt 
 the coastal plain to Mecca. 
 
 Yerim and Dhamar both fell into the hands of the 
 insurgents during the rising of '91. No atrocities 
 were committed, and Turkish fugitives were kindly 
 treated. When I was with the Anglo-Turkish Boundary 
 Commission in 1902, on the frontier near Dthala, 
 Turkish deserters in pseudo-Arab garb passed through 
 frequently en route to Aden. Officially, we took no 
 cognizance of them, but privately they were given such 
 assistance as ordinary humanity dictated. All told tales 
 of hospitable treatment by the tribal Arabs, who passed 
 them on from village to village, yet the Imam's followers 
 were already fighting bitterly against the Turks, and 
 Sanaa itself was to fall two years later. 
 
 The very life-artery of Ottoman rule in Yamen is the 
 
26 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Hodeida-Sanaa road, and along this line Turkish sove- 
 reignty can hold its own. 
 
 It drives a wedge of paramount power between 
 turbulent Asir and the lawless tribes south of Hodeida. 
 It is true that the coastal section of this road is beset by 
 marauders, within an hour's canter of the town, but they 
 only snap at small caravans, and slink wide among the 
 scrub and sand-drifts at the approach of an armed force. 
 
 So long as Loheia is adequately held, Hodeida is safe 
 from an Asiri coup de main ; and, wall-less as she is, 
 and devoid of natural defences, the snarling, southern 
 tribes can hardly ' rush ' her across miles of open desert. 
 
 Loheia is a small coastal town on the north side of a 
 shallow bay. It can hardly be called a port, as the 
 anchorage is vile and its approach complicated by sub- 
 merged reefs, but it exports a little coffee and imports 
 grain. It has dhow^-traffic with Jeddah, Hodeida and 
 Aden. Water is scarce and brackish, and troops are 
 served first. A battalion is usually posted there and 
 in the fort, on one of the several kopjes at the back of 
 the town, where a small modern gun or two are mounted. 
 
 Loheia is in telegraphic communication with Hodeida. 
 With the exception of Loheia, which is used as a base 
 for operations in Asir, the chain of Turkish dominion 
 in Yamen may be said to run from Hodeida to Sanaa 
 (with Menakha as the padlock), and from Sanaa south- 
 wards along the inland plateau through Dhamar, Yerim 
 and Ibb to Taiz. A pendant of this Ottoman belt runs 
 from Taiz to Moawiya, and thence to Kataba, near the 
 frontier of the Aden Protectorate and within sight of 
 Dthala, the capital of one of our protected chiefs. 
 
 Coastwards from Taiz, the rule of Turkey extends to 
 Mokha and along the littoral to the mountain-fortress 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 27 
 
 of Sheikh Said, beyond which is the British sphere of 
 nominal influence among the lawless Subaihi. Some 
 Subaihi clans are ' protected ' by Turkey, and some by 
 our Aden Government. The weakest part of the chain 
 is between Taiz and Mokha, owing to the broken terrain 
 and tribal unrest, while Zabid and Beit al-Fakih are the 
 only links between Mokha and Hodeida, which are, 
 however, connected by telegraph. 
 
 Such as it is, this is Turkey's girdle of sovereign power 
 in Yamen. 
 
 Now let us consider the people with whom she has 
 to deal. 
 
 There are two broad and clearly defined Arabian types, 
 both descended from Shem. The better known and 
 more characteristic, from a European point of view, is 
 the stock descended from Ishmael, the tall, bearded, 
 aquiline type, which our crusading forefathers met in 
 the northern part of the Arabian peninsula, and which 
 tourists meet to-day in desert districts, where local taint 
 or sluggish living have not coarsened the breed. This, 
 however, is considered by Arab ethnologists as a 
 ' derived ' or impure strain, half Hebrew, as the 
 genealogy on page 28 shows. 
 
 The original or ^ pure ' Arabs are the descendants of 
 Joctan, and these Joctanic Arabs are the indigenous 
 tribes of Yamen. They differ widely from the children 
 of Ishmael, being smaller, darker, and lacking the aqui- 
 line features. They have thick heads of hair, often 
 frizzy, while the Ishmaelites' hair is straight or nearly so, 
 yet they are almost beardless, and never have the full 
 beard of the later stock. They resemble the ancient 
 Egyptian type, and authorities agree in referring both 
 to a common stock, from which the Abyssinians are also 
 
28 
 
 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Shem 
 
 Arphaxad 
 
 I 
 
 Saleh 
 
 Eber or Hud 
 
 Aram 
 Uz or Ad 
 
 (to whose people Hud preached, 
 probably many centuries after 
 the birth of their founder, for 
 these genealogical steps are 
 either not individuals at all but 
 tribes, or they were remarkably 
 long-lived. Shem lived 500 
 years, according to Genesis) 
 
 Peles: Joctan or Kahtan 
 
 (progenitor of the pure Arabs) 
 
 Reu 
 Serug 
 
 I 
 
 Nahor 
 Terah 
 Abraham = Hagar 
 Ishmael 
 
 (progenitor of * derived ' Arabs) 
 
 derived. The Joctanic type may be seen in its original 
 purity among the remoter hills of the Aden hinterland, 
 but in Yamen it has lost much of its characteristic 
 features, as the Ishmaelite Arabs have immigrated from 
 the north and intermarried with the indigenous stock, 
 while there are also local taints. 
 
 The Asiri and Dheranik have already been mentioned : 
 though united by a common bond of outlawry, they 
 differ considerably in appearance and personal character- 
 istics. The Asiri are high-shouldered, frizzy-haired, 
 and almost beardless, of serious and aloof demeanour, 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 29 
 
 mistrusting strangers, yet born traders ; while the 
 Dheranik tribesman has a crisp, short beard, and keeps 
 his straight hair under a tightly-bound turban. He 
 cares little for trade, so long as his crops, under the 
 maritime range, or his flocks and herds on the Tihama 
 plains, hold good, and his escapades have practically 
 scotched the caravan-borne trade of Beit al-Fakih and 
 Zabid with Hodeida. 
 
 The Imam's influence need not be considered yet ; 
 it is widespread, and embraces widely different people 
 in varying degrees. 
 
 We are considering general racial types, and cannot 
 do better than commence from the coast and work inland. 
 
 Along the Tihama or littoral belt the natives are 
 slightly built, and dark, with a strong negroid taint due 
 to concubinage with female domestic slaves. Once this 
 strain was established the intermarriage of its indi- 
 viduals became regular. Quadroon girls are frequently 
 wedded by Arabs, though no girl of pure Arab stock 
 would be given in marriage to a mulatto, still less to a 
 negro, except to make a much-monied match. Islam 
 boasts of equality among its races, but draws the line 
 at that^ though manumitted slaves frequently attain 
 positions of wealth and trust. I could mention a case 
 at Hodeida, where a portly slave, who wears with pride 
 the title of Hajji (as a hona-jide pilgrim), was appointed 
 executor under the will of his late master. He adminis- 
 ters the estate for several minors, and handles with energy 
 and acumen the testator's business as coffee-merchant 
 and broker. 
 
 The Arab merchant-class in all the towns of Yamen 
 is chiefly of Ishmaelite type, immigrants of the later 
 stock, tall men, wearing the long robes, usually associ- 
 
30 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 ated with Arabs in popular illustrations, while country- 
 men of every strain wear the short scanty kilt of the 
 Joctanic Arab. 
 
 The maritime hills that skirt the Tihama are peopled 
 by an intermediate type, with the swarthy complexion 
 of the plainsman, but lacking the negroid taint, except 
 in towns and large settlements, where the tribal type 
 becomes merged. On the main ranges and great massifs 
 of Yamen we find the true mountaineer type, taller and 
 bigger-limbed than the lowlander, and of lighter com- 
 plexion. In the Aden hinterland the mountaineers are 
 smaller than the plain-dwellers. Beyond those hills, 
 toward the south-western edge of the Great Red Desert, 
 there is again a taller race, with every trace of Ishmaelite 
 immigration, which probably lapped southward from Jauf 
 — skirting the Great Desert along the northern scarp of 
 the South Arabian hills — and invaded the south Arabian 
 littoral through Aden and other ports of the Aden Gulf. 
 
 The negroid taint does not occur in the Yamen hills, 
 but there has been intermarriage and concubinage with 
 women of serf strain, whose origin is said to be derived 
 from the Abyssinian or Persian invasion of Yamen, 
 before the dawn of Islam. Be that as it may, this is the 
 menial and mechanical class known throughout Arabia 
 Felix as ' hegur ' or ' raya,' in sharp distinction to the 
 indigenous tribal type, though all are Moslems. 
 
 In the towns of central Yamen, Jews occur in large 
 numbers, living in their own quarter and noted as 
 craftsmen. Turkish rule has secured them tolerance, 
 for they are recognized as an important economic factor 
 in the development of the country. At Menakha, the 
 best smiths and carpenters are Jews, and they are even 
 allowed to hold garden-land — a striking concession in 
 
ONE OF THE HEGUR. 
 
 YAMEN JEWS. 
 
 To face page 30. 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 31 
 
 Arabia. Still, their's is rather a harried existence and, 
 now that the Islamic code is rigidly enforced and the 
 Imam's influence is to the fore, their position in Yamen 
 may yet be one of jeopardy. 
 
 They are not allowed to have schools or synagogues, 
 but they assemble for worship at private houses un- 
 molested, and I was much impressed, on passing a Jew 
 cobbler's shop in a hamlet near Menakha, to see him 
 teaching his children to read the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 I understand that this practice is general ; it denotes a 
 laudable standard of education and considerable stiff- 
 ness of mental fibre in a difficult environment. 
 
 After leaving the bare, coastal plains, we find the 
 countrymen of Yamen almost entirely agricultural, but 
 beyond the central plateau, as the terrain begins to merge 
 in the barren hills that border on the Great Desert, the 
 pastoral type becomes again predominant, and agricul- 
 ture gradually reaches a vanishing point. In such 
 regions the tribesman is of purer strain, and more highly 
 developed in stamina and intelligence than the tribal 
 farmers and small landowners of the Yamen plateau 
 and its fertile mountains. This is easily explained. 
 Patience and perseverance will grow coffee, cabbages and 
 corn in a favourable climate, but it takes brains to follow 
 a shepherd's life, where you must learn to count your 
 charge at a glance and, if one is missing, follow its 
 ' spoor ' until you find it. The life too, with its raids 
 and counter-raids, tends to sharpen the wits, and brace 
 muscle and nerve. One must not, of course, compare 
 an indigent Bedouin clan on the outskirts of the desert, 
 with wealthy landowners in the highlands of Yamen, 
 but I maintain that pastoral chiefs on the western edge 
 of the Great Red Desert will compare favourably in wit, 
 
32 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 wisdom and personality, with men of the same social 
 grade in Yamen proper. 
 
 Turkish rule does not reach far east of Sanaa. The 
 Sharif of Mareb acknowledges Ottoman suzerainty, 
 but his 'cousin,' the Sharif of Behan, owes allegiance 
 to us by treaty, and an intermediate Sharif (also a 
 relation) at Harib is *odd man out,' unattached to any 
 suzerain. All three Sharifs coquette with either sove- 
 reign power when they get a chance. 
 
 The present Sharif of Mareb traced me to a hill-camp 
 on the maritime scarp of the central plateau, to ask if 
 I wanted to buy a pedigree pony. He then began to 
 talk a very pungent brand of politics, for which I referred 
 him to his suzerain's representative at Sanaa, pointing 
 out that I was merely a bird-collector, and that the 
 ground was too rough for ponies. 
 
 All these dwellers desertward, east of central Yamen, 
 are known collectively as Ahl al-Mashrik (the people of 
 the East), by the Yamenis, who fear their dour fanaticism 
 and fierce impetuous character. The Ahl al-Mashrik 
 may be said to comprise the tribesmen of Nejran and 
 Jauf, with those that range on the south-west corner of 
 the Empty Quarter and acknowledge no authority unless 
 enforced. 
 
 They are all Sunnis or orthodox Moslems, regarding 
 the Sunna (a collection of traditions of the Prophet) as 
 canonical, and guiding their conduct thereby. 
 
 Central Yamen follows the Zeidi sect (an offshoot 
 of the Shiah schism), called after Zeid, a great grandson 
 of Ali, and established in Yamen by the Imam al-Hadi 
 Yehya in a.d. 901 ; through him the present Imam of 
 Yamen claims descent from Ali, the fourth Khalif, by 
 his wife Fatima (daughter of the Prophet). 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 33 
 
 This Zeidi house has been submerged again and again 
 in the stormy sea of Yamen politics. 
 
 The Zeidis differ from the main sect of Shiah, in that 
 they hold Ali to be the first rightful Khalif by personal 
 fitness, and not by selection, as the Shiites insist, though 
 both agree in repudiating the first three Khalifs — ^Abu 
 Bekr, Omar and Othman — ^whereas the Sunnis acknow- 
 ledge and respect them as rightfully appointed. 
 
 The Zeidis perform the pilgrimage to Mecca. They 
 regard the Shiite pilgrimage to Kerbela — where Ali's 
 son Hussein, with his infant child and retinue, were 
 slaughtered by overwhelming numbers — as a work of 
 supererogation. 
 
 They more nearly approach the orthodox Sunni than 
 any other sect of Shiah, and the present Imam was able, 
 by promises of loot, to win the * People of the East ' 
 to his cause against the Sunnite Turk. 
 
 There is, however, no love lost between these two 
 great sects in Yamen, and I have been often told by 
 some member of one sect, that a Christian or even 
 a Jew was 'better directed' than any member of the 
 other. 
 
 Down on the Tihama the Sunni doctrine is paramount, 
 though at Hodeida a few Zeidis may be found fi*om 
 up-country. The Asiri — whether plainsmen or moun- 
 taineers — are Sunni, chiefly of the Shafei sect adhering 
 closely to the Islamic tradition, though they can find 
 nothing in that to justify their stern method of circum- 
 cision. This is performed after puberty and, besides the 
 actual circumcision, the pubes is flayed to prevent hair 
 ever growing there again. All this is said to take place 
 in the presence of the youth's fiancee, and if he flinches 
 she is expected to decline the match. 
 
34 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 This painful operation is intended to test the lad's 
 courage and harden him against physical pain. 
 
 The creed and ordinary practices of Sunni extend 
 some distance from the coast back into the maritime 
 range. Hajeilah, for example, is Sunni, and slack at 
 that, but up the road to Sanaa from Hajeilah, the Zeidi 
 cult is supreme. 
 
 At Menakha there is a strong connection with India, 
 through native merchants and their correspondents, in 
 large centres such as Bombay, Delhi and Haidarabad. 
 This tends to broaden religious thought and to tone 
 down fanaticism. Turkish officials (Sunnis) attend the 
 local mosque, which is naturally of Zeidi denomination. 
 Central Yamen is not fanatical. Her mountaineer 
 husbandmen, in the isolated security of their village 
 eyries, have for many centuries watched the ebb and flow 
 of various creeds and sects. Land must be tilled if 
 kingdoms fall, and seasons do not wait on politics. 
 Religious thought is as strong, and stronger than in the 
 bickering foot-hills or the sun-scorched Tihama, where 
 crops give way to flocks, and both to the upheaval of 
 the moment, or occasional brigandage, or any easier 
 livelihood than that which must be wrested from an 
 iron-bound soil and scanty pasture. The central plateau, 
 with its terraced farms and infinite detail of cultivation, 
 has little time for abstract problems. Thus it is that 
 the ripples of every political and religious movement in 
 Yamen have failed to travel far among those solemn hills, 
 apart from the difficulties of locomotion. Now and 
 then some hot-headed movement has seized on Sanaa, 
 there to brood and feed on its own vitality, unable to 
 spread afield, for the hillsmen will have none of it unless 
 it touches them personally. 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 35 
 
 Let Sanaa sit in the dust and ashes of Wahabism or 
 flaunt the barbaric vices of a Karmatian despot ; the 
 highland tribesmen heed her not, but hold aloof, busied 
 with their own affairs in farm and hamlet and lonely 
 tower, perched among difficult heights where the human 
 voice can carry a day's journey. 
 
 Local problems of grave import to these little 
 isolated communities must be thought out and solved. 
 What have they to do with the great outer world so 
 long as the caravan-tracks to market are open, and the 
 tax-collector keeps away ? 
 
 But let the trend of politics touch their personal 
 interests, and see how those working hives will swarm 
 and sting. 
 
 The local mountaineer can scramble across his difficult 
 terrain in any direction, by paths known only to him, 
 while organized troops must move laboriously by some 
 well-known route that winds beneath the menace of those 
 upper peaks, or stray therefrom, to find their progress 
 barred by some impossible precipice. 
 
 Such are some of the difficulties that confront Turkish 
 rule in Yamen, nor can it even cope with the turbulent 
 and lawless tribes of the Tihama, for, though locomotion 
 is easier and there is room to wield an organized force 
 on those arid plains, the water supply is a difficult 
 problem, and the climate smites severely the northern- 
 bred troops of Turkey. 
 
 As for the province of Asir, it has usually been left 
 to stew in its own juice. In 19 12 there was an attempt 
 to nip the Idrisi movement, between a mixed column 
 from the Hejaz (operating under a son of the Sharif 
 of Mecca) and two Ottoman field-forces converging 
 from Sanaa and Loheia. These combined operations 
 
36 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 failed, chiefly owing to the lack of enterprise shown by 
 the Sharifian column. Since then a permanent field- 
 force has held a series of positions along the Asiri border, 
 from Loheia to Zahran, on the inland edge of the 
 Tihama, thus safeguarding Hodeida, and preventing a 
 possible juncture of the Asiri with the Dheranik and 
 other lawless tribes southward. The tendency of 
 Ottoman policy is- — in spite of sundry alleged successes 
 of the Imam against the Idrisi — to alienate the Asiri 
 tribes from that chief, as far as possible by diplomacy, 
 and to establish with him a modus Vivendi^ when such 
 defections have brought him to reason. It has always 
 been difllicult to hold Yamen Arabs to an abstract ideal 
 for any length of time ; they lack the long-smouldering 
 fervour of spiritual fanaticism, though they can fight like 
 fiends for a concrete object which they can grasp. 
 
 None knows this better than the Idrisi himself. His 
 movement is not religious, but practical. ' Asir for the 
 Asiri' is the Idrisi watchword, and even that is not 
 enough to hold many of these tribal barbarians, who 
 believe in a downright, bloody fight, crowned with 
 unlimited loot. 
 
 They cannot see the force of keeping in the field to 
 maintain their strategic advantage and safeguard their 
 liberties, so the Idrisi is driven to all sorts of shifts and 
 expedients to enhance his personality and hold tribal 
 interest. 
 
 Even the more ascetic eastern tribes that border on 
 the Great Red Desert follow the lure of loot. When 
 they invaded Yamen in the name of the Imam, during 
 previous risings, it was very difficult to keep them in 
 the field, for if the loot did not come up to their expecta- 
 tions, they told the Imam (who should have been their 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 37 
 
 spiritual and temporal guide) exactly what they thought 
 of him. When any clan or tribal unit had made a good 
 haul of cattle or what not, it usually cleared off home 
 with it, on the same principle that induces a successful 
 gambler at Monte Carlo to leave the tables and take 
 the next train. 
 
 The Imam's present position in Yamen is — to say the 
 least of it — curious. 
 
 Yehya ibn Mohamed ibn Yehya ibn Hamed ed-Din 
 (to give him his full name and patronymics) must practise 
 the art of political balancing to a nicety, or there is much 
 trouble ahead for him. 
 
 When Turkish neglect and contumely drove his 
 father, Mohamed ibn Yehya, out of Sanaa, late last 
 century, tribesmen rallied to him, as a persecuted leader 
 of Islam, at Kaflet Adhar, on the eastern border of 
 northern Yamen. 
 
 Since then the present Imam has been able to estab- 
 lish himself in Central Yamen, at his capital Khamir, 
 and in his name the tribes have always been ready to 
 have a slap at the Ottoman Government. 
 
 But now that the Turks, by a stroke of policy, have 
 recognized him as Imam, and placed in his hands the 
 supreme control and administration of the Islamic code, 
 which is now the law throughout Yamen, he is in a some- 
 what difficult position. 
 
 First and foremost he is no longer a prince in exile, 
 whose misfortunes and romantic lineage could appeal to 
 firebrands of both the great Moslem creeds. He is 
 now arrayed on the side of a constituted authority, 
 which has never been too welcome in Yamen. 
 
 The Asiri will never forget that he used Turkish 
 battalions against them in his efforts to subdue them, 
 
38 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 and the eastern tribes who fought for him and his father 
 have long since dissipated the loot they got then, and 
 only remember their dead on the grim slopes of Menakha. 
 As for the inhabitants of central Yamen, they are already 
 finding the Sheria or Islamic code a burden, and connect 
 his name with it, for the Imam stipulated, as one of the 
 terms of peace after the rising of 191 1, that Yamen 
 should be administered under the Sheria, and not under 
 the Kanun or Ottoman judicial code as heretofore. He 
 was no doubt influenced to make this proviso by the 
 more fanatical tribes who support him in the north and 
 east, and, as spiritual director and descendant of Ali, he 
 probably felt bound to make a firm stand against Turkish 
 laxity on many points of Moslem practice. 
 
 Be this as it may, he has now to play a double game, 
 for he poses as an ascetic before the watchful eyes of 
 his tribal entourage, and yet he must accept the support 
 of Ottoman troops at Khamir. These, in spite of 
 stringent instructions from the central authority at Sanaa, 
 are bound to shock the antiquated tribal notion of Islam 
 at every turn. The mere fact of their wearing trousers 
 of European uniform cut is considered immoral. 
 
 When the firman, proclaiming the Imam's sway and 
 alliance with Turkey, was read at Sanaa in September, 
 1 913, the city received the news with great rejoicing ; 
 and Arab hooligans pervaded her streets, discharging 
 fire-arms and shouting that Turkish dominion was over, 
 and that Arab rule was again to flourish. 
 
 A wave of spurious patriotism swept over the Arab 
 quarter, but I fancy that now even the Zeidi population 
 are beginning to see that they are like Aesop's frogs, 
 who derided King Log and were given King Stork. The 
 Kanun, or legal code of the Turks, is a broad and well- 
 
THE VILAYET AND ITS PEOPLE 39 
 
 considered judicial scheme, drawn up to meet the 
 requirements of modern Moslem life. Properly admin- 
 istered, it suited Yamen well, and in recent years it has 
 been so administered. 
 
 The Islamic code, on the other hand, was promulgated 
 for the narrow needs of tribal life, more than a thousand 
 years ago. In its unmodified form it is certainly not 
 suited to the needs of any community above the standard 
 of mere barbarism. 
 
 Yet the Imam is pledged to that code, and nominates 
 the kadis who administer it. Already central Yamen is 
 crying out against the Sheria, likenmg it to a mountain 
 — a magnificent monument of past ages, but a terrible 
 and overwhelming disaster to those on whom it falls, 
 without discrimination or allowance for the circumstances 
 of the case. It is as rugged as the people for whom it 
 was originally fashioned, and does not suit the easy- 
 going Yamenis of to-day. 
 
 That is not the Turks' affair ; they were asked for 
 the reinstatement of the Sheria, and they complied, 
 though they rightly insisted that no Turk, civil or 
 military, should come under its harsh clauses, and Arab 
 gendarmerie — as enlisted men — may choose between 
 Kanun and Sheria when they have a case toward, but 
 must abide by the decision made. 
 
 Such is the vilayet at present. Turkey may be said 
 to hold the Hodeida-Sanaa road, and a strip of country 
 on either side of it, broad where her posts occur, and 
 narrowing between them to a mere thread of sovereignty, 
 indicated by the field- telegraph that links up Sanaa with 
 Stamboul. 
 
 In Sanaa itself, Turkish prestige is lower than it has 
 been for many years, but the Turks hold the city and its 
 
40 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 outlying defences, while the rapprochement with the 
 Imam has relieved tension in that direction. Ottoman 
 sway holds good to Amran ; north of that town the 
 Imam is supreme, backed by a supporting column of 
 Ottoman troops and guns. 
 
 On the Imam's western border are the Hashidi, a 
 strong, turbulent tribe, mustering 12,000 men, with 
 Asiri sympathies. They have been keeping the Imam's 
 supporting column fairly busy during the summer of 
 1 9 13. The Turks have still some hold on the central 
 plateau, along a line south of Sanaa, through Dhamar, 
 Yerim and Ibb to Taiz, and are fairly strong in the south 
 from Taiz to Moawiya, and thence to Kataba — their 
 frontier post — near the border of the Aden Protectorate. 
 Communications between Taiz and Sanaa, and Taiz and 
 Mokha, are none too sure, and if Taiz goes, Moawiya 
 and Kataba go with it. 
 
 The whole of the Tihama, except the garrison towns 
 and their immediate neighbourhood, is out of hand. 
 The entente with the Imam was a sound stroke of 
 temporary policy to relieve the immediate exigencies of 
 the military situation, but there is no saying how long 
 the Imam's influence may last, or what fresh firebrand 
 may arise, and where. The Idrisi has been able to 
 disorganize the whole vilayet, and has yet to be dealt 
 with. Imam and Turk, separately and combined, tried 
 and failed to come to terms with him last year. 
 
 To crown all, the Ottoman administration in Yamen 
 is desperately hard-up for cash or credit, and the pay of 
 all departments is heavily in arrears. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ON AND OFF THE ROAD 
 
 There is but one road in Yamen worthy of the name, 
 and that is the route connecting the chief port Hodeida 
 with Sanaa, the inland capital. 
 
 The distance is some hundred and fifty miles, and 
 takes a week to travel, the road going up from sea- 
 level to well over 9000 feet, and down again to 7200 
 feet, traversing every variety of terrain known to 
 Arabia. 
 
 The caravan-track runs eastward from Hodeida across 
 the maritime plain, known through half Arabia as the 
 Tihama, or abode of heat. Across this grim stretch of 
 desert and scrub and parched mimosa even natives 
 travel by night, if possible, for the sun smites like a 
 sword, and there is little water and less shade. 
 
 The small town of Bajil, at the entrance to the foot- 
 hills, is the limit of the actual desert. It is thirty-two 
 miles from Hodeida and 600 feet above sea-level. There 
 is a half-way caravansary between Bajil and Hodeida, 
 known as Tannan — a mere collection of empty huts for 
 the use of travellers — where one may get coffee and 
 brackish water. 
 
 Beyond Bajil are broad, level plains of arable land and 
 bush, girt by foot-hills, and stiflingly hot by day. 
 
42 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Leaving Bajil, through miles of red millet and sesame, 
 the road circles round behind a long, isolated range, 
 which culminates in Mount Bura at 5000 feet. Through 
 a gap in this range the Siham flows at gloomy depths 
 toward the sea. 
 
 Bura block can be plainly seen from Hodeida on a 
 clear day, and would be a delightful sanatorium for that 
 sweltering, sun-scorched town ; there are mountain rills 
 and breezy forest uplands, where a man might sit in a 
 deck-chair and watch Hodeida stewing in the distant 
 haze. The Sheikh of Bura is a kindly old soul who 
 loves visitors and gossip ; he has guest-quarters, fitted 
 with real French bedsteads of fancy ironwork. 
 
 Unfortunately, the road to Bura from Hodeida is 
 impracticable just now, owing to the lawless state of the 
 maritime tribes and, in any case, the last few hours up 
 to that hospitable eyrie must be tackled on foot. The 
 main road from Bajil runs through the village of Beha, 
 twelve miles on, a useful halting-place on the long 
 thirty-mile march to Hajeilah. There are one or two 
 zarebas and thatched sheds for travellers. Beha is 
 usually a night halt, and muleteers like to get away again 
 soon after midnight, to make Hajeilah before the sun 
 gets hot. 
 
 After a few hours' doze on a wooden charpoy, laced 
 with palm-cord, the sleepy wayfarer climbs onto a sullen 
 mule, and leads his creaking baggage-train through 
 Beha's only street, out onto a vast, open plain of sun- 
 baked earth and scanty fallow. 
 
 This is the last stage of the journey that may be done 
 by night, and is rather monotonous if there is no moon. 
 On the right, at infinite distance, are the twinkling lights 
 of lonely villages on Bura and, far away to the left 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 43 
 
 across the plain, a cock will occasionally crow in a 
 tentative sort of way, as if to hurry up the dawn. 
 
 The morning star swings up ahead, and a light, chilly 
 breeze makes the mounted escort cough distressfully 
 until cigarettes are handed round. 
 
 Dawn should see you clear of the plain, and while the 
 morning is still grey you may hear the rapping shots of 
 some tribal fracas from the foot-hills, a cheery sound, 
 denoting that the world is once more astir and taking 
 an intelligent interest in its affairs. There are two deep 
 ravines to cross, and then you reach the village of Obal, 
 where you can get a cup of coffee, and send a mounted 
 gendarme on to Hajeilah with a polite note in Arabic 
 to the Mudir, which will ensure you quarters and the 
 usual courtesy. 
 
 The road now traverses densely-wooded ravines, and 
 emerges onto open park-like country, well cultivated, 
 and dotted with tall timber — the farmland of Hajeilah. 
 
 Hajeilah stands on a rugged spur, overlooking the 
 valley of Hejjan, that drains the upper heights. 
 
 The traveller will find good quarters in a low, 
 rambling shed of loose stone, fronted by a spacious 
 zareba that overlooks the Arab cemetery on the south- 
 west outskirts of the township. The management is 
 less piratical than that of adjacent caravansaries, and the 
 view is magnificent. 
 
 Beyond Hajeilah, eastward, the ground sweeps boldly 
 up to the crest of Safaan, etched with towers and 
 villages on the skyline, 5000 feet up and barely five 
 miles away. Further back, to the right, is Masar's bluff 
 headland, a narrow, rocky plateau on which a big peri- 
 meter fort sprawls out like a star-fish. Still further to 
 the right is the tall peak of Shibam that guards Menakha. 
 
44 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 The route to Menakha lies over the razor-backed 
 ridge on the skyline between Masar and Shibam, barely 
 ten miles as an aeroplane flies, but nearly thrice that 
 distance by road. If the traveller is stopping for any 
 length of time at Hajeilah, he will find better quarters 
 in the town than a coffee-house zareba affords, with its 
 influx of clamorous wayfarers. I can recommend the 
 house of an old coffee-broker just below the 'Ambah,' 
 or Turkish defensible post, which holds a small detach- 
 ment of Ottoman infantry. 
 
 There is a stone tower with a store-room and outhouse 
 below, and a courtyard and guest-chamber above, reached 
 by a flight of ruinous steps that give onto a coffee- 
 drying platform, where taxidermical specimens may be 
 aired if guarded closely from hovering kites. Below 
 are stone sheds, where your guard may be quartered and 
 your cooking done. The guest-chamber is quite stylish, 
 and boasts a tiny rose-window of stained glass. The 
 mud walls are frescoed with circular arabesques in dull 
 red and ochre, while the small unglazed casements are 
 fitted with practicable shutters to keep out sun and 
 driving rain. A gap or two in the mud and wattle 
 flooring enable you to keep an eye on your stores below. 
 
 If you should be there just before the commencement 
 of the rainy season, be sure that the roof is seen to, for 
 white ants tunnel everywhere, and the first big thunder- 
 storm last year brought most of the ceiling down in seas 
 of liquid mud. 
 
 The only real drawback to a nervous man is the 
 proximity of several well-stocked hives — a pile of hollow 
 logs that divided the courtyard in two, and behind which 
 I used to have my bath. The bees were usually good- 
 tempered, except when my landlord had just robbed 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 45 
 
 them to put honeycomb on my breakfast-table. Then 
 they would occasionally inflict reprisals on me, and no 
 one's dignity will stand the strain of a damp and un- 
 draped stampede, nor is a brandished bath towel an 
 adequate defence. 
 
 The traveller should lose no time in calling at the 
 ' Hukoomah,' or seat of Government, on the local Mudir, 
 who will receive him in a stockaded enclosure, where 
 a stone hut or two and some thatched sheds form, the 
 Mudirat. 
 
 A small escort will be told off to the traveller, who is 
 then free of the district, within certain limits, which 
 depend on the political aspect of the moment. 
 
 You will probably be offered as many ' soldiers ' or 
 Arab gendarmes as you want, but you should not take 
 this courteous offer au pied de lettre. Four is a useful 
 number (one being the umbashi or corporal in charge) ; 
 two can attend your walks abroad and two stop at home 
 to cook and look after the quarters, or make themselves 
 useful up at the Mudirat which overlooks your back- 
 yard. There are but six gendarmes in the settlement as 
 a rule ; their sphere of duty is wide and their pay heavily 
 in arrears. There is a tendency to shirk oflficial duty, 
 which you should do your best to check. 
 
 The Yamen gendarme is usually a sportsman, and 
 likes to see birds killed on the wing, but his woodcraft 
 is not good. Your best beat is across the broad, open 
 valley of the Hejjan, four miles southward. Here there 
 is a grove of tall timber and undergrowth in a fold of 
 foot-hills that run up to Mount Lahab — a tentacle of 
 the Shibam massif. Among those trees you will find 
 most of the bird-life of the district, provided that you 
 do not let the escort follow you too closely. The black- 
 
46 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 avised birds-nesting eagle spends the night there, and 
 you may flush a stray hammer-head crane from some 
 chance rain-pool. 
 
 Guinea-fowl are there before the sun gets hot, and 
 give a better chance than out in the open. A faint note 
 like the muffled prelude of a lawn-mower will give you 
 your direction, and if you move quickly through the 
 dew-drenched, aromatic bush, the bevy may rise and give 
 you a quick chance between the tree-tops. If they hear 
 you they will run before you all morning, elusive and 
 invisible. 
 
 The slopes of Lahab's scarp are off your beat, but its 
 mountain-folk are a pleasant, good-tempered lot, and 
 there is no reason why you should not visit them if you 
 make the necessary arrangements with officialdom. 
 There is no Ottoman representative up there — you must 
 apply to the central administration at Menakha for 
 permission and an escort. 
 
 There is little of special interest to detain the naturalist 
 at Hajeilah, and the climate is rather trying, for the town 
 is only 2000 feet above sea-level. 
 
 The population of town and district has a name for 
 lawless truculence ; folk are warned not to move about 
 after dark, and nocturnal fusillades at the landscape in 
 general are not uncommon when thieves are thought to 
 be about. 
 
 I found the natives friendly enough, though rather a 
 nuisance at times, when I was busy, as both sexes brought 
 their varied ailments to me, some of a distinctly em- 
 barrassing nature. 
 
 They quarrel a good deal among themselves, and their 
 women talk too much, sometimes degenerating into 
 scolds. Both sexes are addicted to the * kat-habit,' 
 

ON AND OFF THE ROAD 47 
 
 which I shall describe later. This, with the unhealthy 
 climate of the district, shut in between those foot-hills 
 and afflicted with either floods or drought, as the year 
 goes round, accounts for much of its rancorous reputa- 
 tion. The inadequate local administration explains the 
 general lawlessness. 
 
 Religion too, is not at its best here : the people are 
 Sunnis — orthodox enough in dogma, but in practice very 
 slack. The call to prayer was given from a deserted 
 'minbar' or pulpit just outside my quarters, and I have 
 heard the local mullah inveigh from there, at the popu- 
 lace below him in the crowded bazaar, for scanty attend- 
 ance at divine worship — and on Friday too ! 
 
 There is a great deal of sickness about, especially after 
 the rainy season has set in, bringing malaria with it. 
 Turkish troops hate Hajeilah as a station and seldom 
 keep well there. When I first went up-country I had 
 an Ottoman escort from here, and all except a bandsman 
 — whose sole weapon of offence was a flageolet — were 
 invalids sent up to recuperate at Menakha. 
 
 The road up from Hajeilah is rather a trying march, 
 the actual distance to Menakha being twenty-six miles, 
 and the difference in level 5000 feet. 
 
 The first stage of the journey should be commenced 
 well before dawn, for it lies up the Hejjan gorge, which 
 the morning sun makes an inferno. 
 
 The road runs eastward across Hajeilah plateau and 
 down the southern scarp into the Hejjan valley, follow- 
 ing up the bed of a deep ravine much impeded by 
 boulders. The sides of this ravine close in and get 
 steeper, higher and better wooded as the traveller 
 proceeds. 
 
 About six miles from Hajeilah is the 'Gate of the 
 
48 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Mountains,' formed by a rock the size of a large house 
 which has fallen from above, across the ravine, and made 
 a natural arch above the track. 
 
 Three miles beyond the ' Gate ' the track leaves the bed 
 of the Hejjan and zigzags a thousand feet up to Wasil. 
 The ravine itself gets steeper and more encumbered with 
 boulders toward its source, high up between the heights 
 of Safaan and Masar. 
 
 Wasil is a collection of stone huts for travellers, some 
 market-booths, which are occupied on Saturdays, and a 
 small hamlet of tall towers dominated by the local chief's 
 stronghold, with loopholes and pinnacles picked out in 
 white. 
 
 The settlement stands 4200 feet above sea-level, on a 
 lofty spur that runs down from the commanding heights 
 of Masar and divides the Hejjan from its tributary, the 
 Howeib. 
 
 To the traveller from the coast, Wasil gives the first 
 typical view of the Yam. en highlands. Far below, to the 
 west, stretch the foot-hills toward Hajeilah and tawny 
 plains, half veiled in violet haze, beyond which rise the 
 rugged heights of Bura against a pale, hot sky. 
 
 From the coffee-house at Wasil one can throw a stone 
 into Wadi Hejjan, where caravan-donkeys look the size 
 of mice, and sheer from the Hejjan, blocking out the 
 northern sky, rises the gigantic scarp of Safaan. Along 
 its upper heights are terraced fields and guardian towers, 
 with here and there a village perched on some salient 
 crag. So abrupt is that stupendous slope that it looks 
 as if an incautious husbandman might fall off his field, 
 to crash into the Hejjan thousands of feet below. 
 
 Close at hand are the precipitous heights of Masar, 
 that seem ready to fall on Wasil. It gives one a crick 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 49 
 
 in the neck to count the cofFee-gardens up those out- 
 rageous steeps, while wondering if they are garnered 
 with a derrick. Further round, in the eye of the 
 morning sun, is Shibam peak, throwing great arms out 
 to grasp Masar and Lahab. The long crests of the 
 Lahab range lie across the southern sky, beyond night- 
 mare gorges that drain into the Howeib. 
 
 Wasil district is a chaos of spurs and ravines that 
 droop steeply down from the upper heights of Masar, 
 to plunge sheer, a thousand feet or so, into some lowland 
 gorge. Here are tall towers perched on dizzy pinnacles 
 and overhung by amazing scarps, where the eagle nests 
 and no human foot can climb. Ravines too, so steep 
 and narrow that one may almost touch the tree-tops 
 which grow out of them, and so overgrown that only a 
 green twilight penetrates to their recesses, where the 
 lurid blooms of the snake-onion flame among the fern 
 and the giant cobra drowses in the hush of noon. 
 
 Among the spurs are breezy uplands, where the hill- 
 grass bends before the wind and the peregrine hurtles 
 like a shell as he swoops down to startle basking conies 
 on the lower ledges. Cunning folks are these, with their 
 rat-like faces and rabbit ways, never straying far from 
 some deep, rocky cleft m which to hurl themselves head- 
 long at the rush of questing wings or the flash of a rifle. 
 
 Spurs and ravines alike are terraced for coffee, 
 wherever coffee will grow, and in the spring the star-like 
 coffee-flower, in wax-like clusters, loads the air with its 
 sweet, mystic scent. 
 
 Some of these ravines hold perennial water. All 
 begin in wooded clefts high up on Masar, and all end in 
 thick jungle and a plunge over the rocky lip of a 
 precipice. 
 
$0 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 The local people are like their district — ^rugged and 
 a trifle dangerous to strangers, but kindly and full of 
 charm to those who take the trouble to know them. 
 
 I stayed some time near Wasil : my host was a quiet 
 and courteous chief who lived in a lonely tower on the 
 edge of a great ravine. He liked quietness, but loved 
 an evening's gossip when the owls were hunting down 
 the ravine and conies chattered softly up the hill. 
 
 Our talk ran on men and matters of import, and he 
 would tell how the last great rising flared up along the 
 heights of Menakha because a woman, bereft of her two 
 sons by murder and seeking vengeance in vain from the 
 Ottoman Government, drove a dog on a hempen lead 
 before her through the upper villages. " Are ye men or 
 dogs," quoth she : " will ye fight now for your Imam 
 or hang later when the reckoning comes ? " And the 
 gathering storm of revolt that menaced Sanaa burst 
 round Menakha in the name of the Imam. 
 
 Upon the heights of Masar, the Ottoman fort, all 
 ringed with foes, was held in the Sultan's name by a 
 section of raw Turkish recruits and some Arab gen- 
 darmerie. 
 
 Hajeilah rufiians decided that an era of free loot was 
 close at hand, and started up the road to harry the home- 
 steads of Wasil. They kept clear of the main village, 
 as too hard a nut to crack, but invested my host's lonely 
 tower, and called on him to let them in as Turkish rule 
 was over. 
 
 He replied with a well-sustained rifle-fire which drove 
 the marauders to cover, with two casualties, and they 
 eventually abandoned their project. 
 
 "Fighting," exclaimed my host, "they know not 
 what fighting is — those Hajeilah men — but Izzet Pasha 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 51 
 
 could have taught them when his advance-guard drove 
 the tribesmen before it, up this road, in a thick mist, 
 and the yells of stricken men rose high above the babble 
 of his guns." 
 
 Masar fort stood staunch, in spite of proffered terms 
 for its surrender, and well it was for that relieving 
 column that it did so. " Yes of course the Arab gen- 
 darmerie stood fast by the Osmalis," remarked my host. 
 " The Turks are an infliction of Allah, but the Imam is 
 worse. We only ask for peace and quietness." 
 
 Poor man, I hope he has his wish ; he died last year. 
 
 Up from Wasil village the road winds steeply athwart 
 the giant spurs of Masar, menaced by its precipitous 
 scarp that looms high above the jasmine-fringed slopes 
 on the left. 
 
 On the right the ground drops steeply down to the 
 ravines of Wasil, with terraces of tall coffee built in 
 along its contours. Ahead, high up against the skyline, 
 is Attara, once the dominant stronghold of these parts,^ 
 but now a mere cluster of towers occupied by a few 
 husbandmen and their families. Up to Attara crest the 
 track climbs in steep, well-buttressed zigzags, winding 
 through the little hamlet and round the rocky pinnacle 
 which once held the right-of-way when mountain- 
 batteries were not. 
 
 Looking down from the heights of Attara, into its 
 vast ravine that drops dizzily towards the gorge of the 
 Howeib, one may trace the half-obliterated track of the 
 old Arab road that left the Howeib valley, near its 
 junction with the Hejjan, and wound up the outrageous 
 
 1 When it was held by a Nejrani chief comparatively independent 
 of the Imam. The Turks ousted him, but Nejranis still hold land in 
 the district. 
 
52 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 slope of the ravine to join the present road to 
 Attara. 
 
 All the way up from the Hejjan, the Government road 
 is well traced and deeply cut into the mighty flank of 
 Masar — a monument of Turkish zeal and enterprise, 
 just as its abominably neglected surface is a standing 
 rebuke to official apathy. 
 
 Attara is about five miles from Wasil by road, and 
 takes two hours to reach as mules climb. Beyond this 
 point the route skirts the head of Attara ravine : here is 
 a pleasant little valley, thick with barley and lucerne and 
 watered by a perennial brook. 
 
 Crossing this brook the road rapidly degenerates to a 
 mere boulder-strewn track and climbs steeply, in well 
 traced zigzags, up onto the wind-swept plateau of bare 
 rock and rubble that rises gently towards Hajrah pass. 
 Here the route, free of storm-washed debris, once again 
 assumes the aspect of a made road. Close on the left, 
 on a knoll commanding the road, is Hajrah — a big, 
 walled village of tall towers, well built and opulent, for 
 here reside many tribal merchants of note and the Kadi 
 of Menakha ; a haughty and stiff-necked settlement 
 that essayed to bar the passage of Izzet Pasha's column 
 early in 191 1, until a shell or two reduced it to quaking 
 silence lest its trim towers should topple down the knoll. 
 
 Hajrah pass lies over a linked tentacle of Masar and 
 Shibam : both heights dominate the bare plateau, from 
 which the white fort, tucked into the topmost pinnacle 
 of Shibam, can be plainly seen when mountain mists 
 or low-hung clouds have not veiled the upper air. 
 
 From the top of the pass Menakha may be sighted 
 under a double-humped hill on v/hich are the twin 
 guardian forts of Beh and Hadar. 
 
< '.i:.->" 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 53 
 
 Here the road leaves its general easterly trend, to 
 slope sharply southward into a bay between two spurs 
 of Shibam. Thence to Menakha there is a fairly good 
 road, well scarped and revetted, across successive spurs 
 and ravines. 
 
 High on the right are the soaring peaks of that great 
 massifs and on the left its giant limbs thrust down to 
 depths unscaleable — ^ravines that the road spans on tall 
 stone culverts near their source, but which sweep down, 
 vast and impassable, to drop sheer into the pleasant 
 valley of Shebt, 3000 feet below. 
 
 On every accessible spot that is capable of cultivation, 
 one looks down on dark-green coffee or garden-ground, 
 with here and there a grove of walnut. An occasional 
 blackberry bush grows along the edge of the precipitous 
 road-scarp : there is quite a home-like tang about its 
 tartish fruit, though one would not expect to be eating 
 blackberries when the dog-rose is in bloom, which was 
 the case here when I first went up the road in December. 
 The ' homish ' feel of the district was much enhanced by 
 the weather : it was so ^oggy that I could not see 
 Menakha till we stumbled up its main street, though we 
 had heard, an hour ago, the cry of Ottoman bugles 
 through the mist. 
 
 Menakha is 7500 feet above sea-level and stands on 
 a steep ridge formed by an arm that stretches steeply 
 down from an offshoot of Shibam, and rises in two giant 
 knuckles, on which are the forts of Hadar and Beh. 
 The town is perched on the ^ wrist,' and beyond its 
 southern outskirts, up the rise leading to the crest of 
 Beh, is the suburb of Little Menakha, a cluster of lofty 
 towers where well-to-do merchants dwell. 
 
 Fort Beh overlooks and completely commands the 
 
54 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Sanaa road (winding up the lower limbs of Shibam) 
 across a vast ravine that a baboon could not scale. Down 
 this the telegraph-line stretches in long, sagging loops, 
 the wire having been taken to the edge of the chasm, 
 under the headland of Beh, and dropped sheer into the 
 gulf, to be handled by Turkish sappers from below. 
 
 Fort Hadar commands the other approaches to 
 Menakha — mere goat-tracks, winding up from the 
 valley of Shebt — and both forts dominate the town, 
 which is almost overhung by the heights of Shibam, 
 where there are also several armed posts. Beh is the 
 gun-fort ; it is there that a hulking howitzer broods in 
 a circular nest of masonry, just peering clear of the edge 
 down at the mountain-road and distant foot-hills east- 
 ward. Fear of that monstrous prodigy (dragged piece- 
 meal from the coast) did much to keep Menakha 
 inviolate in 1 904-1 905, when Sanaa fell and the Imam's 
 followers, joined by outlawed hillsmen, were seething 
 round the ridge to wrest the key of Yamen from the 
 Turks. 
 
 The insurgents shunned the open curves of the 
 mountain-road as mere shambles under the Ottoman 
 guns, and, after vain attempts to scale the vast ravines 
 that run down on either hand from Menakha ridge, came 
 swarming up the spurs, with the driving mist, to try 
 conclusions with the forces of the Sultan. The local 
 gendarmerie did yeoman service, then and on subsequent 
 occasions, for they knew every inch of the ground and 
 fought to guard their lives and homes. Short shrift 
 would they and their' s have had from their compatriots 
 if Menakha had fallen. Night and day, in fog or 
 sunshine, they grappled with their foes among the 
 treacherous boulders of the upper heights, while above 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 55 
 
 them, dogged and watchful to strike as occasion served, 
 the Turks held on to the ridge with all the stubborn 
 courage of their race. For weeks the garrison never 
 knew what it was to have a peaceful night, for when the 
 mountain mist crept up at the gathering twilight the 
 enemy came with it, and stabbed the gloom with rifle- 
 fire that seemed to come from all directions. 
 
 It is curious to note that the villagers of the upper 
 heights, and even those who lived below Menakha, on 
 the main spurs of Shibam, remained loyal to their liege- 
 lord the Sultan. But all the tribesmen, whose towers 
 and villages lie low down the ravines, were up in arms 
 against the Turk, as were also the lawless denizens of 
 the foot-hills Sanaa-wards, who made common cause 
 with the Imam for the sake of loot. 
 
 In fact, the main massif of Shibam stood firm for 
 Turkish rule, while all the surrounding country was 
 seething with revolt. 
 
 The same thing happened m 19 10, when the Imam's 
 men swarmed over the heights of Masar, and even 
 Hajrah village had declared in favour of the rising. 
 
 Yet Turkey has always held her own at Menakha 
 since the ill-starred rising of '91, and well it is for her 
 that she has, for, if Menakha fell, her rule in Yamen 
 would be over. Every post and garrison throughout 
 the vilayet would be stormed or compelled to capitulate 
 for lack of support, leaving her the barren occupation 
 of a few littoral towns. 
 
 Menakha can well stand a siege, even when the road 
 is closed and the country up in arms, for fat crops and 
 fertile gardens overhang the precipices that guard her, 
 and orchards, in fields of fodder, grow up the slopes of 
 Shibam above the town. 
 
56 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 A year's provisions are supposed to be kept up at the 
 fort on Shibam peak, and there is no lack of water. To 
 occupy Menakha, without dealing with the Shibam 
 positions, would be to risk a death-trap of shattered 
 masonry, though Forts Hadar and Beh are the real 
 strength of the place. Their deceptively easy scarps 
 can be swept with the fire of Nordenfeldts and machine- 
 guns. 
 
 Menakha is naturally strong, and could be made much 
 stronger. It is the Gibraltar of Yamen. 
 
 The town itself is composed chiefly of stone towers, 
 clustered on either side of the ridge, along whose crest 
 are the principal buildings. The Military Hospital is 
 at the upper end of the town, where the spur rises sharply 
 towards Shibam ; half-way down the crest are the 
 barracks and magazine, tall, oblong buildings, cheek by 
 jowl, that dominate the town. Tucked close under the 
 barracks, on the western face of the ridge, are officers' 
 quarters, and the brigade-office for the district. The 
 road from Wasil runs up a gentle rise, past these and 
 other buildings, turning sharply round to the right, 
 between the Hukoomah and the Post Office, onto the 
 crest of the spur at its lowest point. Here the mosque 
 and ' hotel ' face each other across the road which, still 
 curving to the right, descends southwards athwart the 
 other face of the ridge to quarter the vast easterly spurs 
 of Shibam, after making a hairpin curve round Menakha. 
 
 The town owes its striking appearance more to its 
 position than any noteworthy architecture. Govern- 
 ment buildings are substantial but not elegant ; the 
 Hukoomah, or centre of administration, is perhaps the 
 best, in massive grey stone, with well-cut casements, 
 standing four-square at the bend of the road. 
 
THE GIBRALTAR OF YAMEN. 
 
 VIEW FROM THE HOTEL AT MEXAKHA LOOKING SOUTHWARD ACROSS AN 
 
 OUTER COURT OF THE MOSQUE TO THE BARRACKS, WITH THE HEIGHTS 
 
 OF SHIBAM IN THE BACKGROUND. 
 
 To face'page 56. 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD S7 
 
 The post-office and hotel are box-like, two-storey 
 tenements, adjoining each other on the edge of the 
 town ; the mosque is the usual whitewashed edifice with 
 a squat minaret of mediaeval Arab type. It is said to 
 be the oldest building in the place — a ' wakf ' or charit- 
 able trust of an ancient bequest. Water was laid on to 
 it by a covered conduit from a ravine of Shibam, which 
 now supplies the hospital and magazine as well. This 
 supply has not been improved since the Turkish occupa- 
 tion ; it is more than adequate when thunder-storms play 
 round Shibam and a heavy spate comes foaming down 
 the rocky ridge, but in. the winter-drought it is apt to 
 run short. There are, however, perennial springs on 
 either side of the town, well-commanded and easy of 
 access. 
 
 I cannot say much for the hotel, except that it is much 
 cleaner and far less verminous than it was, being now 
 kept by an Arab instead of a bibulous Greek. Its chief 
 advantage is its proximity to the Post Office, which 
 enables the alien guest to keep an eye on the up-country 
 mails or to step round and have a heart-to-heart talk 
 with the Postmaster (who is also the telegraph operator), 
 when wires come through in mutilated Arabic. As for 
 the mail itself, it is best described as elusive. Christmas 
 may be at hand, and the weekly up-country mail is often 
 so late that it overlaps the week after, until you have 
 given up all hope and feel that you are cut off from kith 
 and kin — a stranger in a strange land — and then some 
 raw, foggy night, long after the Turkish trumpet up at 
 Beh has sounded 'lights out,' you may hear the faint 
 tinkle of mule-bells, for the mail must travel day and 
 night to link up Sanaa with the Porte. Next morning 
 the leather post-bags will be lying out in the rocky street 
 
58 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 to await the convenience of the postal staff, which will 
 turn up when the sun has warmed the air a bit. Then 
 you may go round and help sort — courtesy and expedi- 
 ency alike dictate it — as you will probably be the only 
 man in the neighbourhood who uses Roman characters, 
 though all will be interested in your Christian numbers. 
 
 Menakha is headquarters for a battalion of Turkish 
 infantry, which garrisons the various posts in the district. 
 There is also a detachment of artillery to handle the guns 
 up at Beh and other positions. A company of Zaptieh 
 or Arab gendarmerie — with a few mounted men of the 
 same service — take turns for duty at the Hukoomah, 
 keep order in the bazaar, assist the collection of taxes, 
 escort travellers, help to garrison outlying posts, and 
 make themselves generally useful. 
 
 The town has a civil population of about 8000, of 
 whom at least a thousand are Jews, the only skilled 
 craftsmen of the place — jewellers, smiths and carpenters. 
 
 A Kaimakam or civil governor administers town and 
 district ; the latter extends from Hajeilah to Sok 
 al-Khamis, the next stage on the route to Sanaa. 
 
 From Menakha the road slopes southward down the 
 eastern edge of the town, past a Greek shop where one 
 could buy British biscuits, French soap and Turkish 
 tobacco, and other luxuries too numerous to specify. 
 The proprietor, an honest, obliging soul, has since been 
 com^pelled, by the prevalent commercial slump, to with- 
 draw to the coast. 
 
 Once back under the slopes of Shibam the route 
 resumes its easterly trend, winding downward round spur 
 after spur, as it skirts the awesome ravine that cuts off 
 Menakha from the lawless foot-hills below. 
 
 The road is well buttressed and carried over several 
 
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 FROM MENAKHA THE ROAD SLOPES SOUTHWARD DOWN THE EASTERN 
 EDGE OF THE TOWN. 
 
 To face page 58. 
 
AMONG THE KOPJES. 
 
 SHOPS AT SOK AL-KHAMIS. 
 
 To face page 59. 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 59 
 
 fine culverts, but its surface is positively wicked. There 
 used to be a detachment of sappers encamped near this 
 section, at least they were said to be sappers and had 
 some sapper tools, but I never saw them ' sap.' The 
 difficulty may have been to know where to start, the 
 whole of this road-section is so bad ; anyhow they gave 
 it up and have gone back home to Stamboul. 
 
 It is nearly 4000 feet and two hours' journey from 
 Menakha down to where the torrent-torn mountain-road 
 crawls out from the rocky claws of Shibam, and winds 
 through a chaos of kopjes toward the long, wall-like 
 ranges that line the eastern sky and form the maritime 
 scarp of the main inland plateau. High up on this scarp 
 is Sok al-Khamis. 
 
 This is a hot and tiresome march under any conditions. 
 The best way is to start from Menakha in the small 
 hours, if there is moon enough to keep you from 
 breaking your neck on the road down. In any case, day- 
 light should find you among the kopjes, for the local 
 authorities discourage night journeys along that lawless 
 stretch, where even the Ottoman mail is occasionally 
 waylaid, and straggling soldiers have been shot for the 
 sake of their rifles. 
 
 The distance between Menakha and Sok al-Khamis 
 is thirty miles. The road, after leaving the millet crops 
 between the straggling spurs of Shibam, winds through 
 natural pasture and well-wooded gullies to Idz — one of 
 the several armed posts that guard this section of the 
 route. High on a tall kopje to the left of the road is 
 the Ottoman stronghold of Idz, and close on the right is 
 Idz village — a mere walled hamlet where there is a 
 caravansary for travellers. An hour or so is usually 
 spent here to break this long stage ; coffee and native 
 
6o ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 bread are procurable, also water and fodder for animals. 
 Idz is two hours' march from the foot of Shibam heights. 
 
 Beyond Idz the road traverses numerous defiles 
 between rugged kopjes fringed with bush, entering more 
 open country as it approaches the foot-hills of the main 
 range. 
 
 An hour from Idz the track passes through a deep, 
 narrow gully for twenty minutes — an awkward spot 
 when the district is disturbed, as thick bush and over- 
 hanging rocks afford ideal cover for a tribal ambush. 
 Beyond this gully the foot-hills of the main range 
 commence, and between them the camel-road branches 
 off to the right toward the great valley of Siham, which 
 it traverses down to the Tihama, thus avoiding Menakha 
 ridge. Surmounting a rocky spur beset with venomous 
 thickets of fiercely-armed euphorbia, the road descends 
 into an amphitheatre between rocky hills, in the centre 
 of which is the important fortress of Mefhak, on the 
 crest of a steep, tall kopje to the right of the road, and 
 completely commanding it as it winds round the inner 
 spurs of the encircling hills. On one of these spurs, 
 above the road to the left, is the little village of Mefhak, 
 and there is a caravansary for travellers and a well below 
 the village on either side of the track. Mefhak fort is 
 held by a small detachment of Ottoman troops and looks 
 a hard nut to crack, for the only approach is up a steep 
 zigzag which could be swept from above. It had to 
 capitulate after the fall of Sanaa in 1904, being closely 
 beleaguered without hope of relief from Menakha. 
 
 After Mefhak the road tackles the steeply rising foot- 
 hills in earnest, sweeping round one craggy shoulder 
 after another in an ever-increasing gradient that culmin- 
 ates in a really strenuous climb up past a tiny hamlet 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 6i 
 
 and mosque, at the head of a deep coffee-clad ravine to 
 the right. 
 
 The road now climbs onto the barren, wind-swept 
 spur of Sok al-Khamis, a tentacle of the main range 
 thrust down towards Mefhak, with a deep valley on 
 either hand trending south-west. The larger of these 
 lies west of the spur ; in it is most of the cultivation in 
 the district and the local water-supply — great terraces of 
 corn, with here and there a well marked by the wild fig. 
 
 On a rocky ledge overhanging this valley is Sok 
 al-Khamis, a walled village of crude stone houses and 
 Arab shops. At its southern angle is a military hospital, 
 of well-dressed masonry, adjoining .stores and quarters 
 for a company of Nizam or Ottoman regulars. Facing 
 these is the Commandant's residence, the only sizeable 
 house in the place. There is also a Post and Telegraph 
 Office and a collection of squalid stone shanties that 
 serves as the local Hukoomah. There is a caravansary 
 — one or two stone huts at the back of the commandant's 
 house, overlooking the drop into the valley. Here, too, 
 are the married quarters for the various subaltern-officers 
 and the Chaplain or Khojah : the medical officer has a 
 rugged little house just outside the post, up the road 
 which rises steeply along the eastern face of the village. 
 He spent most of his time in a neat little dispensary, 
 where a visitor might be sure of getting a good cup of 
 coffee, and would be shown with pride over the small, 
 well-ordered hospital and the little patch of garden, 
 where vegetables were grown to combat scurvy. 
 
 The ' proper front ' of the village is presumably south, 
 looking down the spur, for on the southern face is an 
 emplacement for a small gun, and here, too, is the main- 
 guard and camping ground for additional troops. 
 
62 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 It was about two hundred yards down this spur, and 
 well under the moral protection of that little gun and 
 the military element of the post, that I was allowed — 
 after some demur — to pitch our modest camp. I can 
 recommend the spot ; a bit of fallow perched on a stone 
 terrace at the edge of the upper spur, which here drops 
 steeply down to the road. Most houses in the village 
 are so infested with fleas as to be scarcely habitable ; 
 moreover, for a prolonged stay, the village accommoda- 
 tion is far too cramped — one lives too much coram publico^ 
 especially if on a wedding journey, as I was. 
 
 Here it was easy enough to send one of the camp- 
 guard of local gendarmerie up to the village to get fresh 
 meat, when hovering kites proclaimed that the al-fresco 
 butchers were at work. The stone-built cubby-holes, 
 that I have dignified with the name of shops, would 
 sometimes yield surprising stores. Honey in flask-like 
 gourds from flowery valleys at mid altitude, white and 
 purple grapes carried in empty kerosene-boxes all the 
 way from Roda, walnuts and little tough pears from the 
 upper heights, and dwarf cucumbers from the gardens 
 of Sanaa, could be got in their season, when caravans 
 were coming down the road. 
 
 As regards local supplies, wood comes up on donkeys 
 from the foot-hills, and a camp in the strategic position 
 I have mentioned gets the pick of it before it goes on 
 to the village ; no small advantage in a neighbourhood 
 where you cannot cut yourself a walking stick. Water 
 is brought up the hazardous slope of the main valley in 
 kerosene-tins, deftly balanced on women's heads. Eggs 
 may be got at any of the outlying villages in the district, 
 at eight for a Turkish piastre, which is 2d. 
 
 Game is scarce and wild. The few remaining chikore 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 63 
 
 have been so persecuted by persevering riflemen, Turk 
 and Arab, that a shot-gun has not much chance of 
 making a bag. Pigeons are fairly plentiful in the 
 early morning, feeding on the smooth, rock threshing- 
 floors along the uplands. There is no four-footed 
 game. 
 
 A grim region this, harried by vast forces that know 
 no moderation. Drought reigns supreme for half a year, 
 then come the summer storms circling wide below, with 
 thunder and devastating rain, trailing their skirts across 
 the foot-hills and blotting out the underworld. When 
 two such storms meet and war across the spur, the 
 district is scourged and scarred with violent spates and, 
 in the lull, behind the crackling thunder, one may hear 
 the subdued roar of many torrents pouring down the 
 valley to waste. And when young crops show promise, 
 they may be ravaged by hordes of locusts, herded by 
 afrits from their hatching-ground in the Empty Quarter 
 to sail before the easterly wind until Allah drives them 
 into the Red Sea. 
 
 The track of war has left its mark here too. Along 
 the heights are strewn battered villages, still occupied 
 by a dogged remnant of their former folk, lacking hope 
 or energy to rebuild, but brooding on the past. Sok 
 al-Khamis is a strong, strategic link with Sanaa, dominat- 
 ing the road and access to the main scarp of Yamen. 
 More than once the Turks have grappled with the 
 Imam's followers across this spur, as recently as 191 1. 
 One village has been pounded by the guns of both 
 belligerents in turn, as the tide of battle ebbed and 
 flowed. 
 
 In spite of all its drawbacks, Sok al-Khamis has a 
 charm of its own. The air is dry and bracing, even at 
 
64 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 midsummer, for the place is 7200 feet above sea-level. 
 The view is magnificent, especially after heavy rain has 
 fallen to clear the atmosphere. South and west, 3000 
 feet below, the foot-hills stretch for many miles, 
 ringed remotely by giant massifs. Menakha can be 
 plainly seen in the west, on a clear day, overshadowed 
 by the heights of Shibam. The ridge on which it stands 
 rises slightly to the positions of Hadar and Beh, then 
 plunges down northwards in a long, bold curve like the 
 ram of a battleship. Southward, the distant hills of 
 Ans — ^where the summer lightning flickers at dusk and 
 most of the storms converge — denote the source of the 
 Siham. Along the eastern sky the main heights of 
 Yamen central plateau rise abruptly and, northward, the 
 spur of Sok al-Khamis runs up to meet this main system 
 toward Mount Hadhur, known locally as Nebi Shaib, 
 and said to be the tallest peak in Yamen. 
 
 Up this spur, north-east from Sok al-Khamis, the road 
 to Sanaa winds steeply athwart the main scarp. 
 
 After an hour's climb the road passes a massive Arab 
 tower used as an outpost and manned by Ottoman 
 troops. A more conventional stronghold is perched on 
 the crest of Minar — a height of the main range from 
 which this caracol takes its name. Both positions are 
 tactically essential to Sok al-Khamis, which is menaced 
 by the proximity of these heights. 
 
 The road tops the first crest of the main range after 
 an hour's climb from Sok al-Khamis, and runs down the 
 other side, curving round the shoulder of Minar and 
 rising again along a ridge which forms a watershed 
 between the Sardid and the Siham, the two great wadi- 
 systems of central Yamen. 
 
 On the right the steep ravine of Agami drops south- 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 6$ 
 
 ward to join the Siham, eventually, through a maze of 
 foot-hills, and on the left the ridge sweeps grandly down 
 to the vast Kharifi valley, which drains into the Sardid. 
 This tributary rises among the heights of Nebi Shaib, 
 which may be seen away to the north, a flat-headed giant 
 with an Ottoman post on top. 
 
 The Kharifi valley is one of the finest in Yamen, about 
 Hvt miles across, all terraced for crops, and dotted with 
 towers and villages right down to its narrow, rocky 
 bed, 3000 feet below the road. There is a white- 
 domed spring for thirsty travellers close on the right at 
 this spot, and, beyond, the track rises resolutely to 
 surmount the Salami pass, the highest point on the 
 Hodeida-Sanaa road (9400 feet above sea-level). An 
 Arab tower, called Beit-es-Salami, overlooks the pass 
 from craggy heights on the left, but the real warden of 
 this stretch of road is Minar caracol, within gunshot 
 to the south-east, on its commanding crest. 
 
 Then follows a stumbling march down a boulder- 
 strewn road that skirts the upper heights of Boan valley, 
 and descends to the point where it debouches onto the 
 actual plateau. Here is Boan village, a small hamlet 
 and a cluster of stone-built booths, where a market is 
 held on Thursdays. A brook flows down this valley, 
 and is spanned by an excellent road-bridge of well- 
 pointed masonry. From here to Sanaa — some twenty 
 miles on — the road is good enough for a motor car, and 
 is often traversed by portly ofl&cials of rank in rickety 
 buggies from Sanaa. An alternative road-trace has been 
 made up the Boan valley, evidently in quest of an easier 
 route over the main pass ; it has been abandoned. From 
 Boan, the road, still running eastward, skirts the lower 
 spurs of Nebi Shaib in frequent, well-scarped curves. 
 
66 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 On the right is a rugged plateau, much eroded by ravines, 
 from Nebi Shaib, in which there is some scanty cultiva- 
 tion. 
 
 Straight ahead, on a salient knoll, the village of 
 Metna may be seen across a sea of hummocks, soon after 
 leaving Boan. 
 
 About an hour from Boan, on the left of the road, 
 there is a big, dome-covered cistern and a trough of 
 plastered masonry, which contain a good supply of water 
 for human and animal needs. 
 
 Farther on, the road passes the little village of Yazil, 
 close on the left above the track, and reaches Metna in 
 two hours from Boan. 
 
 The actual village of Metna is some distance off the 
 route to the left, and considerably above it, on the claw 
 of a far-flung spur of Nebi Shaib. 
 
 The road passes between Metna market on the left, 
 and on the right Thinam Pasha, a defensible serai usually 
 held by a strong detachment of Ottoman infantry, 
 commanded by a senior officer. This post fell for want 
 of water in the last rising of 1 9 1 1 , so a large tank has 
 now been built close to the post to collect surface 
 drainage. If its contents, when I last saw it, were a 
 fair sample, I hope that the garrison will never be 
 reduced to drink them. The usual water supply is 
 from a well close to the road, some distance west of the 
 post, and quite good. 
 
 Metna market is a mere collection of stone hovels, 
 where a few supplies — such as flour and ghi — can be 
 obtained, with luck ; but just beyond the market, 
 adjoining the road, there is a caravansary for travellers, 
 an Arab tower and zareba where there is entertainment 
 for man and beast, and incidentally for parasitic vermin. 
 
ON AND OFF THE ROAD 6j 
 
 The blithesome flea is not found beyond Sole al-Khamis ; 
 here, and at Sanaa, bugs are the trouble ; plain, plebeian 
 parasites of relentless habits, that swarm up the legs of a 
 camp-bed or drop on you from the roof. The worthy 
 landlord will tell you that there are none, and show you 
 a clean, mud-plastered upper chamber, where you can 
 have a meal and admire the view of the open plateau 
 through the tiny, loopholed windows : but you had 
 better not stop the night. 
 
 Beyond Metna the road runs north-east across an 
 open, arable tract, down and up a long, gentle dip, but 
 without a curve for miles until it reaches a well-scarped 
 zigzag down off Metna plateau into the valley of 
 Musagid. This wadi drains northward, denoting a fresh 
 watershed, for all the drainage on Metna plateau is south- 
 ward from Nebi Shaib. 
 
 The village of Musagid is half a mile off the road, 
 to the left, and on the left bank of its wadi, clinging to 
 the crest and slope of a low, rocky scarp like a colony 
 of swallows' nests. Away to the right are the heights 
 of Jibal Haddah, where Wadi Musagid takes its rise, 
 and where most of the walnuts and orchard-fruit grow 
 that supply Sanaa market. 
 
 The road crosses two more wadis that drain the 
 northern slopes of Haddah and, after three hours' good 
 going from Metna, climbs a long ridge strewn with 
 black, basaltic boulders and known as Jebal Aswad. 
 From the crest of this ridge, eastward, there is a fine view 
 of Sanaa plain, and across it is Sanaa, at the foot of 
 Mount Nukum, that guards the city. Arabs still tell 
 how the Imam, splitting hairs m fallen Sanaa with his 
 council of sages, was roused to instant flight by the flash 
 of Faizi's bayonets along that sombre ridge, when the 
 
68 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 gallant old Turk made his straight, hard-hitting rush 
 from the coast. 
 
 A well-traced zigzag descends the ridge in fairly easy- 
 gradients to the plain a thousand feet below. Here, on 
 the left of the road, an orchard and garden, by a tank 
 and an ancient summer-house of Faizi Pasha, will give 
 the traveller rest, shade and water, while he sends forward 
 a mounted messenger to make sure of his reception, for 
 Sanaa does not always welcome visitors. 
 
 The road in lies due east, straight across a level plain 
 for three miles, to the 'Gate of the Jews,' at the western 
 angle of the city. 
 
SANAA, WITH MOUNT NUKUM IN THE BACKGROUND. 
 
 SANAA PLAIN FROM JEBAL ASWAD (p. 67). 
 
 To face page 69 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SANAA 
 
 The city of Sanaa lies east and west on a broad, open 
 plain that drains, on an almost imperceptible slope, 
 toward the north, and is girt by low hills. The 'west 
 end ' is not the fashionable quarter, but quite the reverse, 
 being devoted entirely to Jews. Beyond this settle- 
 ment, eastward, is the Turkish quarter of Bir al-Azab, 
 a spacious suburb of official residences and walled 
 gardens, east of which is the Arab town — alone known 
 as Sanaa to local folk. 
 
 At the eastern angle of Sanaa is the kalah or citadel, 
 slightly raised above the city, on the tip of a far-flung 
 spur from Mount Nukum. That salient ridge rises 
 more than a thousand feet above the plain, which is 7600 
 feet above sea-level. 
 
 On the crest of Nukum is a Turkish fort and observa- 
 tion-post. Up there are two big howitzers, but it is 
 doubtful whether either is still serviceable or could be 
 made so, while their heavy ammunition must be used 
 sparingly at this distance from the coast, with only pack- 
 transport to convey it. The position might check an 
 open, massed advance on the plain, or knock the city 
 about an enemy's ears and make the citadel untenable, 
 but it would be rather in 'the air' during a well- 
 
70 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 organized investment, for it is some hours' journey from 
 the city by a winding mountain-track. 
 
 Nor can the citadel itself be said to safeguard the city 
 to any great extent. Its slight elevation does not give 
 sufficient command, and, in the last rising, the brunt of 
 the artillery defence fell to field-pieces, hurried hastily 
 to positions at the northern gates. Its guns are a mere 
 saluting-battery on field-carriages, and much in evidence 
 at the Little Feast after Ramadhan, when they fire blank 
 at intervals for two days. 
 
 Outlying posts, on spurs of the engirdling foot-hills, 
 help to guard the city against surprise, but they are very 
 isolated and would probably fall in detail before a general 
 attack if pushed home. 
 
 Northward, from which direction attack has already 
 been delivered, there is much tamarisk bush right up 
 to the walls of Sanaa ; a mile-wide belt of scattered 
 greenery on either bank of the brook Alaf . This water- 
 course rises from a spring within the city, to flow under 
 the northern wall. It trends north-east round the 
 Nukum massif into the broad valley of Kharid, where 
 the legionaries of Rome grappled with light-armed 
 Hamdani tribesmen before the Christian era. This 
 brook is diverted into alternate channels for irrigation, 
 and along its course the best local crops occur, guarded 
 by high-perched slingers, whose strident curses and 
 whirring, clay projectiles hold the birds in check through- 
 out the live-long day. 
 
 Sanaa town stands on the site of ancient Ozal, a city 
 of note in Sheba's day. Its architecture is of mediaeval 
 Arab type — tall, rectangular stone towers of four to six 
 storeys, with tiny casements embellished with stained 
 glass. Among characteristic features is the cement-lined 
 
SANAA 71 
 
 vertical gutter leading from the household bathroom, 
 where you can stand on a stumpy-legged table and drench 
 yourself with a tin dipper from a huge, fat-bellied jar 
 of red earthenware. All such houses have massive, 
 embossed doors of acacia wood, with a solid wicket set 
 therein. This is fitted with a cunning bolt of smooth 
 wood, which can be drawn by a long cord from some 
 upper eyrie, after inspection of the visitor. These 
 houses of Arab Sanaa are great, rambling structures, with 
 bewildering passages and unexpected rooms, opening off 
 dark, corkscrew stairs, and loopholes for musketry in 
 their lower storeys. The whole house gives the impres- 
 sion of a fortress or a prison, and indeed many of them 
 have played both parts in their time. 
 
 This is the indigenous Arab type of architecture, 
 designed in well-dressed, massive masonry, and found 
 in all the better-class strongholds and fortified villages 
 among the hills of the Aden hinterland. 
 
 In Sanaa proper are the Government oflBces, Post and 
 Telegraph, and the Hukoomah or seat of administration, 
 a massive, two-storey building of well-dressed stone, 
 where the affairs of the vilayet are transacted. 
 
 Arab Sanaa is nothing if not religious. Many 
 mosques thrust up their slender minarets above the tall, 
 tower-like houses in varied styles of architecture, all silent 
 pointers to Sanaa's past history, when men could build 
 with bold conception and infinite pains to perpetuate 
 the faith that was in them and the thoughts that swayed 
 them. The circular, ornate shafts of Zeidi mosques far 
 predominate all others, and shrines of Zeidi saints lift 
 their white domes like button-mushrooms throughout 
 the grey, old town. 
 
 Right through the middle of Sanaa runs a watercourse 
 
72 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 from south to north. It is a tributary of the Kharid and 
 known locally as the Shaab. Along it, northward from 
 the city, is a much used market-route to Roda (a big- 
 Arab town, eight miles north of Sanaa), where the vine- 
 yards grow, which keep the city supplied with white and 
 purple grapes from June to October. 
 
 Within the city walls this watercourse is a convenient 
 road in time of drought, but a raging flood in spate, and 
 a morass for some time after. Along it runs the only 
 carriage-road, which circles round the outskirts of the 
 town, for the houses of Arab Sanaa are set too thick 
 together to admit of vehicular traffic. 
 
 The carriages are dilapidated, hooded buggies on four 
 precarious wheels, built in the palmy days of Turkey's 
 power. It is surprising how they get about in one piece, 
 but they do^ and travel considerable distances sometimes, 
 taking prominent passengers to road-head at Boan bridge 
 or jaunting out to Roda. 
 
 Old Sanaa is surrounded by a 40 foot wall of mud 
 and stone, dating back to the Imams' sway, long before 
 the Turkish invasion. This wall is flanked with ancient 
 towers at frequent intervals, and the Turks have done 
 something to enhance the defences of its gates. There 
 is first the sally-port up at the citadel, a zigzag outlet of 
 massive strength, through which there is no admittance 
 except on business. Piercing the northern wall of Sanaa 
 is the Bab esh-Shaab, an important gateway through 
 which comes a stream of market-produce every morning ; 
 sluggish camels with merchandise from afar, and droves 
 of small, rat-tailed donkeys scurrying past with loads of 
 fodder and firewood, and kerosene cases full of grapes. 
 Midway along the southern wall, opposite the Bab esh~ 
 Shaab, is the Bab al-Yamen, through which gate the 
 
SANAA 73 
 
 caravan-traffic flows towards Dhamar, Yerim and Ibb. 
 There is not much doing this way since the bulk of 
 Ottoman troops rolled up from that direction in 1913. 
 
 Strategically, the most important gateway of the 
 whole city is the triple port of Bab es-Sba, a name given 
 to three adjacent gates, two of which face north and 
 south, on either side of the narrow neck that joins the 
 quarter of Bir al-Azab to the main town, about five 
 hundred yards apart. The third is a massive central 
 arch, crowned and flanked by a strong guard-house and 
 quarters for troops and police. Through this arch, 
 which is almost a tunnel, runs the road joining the native 
 town with the Ottoman quarter of Bir al-Azab — this side 
 of the arch still bears the mark of cannon-shot, a 
 memento of street fighting. Close to the town entrance 
 of this central gateway is the Municipal Pharmacy, where 
 you may get a prescription made up with some approach 
 to accuracy, if you write in French and keep an eye 
 on the dispenser. In the same direction, toward the 
 northern gate of Bab es-Sba, is the Military Hospital — 
 a fine building, under sound discipline and supervision. 
 
 Passing through the middle gate one comes out onto 
 the broad, open space of Midan esh-Sherara, where 
 troops drill. The low, rambling residence of the Vali 
 is on the right, in a vast, walled garden, and on the left 
 of the Midan is the Government school — a substantial 
 stone building for resident scholars. State education is 
 free throughout Yamen when available at all. 
 
 Past the school is the Staff-office or Diwan arkan 
 harh^ a two-storeyed house of vague architecture, stand- 
 ing in its own walled grounds, with a sentry at the door. 
 Here receptions are held on state occasions, when the 
 unofficial stranger would do well to present himself in 
 
74 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 sombre suit and red tarboosh, to pay his respects to the 
 powers that be. 
 
 Along the principal thoroughfares of this quarter — 
 mere dusty tracks though they are — cluster the lesser 
 houses and a few shops ; but the quarter is chiefly taken 
 up by Turkish residential houses, in spacious gardens 
 enclosed by high, mud walls. 
 
 Bir al-Azab separates the town of Sanaa from its Jew 
 quarter, which must have been quite isolated at one 
 time. The Turks have thrown a somewhat inadequate 
 extension of the great Sanaa wall round both quarters. 
 An active man could scale it without assistance at several 
 points. It is strongest and highest near the gates, of 
 which there are three for Bir al-Azab and the Jew quarter 
 (known as al-Kaa). Two belong to Bir al-Azab, one 
 facing south to the open plain and called Bab al-Balakah, 
 the other, Bab el-Roumi, facing north toward the garden- 
 country. 
 
 There is a passable carriage-road through the latter 
 gate out to Roda — a favourite drive in quiet times. 
 
 The Jew quarter has only one gate, and that is well 
 guarded by military and police who question wayfarers. 
 It is known as Bab al-Kaa or Bab al-Yahud, and through 
 it runs the road to Hodeida and the coast. Jewish 
 houses are low, seldom more than two storeys, and built 
 of sun-baked brick dressed with mud. I never saw a 
 stone house in the quarter. 
 
 Turkish houses in Bir al-Azab have little to commend 
 them. They, too, are mud-dressed and devoid of 
 ornament ; jerry-built, box-like structures for the most 
 part, with badly-fitting windows in profusion, giving far 
 too much light and heat, and letting in the driving rain 
 when storms occur. Their bathrooms and lavatories are 
 
A ZEIDI MOSQUE (p. 71). 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 p*^fi 
 
 "^••If 
 
 
 
 ■^-^■SiC;-. 
 
 ■^ 
 
 A YAMEN WELL FOR IRRIGATION. 
 
 To face page 75. 
 
SANAA 75 
 
 cement-lined recesses of primitive design, similar to the 
 Arab type, but of worse workmanship. 
 
 These are minor drawbacks, for, after all, each house 
 stands in a pleasant garden, overhung, perhaps, with 
 ruddy pomegranate and tall rose-bushes bearing blooms 
 of pink, or white, or cream. Maybe the utilitarian zeal 
 of the market gardener who runs the place is a bit over- 
 done, and it is difficult to get about among his cabbages 
 and tomatoes, as paths are not considered necessary. 
 But the greater point is that you do not have to run 
 the garden yourself, and yet can enjoy its produce and 
 proximity. 
 
 Each garden is watered from a well within the 
 grounds, on a system that has prevailed in Yamen for 
 many centuries. Tall brick or stone pillars support an 
 axle across the well, which carries a big wooden pulley- 
 wheel. Over this runs the well-cord, at one end of 
 which is the bucket — usually an entire bullock-hide, 
 with the head, tail and legs cut off — and at the other 
 end a sober-minded camel or a hump-backed zebu. A 
 ' tripping-line ' is also attached to the bottom of the hide 
 bucket. This runs over a revolving wooden bar at the 
 mouth of the well, to the saddle or yoke of the animal, 
 which spends most of its waking hours walking up or 
 down an inclined ramp of earth, of a length proportioned 
 to the distance of the water from the surface. The ramp 
 slopes down from the well, in order to assist the animal 
 in pulling up a full bucket. The attendant stands at 
 the well-curb, by the side of his patient beast, with hand 
 and stick raised above his head, while he sings a few bars 
 of an old-world song in a minor key, until the bucket 
 fills below. Then whack! comes the stick — if the 
 intelligent animal has not already started down the ramp 
 
76 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 at the end of the stanza, as it usually does — and when 
 both have reached the foot of the slope, up pops the 
 bucket from the mouth of the well. The man heaves 
 on the tripping-line, and the contents of the bucket go 
 splashing into a stone trough, to fill a cistern hard by. 
 The garden is watered by irrigation channels from this 
 cistern as required. 
 
 Sometimes two buckets and two animals are employed 
 at a single well, and one may often see a camel and a 
 bullock working side by side. 
 
 The plaintive ' Song of the Well ' suggests age-long 
 toil and the patient endurance of Nature's moods : 
 accompanied by the musical creaking of the pulley- 
 wheel, it has a charm of its own that accords with sunny 
 days and sharp nights, in a half-forgotten city that the 
 world has overlooked. 
 
 Turkish houses in Bir al-Azab are commodious and 
 airy, but the older ones are almost invariably haunted 
 by a dreadful pest, that no philosophy can disregard and 
 no poetry embellish — they are infested with bugs, which 
 dwell in the walls and woodwork and issue from cracks 
 and crevices, even by day, to plague humanity. The 
 only safe refuge is on the flat roof, which is too sun- 
 scorched by day and too chilly by night to harbour such 
 vermin. 
 
 From the roof of a tall house on the northern out- 
 skirts of Bir al-Azab, a fairly good view may be had of 
 Sanaa and its environs. 
 
 Beyond the wall, outside Bab el-Roumi, stretch green 
 streaks of tamarisk and garden-ground, that merge into 
 an open plain, trending northward between two wide-set 
 rows of low hills. Along this plain, in echelon, are 
 occasional tall, round towers of old sun-baked brick. 
 
SANAA ^7 
 
 once used as keeps and watch-towers to guard the 
 approach to Sanaa. They are unable to withstand 
 modern artillery, as one, that looks like a battered stilton, 
 plainly shows. Beyond these towers a long, low spur 
 of limestone ^ juts out from the eastern hills ; past it 
 the plain reopens toward Roda, half visible through the 
 haze, like a flat candlestick with a minaret in the middle. 
 North of Roda the plain dips gently out of sight, and 
 one may see the wide north-easterly trend of the Kharid 
 valley sweeping off to Jauf. 
 
 Looking eastward across garden-ground and city, one 
 may count the minarets of sectarian Sanaa against the 
 dark spurs of Mount Nukum. 
 
 Southward, across the houses of Bir al-Azab, there is 
 a glimpse of bare, level plain stretching to low hills that 
 almost block the southern horizon, eight miles away. 
 Through a gap between these and the outer tentacles of 
 Nukum runs the road to the south. 
 
 Toward the west are the featureless mud houses of 
 the Jew quarter, and beyond them, flanked by taller 
 hills, the low, black ridge of Jibal Aswad, over which 
 runs the Hodeida-Sanaa road. 
 
 The country round lacks the grandeur of the true 
 Yamen highlands, but has a lure of its own for those 
 who seek it. 
 
 The broad, open plain, where a horseman may gallop 
 as he will, in a bracing climate, is an advantage in itself, 
 and one not found in the actual highlands, where there 
 is seldom a patch of level ground big enough for a 
 tennis-court. 
 
 Even in the height of summer the mornings are sharp 
 
 ^ This spur provides much of the lime for the city. It is an 
 accidental outcrop, the hills that bound this plain being basaltic. 
 
78 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 and exhilarating before the sun climbs over the ridge of 
 Mount Nukum. Then is the time to sally forth with 
 gun in hand, through the Roumi gate, past the sleepy- 
 sentry, and out through miles of dew-drenched tamarisk, 
 to pick up a hare or two and perhaps a snipe along the 
 Alaf brook. 
 
 Or you can sit on a grassy bank by the brook, looking 
 up at the clear, blue sky between the feathery tamarisk- 
 tops, and wait for pigeons to come over on their maraud- 
 ing quests. Some friendly slinger will hail you from his 
 lofty perch, when your quarry is on the wing, so you 
 can watch the field-voles creep out along the irrigation 
 banks that line the lucerne-crops, bright-eyed, timid 
 creatures, that dive into their holes, like a conjuring 
 trick, if you move a muscle. 
 
 And your escort will chat in a subdued undertone of 
 prices in the bazar and their back-pay, or affairs of 
 state, from the underside, as they see them, while you 
 watch the tawny-winged fritillaries flutter across the 
 mauve-flowered lucerne, until a warning yell brings you 
 to your feet to deal with the first flight of blue-grey 
 pigeons as it storms past above the tamarisk. 
 
 The stranger who is in touch with country life will 
 find a better welcome outside the walls of Sanaa than 
 within the city, where aliens are not wanted, and even 
 Turks are at a discount since the firman proclaiming the 
 Imam's control by means of the Islamic code. 
 
 Sanaa was once noted for her handicrafts, and even 
 yet Sanaani work in brass and copper, nay, even Sanaani 
 hookah-stems, are vouched for throughout the East, but 
 her industries are in evil case just now. 
 
 The bazars are all in the eastern quarter of the Arab 
 town, inward from Bab al-Yamen, where the meat- 
 
SANAA 79 
 
 market is. These bazars were once the pride of Arabia, 
 but you may go through them from end to end now and 
 see both larger shops and native booths filled with chintz 
 and printed fabrics, cheap shoes and meretricious goods 
 from Europe, that denote a spurious civilization. 
 
 The brass and copper-workers, whose wares once 
 delighted the Moguls, are now represented by men who 
 confine their efforts to utensils of everyday use, for they 
 say that commercial stagnation has killed the market for 
 artistic work. Yet you may still find, groping under the 
 work-benches, old ink-horns, ewers and inscribed bowls 
 that once graced an Imam's court, and now await their 
 turn to be re-wrought into clumsy brazen vessels that 
 will command a readier sale. 
 
 There are no shops worth mentioning at Bir al-Azab, 
 though fresh fruit and vegetables can always be got from 
 the gardens of the quarter, most of which are run by 
 market-gardeners — always open for a deal. 
 
 In the Jewish quarter there are long, tortuous bazars, 
 where European prints and calicoes may be bought, 
 many in Oriental designs which you will never see m 
 Europe. Woollen fabrics and various colours in flannel- 
 ette are largely sold here and in Sanaa itself, for the 
 marked extremes of temperature during the twenty-four 
 hours make such wear desirable. In Sanaa one may 
 buy ' poshteens ' — long, sleeveless jackets of sheepskin, 
 tanned soft, and dyed in geometric patterns, with the 
 wool turned inwards. 
 
 The Jews run most of the better shops in Sanaa proper, 
 but have to clear out before night and go back to their 
 quarter, as no Jew is allowed to live in sacred Sanaa. 
 Domestic servants in actual employ are exempt. Any- 
 one who could not do without strong drink would have 
 
8o ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 a bad time in Sanaa. The Jews make wine from the 
 abundant grapes procurable in their season, and also 
 extract arrack from fermented dates, but this is a 
 clandestine traffic that incurs the rigours of the code, 
 enacting serious penalties on vendor and purchaser: 
 an alien's position is precarious enough in Sanaa without 
 zvoidBbh faux-pas. There is a street of ostensible cafts, 
 adjoining the Arab bazar, much frequented by the Turks, 
 and known to Arabs generally as el-Casino. In those 
 cafes an habitue can get something stronger than coffee 
 in spite of the Islamic code. 
 
 The townsfolk of Sanaa spend a great deal of their 
 time in watching for contraventions of the Sheria, in the 
 hopes of paying off old scores. Meanwhile trade is 
 rapidly dwindling, alien merchants are discouraged, and 
 even the Jew traders are beginning to leave, unable to 
 make headway against the prevailing commercial depres- 
 sion, and constantly harried by the antiquated clauses of 
 the Sheria. 
 
 Harris, the explorer, computed the population of 
 Sanaa at 50,000 in '91, and the last consular report 
 (1905) gave it at 20,000. There is no census and I 
 have no means of checking these figures, but the number 
 of empty houses and the chronic commercial depression 
 indicate a decreasing population. 
 
 Fallen as Sanaa is from her former high position among 
 the cities of Arabia, she is still the pride of her citizens 
 and the wonder of the outland tribes. In the neigh- 
 bouring hills, agates, cornelians and other handsome 
 stones are found, giving colour to wild reports of hidden 
 gems. The local gardens have been much neglected, 
 but they are still fair enough in contrast with the sterile 
 hills that engirdle the plain. Tradition tells how a 
 
SANAA 8 1 
 
 wealthy citizen of Sanaa once decided to leave home on 
 a long journey, and had actually started, when a voice 
 from the skies proclaimed his folly and the merits of the 
 city that he was leaving ; he returned, abandoning all 
 idea of his journey. 
 
 The isolated position of Sanaa, a walled city on a plain 
 encompassed by barren hills, has tended to create and 
 preserve a Sanaa dialect, and certainly to engender a 
 feeling of arrogance among her citizens. 
 
 Yet she has never been able to dictate a policy or 
 stand fast to her own ideals, but has rather submitted to 
 outside forces without a struggle, ever ready to fawn on 
 paramount power to save herself. Now she is beginning 
 to feel the closing grip of the Sheria, as wielded by the 
 Imam. She welcomed the firman, confirming his sway 
 with torch-lit battlements and noisy throngs. Turkish 
 officers who rode with Izzet Pasha to her relief three 
 years ago are jostled and cursed in her streets by 
 portly merchants, who invoke the Imam now that it is 
 politic to do so, though history might have taught them 
 what woes have been wrought by the Imams. 
 
 They find it convenient to forget how they cried and 
 wrung their hands, when the grey dawn revealed the 
 Imam's followers swarming through the tamarisk on 
 Sanaa plain, and Turkish guns flashed redly from their 
 walls to guard the city. 
 
 Now Sanaa scoffs at Turkish rule, and places the 
 Imam on a pinnacle of patriotism which he and his have 
 never merited. 
 
 In her pride she deems herself inviolate, for she has 
 ever shrunk from a foeman's grip and so secured favour- 
 able terms for herself. Yet, with her inadequate 
 defences, she was never more vulnerable than now, when 
 
82 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 modern commercial enterprise has armed the remotest 
 tribesmen with modern weapons. She clamours against 
 the Turks, and fails to realize that Turkish troops are 
 her sole safeguard ; for the Imam, without Ottoman 
 support, would be a broken reed in the day of tribal 
 trouble. 
 
 Her population is unwarlike, yet rancorous ; always 
 ripe for sedition, yet shrinking from its bloody issue. 
 
 There the city stands in her isolation and arrogance 
 like a fat heifer among wolves, keenly watched from afar 
 by warlike Sunni tribes amid their barren hills, prepared 
 to risk much for the loot of her, while regarding her 
 ancient splendour as but a vain snare, and her Zeidi 
 inhabitants as no better than infidels. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 BIRDS AND BEASTS 
 
 From a sportsman's point of view, Yamen is disappoint- 
 ing. It may be divided broadly into districts where 
 game goes and you can't, and districts where you can go 
 and game won't. The former are the wilder and less 
 populated regions, where Ottoman rule is not, and the 
 tribesmen have no close season for the stranger within 
 their gates if once he strays abroad ; the latter comprise 
 the populous and well-cultivated highlands of central 
 Yamen, where the Turks still hold their ground, and the 
 mild husbandmen will do no more than covertly set their 
 village pariahs at you. An occasional panther or hill- 
 leopard may be found in some secluded and almost 
 inaccessible ravine, but four-footed game has almost 
 ceased to exist, except for far-seeing gazelle that range 
 the plains and flee at a thousand yards. There are far 
 too many breech-loading rifles in Yamen for any beast 
 of the wild to keep its confidence and continue to exist. 
 As for feathered game, apart from rock-pigeons, which 
 abound in certain districts, there are but two representa- 
 tives of regular occurrence — that king of sporting birds, 
 the black-headed chikore, found among the upper 
 heights, and the blue-wattled guinea-fowl, which ranges 
 the plains between the foot-hills. Both these birds 
 
84 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 are harried by Turkish soldiers and Arab gendarmes 
 with their service rifles, while the wily aborigine takes 
 his toll with an artifice like our brick- trap, but made of 
 stone slabs from the hill-side. 
 
 A powerful rook-rifle is a necessary adjunct to the 
 shot-gun for the exacting sportsman, or, failing that, a 
 pom-pom. 
 
 Birds generally are not plentiful in Yamen, though 
 far more so than residents make out. When I first 
 arrived at Menakha I presented my credentials to the 
 Kaimakam or civil governor of that grim, craggy, dis- 
 trict, and mentioned my quest. " Birds, my dear," he 
 exclaimed affectionately. "Birds — I've been here for 
 years and have only seen crows." Menakha district 
 turned out better than it looked, and on my departure, 
 after two months' work, I invited that incredulous ofl&cial 
 to my quarters and showed him some three hundred skins 
 all waiting to be packed — but no crows. 
 
 Commencing with the coast, aquatic birds are 
 common, especially during the migrating season. Stately 
 squadrons of pelican ride off Hodeida beach in the early 
 summer at sunrise, watching the fisher-folk at their nets, 
 and darting terns take arrow-like plunges from on high, 
 down among the shoals of small fry near the surface. 
 Flamingo keep to the mud-flats far beyond the town, 
 where no human foot can approach them, for their 
 gleaming white and roseate plumage makes a tempting 
 target to the Anatolian recruit fresh from home. 
 
 Little piebald larks {jpyrrhulauda melanocephald) bustle 
 about in pairs, or small sociable parties, along the 
 caravan-tracks outside Hodeida, and saintly white egrets 
 feed on unspeakable garbage among the town middens. 
 
 Bird-life is very scanty on the Tihama, where the sun 
 
BIRDS AND BEASTS 85 
 
 smites fiercely, and there is little shade, but the black-cap 
 warbler may be heard at dawn among the scanty bush of 
 the maritime desert, and along its inland edge harriers 
 beat the barren uplands for lurking jerboa. 
 
 At Bajil, where the foot-hills begin, bird-life is more 
 plentiful : the ubiquitous sparrow sways chattering on 
 tall heads of millet, and tiny silver-finches flicker across 
 the open to dive into some thorny tree. The yellow 
 sparrow {passer euchlorus') occurs in numbers here among 
 the mimosa — their halting passage through the bush 
 looks exactly like a flight of canaries. 
 
 At sunrise on Bajil plain you may hear the hornbills 
 calling vociferously to each other, and approach the queer, 
 misshapen bird while absorbed in his weird, spasmodic 
 chant. A high-shouldered freak is he, with a huge 
 black bill and sombre plumage ; when he balances on 
 his long tail, and opens wide that ungainly beak to sing, 
 he looks like a dissipated undertaker. 
 
 Among the denser bush of Hajeilah, gayer birds 
 prevail, especially the long-tailed roller {coracias 
 caudatus)y a symphony in cobalt and azure, shaded 
 delicately with fawn. The male sports a long, finely- 
 pointed tail, and spends a great deal of his time with 
 raffish bachelor birds on the field telegraph-wire to Sanaa, 
 while the female stays at home in some pollarded jujube- 
 tree and bites her tapering tail with vexation ; that is 
 why all female rollers of this type have such ragged tails. 
 But the gadabout male is not a bad husband. He will 
 work for hours, when locusts are a-wing, to supply the 
 home larder, and may be often heard skirring a kind of 
 love-song as he cuts somersaults, and volplanes to cheer 
 his nesting mate. 
 
 Sunbirds, too, are common in this district — ^gaudy 
 
86 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 little chaps, in shot-silk and epaulets of flame, that cling 
 to aloe-flowers, and explore their depths with long, wire- 
 like tongues for hidden insects. Their sober-hued mates 
 look almost dowdy in contrast with such splendour. 
 In coy seclusion, amid tall trees in deep ravines, you may 
 meet that quaint anomaly, the land kingfisher. The 
 bird's retiring habits belie its startling appearance. Its 
 back and wings are bright metallic blue, barred with 
 black, while a glowing rufbs breast, an ashen head and 
 a big vermilion bill combine to give the bird away to 
 the most casual observer. It feeds on insects and is 
 seldom found near water. 
 
 Another dashing denizen of tall timber is the glossy 
 starling, with his roving, yellow-ringed eye, his plum- 
 coloured suit and smart white waistcoat. 
 
 Real songsters are scarce in the tropics, but Hajeilah 
 groves have a homely sound at dawn from the throats 
 of various warblers. One markedly unfamiliar note 
 there is — that of the bush-cuckoo, a tawny, long-tailed 
 bird that flits like a miniature pheasant through the 
 bushes. Its song is like the murmur of a brook, and 
 is only heard in the cool of the morning and when the 
 afternoon heat has spent itself. Throughout the heat 
 of the day the bird gets into thick bush and declines 
 to move for anybody. Naughty little boys know this 
 and creep within dense cover to catch it snoozing. 
 
 For startling plumage nothing can surpass the bird 
 of paradise fly-catcher, denizen of mid-altitude, where 
 he ranges among the cofFee m deep ravines. He begins 
 life (after he is fledged) as a brisk young spark, all bright 
 rufus chestnut, with a face of shot-silk, topped by a 
 jaunty crest * just like mother.' Next year he will throw 
 out unexpected splashes of white along his wings, as the 
 
BIRDS AND BEASTS 87 
 
 breeding season approaches, and the two central shafts 
 of his tail grow longer and longer. The bird in his 
 mature breeding-plumage presents an astounding con- 
 trast to his trim little chestnut mate. All he keeps of 
 his original attire is the sheeny, green-black face and 
 top-knot. The rest of him is pure white, to the tip of 
 those long, delicate shafts, thrice the length of his normal 
 tail, while he himself is barely the size of a sparrow. 
 
 Those two long tail-shafts are much prized by natives, 
 who consider them a gift for a prince. Therefore this 
 striking plumage is always accompanied by extreme 
 shyness and timidity. No longer does our dandified 
 friend flit through the coffee for any human eye to see. 
 He haunts secluded and densely wooded ravines, guarded 
 by giant precipices, ready always to flicker through the 
 gloomy bush like a streak of white satin at the first 
 alarm, and dive for safety down a thousand feet or so 
 to the next belt of jungle. 
 
 Natives say that, if pursued, he will nip off^ his 
 remarkable tail to discourage the hunter ; a not un- 
 natural legend, for the bird loses those tail-shafts after 
 the breeding season, and slowly regains his normal 
 plumage. They have a far more remarkable yarn about 
 the bird, insisting that he is fond of tobacco, and strong 
 tobacco at that. They say that if a man will but sit 
 still among the coffee and smoke really rank tobacco he 
 will attract these birds. Probably the main feature of 
 the charm is sitting still, and tobacco helps you to do it. 
 
 Before leaving these mid-altitudes, we must not 
 forget the green pigeon, which ranges no higher, and is 
 common in the foot-hills when the wild figs are ripe. 
 Olive tints of green and brown blend subtly on his back, 
 with mauve-streaked wings, a grey-green head and neck, 
 
88 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 and a canary-yellow breast. All these tints harmonize 
 so perfectly with his surroundings, that you may mark 
 a flight down into a tree and fail to detect their actual 
 presence, till they leave like a tornado on the side your 
 gun does not command. 
 
 It is among the foot-hills and adjacent plains that 
 guinea-fowl occur — they never range up to mid-altitude 
 (4000 feet). 
 
 These birds may be seen any morning at sunrise, 
 feeding in large flocks out on the open fallow, well out 
 of shot from any cover. They scutter about like farm- 
 yard hens, picking up stray corn and tasty insects, but 
 if any one tries to approach them in a gradual and 
 unostentatious manner, they edge persistently away, and 
 to ' gallop ' them on an active pony is but to test their 
 marvellous powers of sprinting. 
 
 One ruse alone will circumvent them. A native or 
 two should be sent right round the feeding flock, with 
 instructions to walk gently in upon it, while the ' gun ' 
 posts himself in the best-wooded ravine that gives onto 
 their feeding ground. They make for this as the men 
 close in on them, and if pressed in front and rear will 
 rise and give the sportsman a right and left. 
 
 The game-bird of the upper heights is the big, black- 
 headed chikore {caccabis melanocephald)^ and a very 
 difficult bird he is to bag. To begin with, he is dis- 
 gracefully persecuted by any one who has a weapon of 
 precision ; and what Yamen Arab has not } They 
 seldom hit him, but no bird likes to be surprised, while 
 sunning himself or feeding in the open stubble, by the 
 venomous impact of a picket-bullet that sends him 
 shrieking and clucking across the valley, with a crop full 
 of undigested grain. 
 
BIRDS AND BEASTS 89 
 
 Sooner than face these repeated shocks, he prefers to 
 pick a scanty living among lonely kopjes where cultiva- 
 tion is not, or roam along the bleak breasts of mountain- 
 giants where food is even scarcer. In this latter case 
 the covey (usually three brace or so) will have its home 
 among the boulders of some sheltered ravine, and file 
 up stealthily at dusk to feed on lofty, terraced fields of 
 barley. A guarded approach at dawn may surprise them, 
 but it is much more likely that they have worked by then 
 to the edge of the precipice, to skim low and drop like 
 stones. The ardent sportsman, rushing forward to mark 
 them down, will find himself on some shelving scarp, 
 backing desperately while the shale drops tinkling from 
 his frantic heels to a smiling, treacherous landscape, more 
 than a furlong down. 
 
 The only other bird worth the attention of the 
 sportsman is the rock-pigeon, which harries crops, and 
 may be seen in the early morning, along the mountain 
 road, looking for spilled grain. This is a neat, slate-grey 
 bird, with black-barred wings and an iridescent gorge — 
 a confirmed freebooter, whose home is on inaccessible 
 ledges or in hidden caves. 
 
 On Sanaa plain, pigeons come from a great distance 
 to raid the crops, and may be seen flying straight and 
 high at sunrise on their marauding quest. 
 
 Some get so gorged that they shirk the return flight, 
 and shelter from the heat of the day in deep wells. 
 Oflicers of the Turkish garrison at Sanaa, who would 
 a-hunting go, visit these wells, and drop stones down to 
 shift their quarry. Sometimes the birds will wing up 
 the shaft and scatter like a feathered bomb at the mouth 
 of the well, with snipe-like twists that will test a first-rate 
 performer, but as often as not they sit tight to the sides 
 
90 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 of the well, and watch an avalanche of debris go hurtling 
 down with equanimity. None but a spiteful sportsman 
 would use his gun under such conditions, as he could 
 not retrieve his kill, and few would care to lean far 
 enough over that dizzy shaft. 
 
 There are but two practicable alternatives ; to call on 
 the birds at the end of a ten-fathom line, or go home ; 
 the latter course is usually followed. 
 
 Apart from mere sport the naturalist will find much 
 to interest him at high altitude, i.e. from 7000 feet 
 upwards. 
 
 He will find little along the sterile scarps of ultimate 
 peaks at 9000 feet, especially in winter, when even eagles 
 keep low, but when spring has touched apricot and 
 almond to blossom, before leafage veils the trees, he will 
 meet pseudacanthis yemenensis among the orchard 
 terraces of Menakha, pouring out its soul in song. 
 
 The Natural History Museum has honoured this little 
 bird by placing it at the head of a new genus. The bird 
 looks like a sparrow and sings like a skylark. It is 
 much in demand at Sanaa as a cage-bird ; though fairly 
 common in the district it favours, it is not widely dis- 
 tributed. Its vertical range is from 7000 to 8000 feet. 
 
 There are few birds to interest the naturalist on the 
 littoral plain or even in the maritime foot-hills. The 
 lowest ground where I got anything new was up at Wasil 
 (4000 feet). It was a grosbeak, with yellow splashes on 
 the wings, looking rather like a big goldfinch — a sub- 
 species of rhyncostruthus percivali^ which I discovered 
 on the inland ranges of the Aden hinterland in 1900. 
 Both the original and its sub-species feed on the small 
 sessile of the fruit of the hill euphorbia, and only appear 
 when those formidable thickets are fruiting. 
 
BIRDS AND BEASTS 91 
 
 The Menakha district yielded the best results ; I 
 worked it in the winter. Beside the pseudacanthis^ 
 mentioned above, I got a furtive little fellow in sober 
 greyish brown (j)arisoma huryt) — one specimen only. 
 
 Quite a distinct accentor^ with a strong, whitish, eye- 
 brow streak, occurs among the bushes and boulders along 
 the main road coastwards from the town, and dingy little 
 birds resembling finch-larks (which they are not) flit in 
 small flocks along the barren slopes, and have acquired 
 the proud title of poliospiza menachensis. They are 
 fairly common too at Sok al-Khamis. 
 
 I got a new sub-species among the leafless walnut 
 groves below Menakha, a modest little chap no bigger 
 than a wren, with a tree-green coat and a light brown 
 waistcoat. 1 hesitate to give his name — it is cryptolopha 
 umbrovirens yemenensis^ and he can't help it. 
 
 A new thrush may be found along the cofl^ee gardens 
 and scarped terraces of Menakha, a sizeable long-tailed 
 bird of a general greyish brown with bright rust-red 
 under the wings. He is a crafty customer, flickering 
 across a narrow terrace to dive to the one below, and 
 finally sulking among the coflee, where a careful search 
 will reveal him perched a yard or two from your gun in 
 thick cover — an impossible shot, and he knows it. 
 
 If I were asked to name the characteristic bird of 
 Menakha, I should say the stonechat. At dawn on a 
 wintry morning, with the mist hanging heavily across 
 the ravines and all the world a-shiver, he will be the only 
 bird about. He sits at frequent intervals, but always 
 solitary, on rocks and boulders and stone-faced terraces 
 in his conspicuous suit of black and white and grey, with 
 his feathers fluffed up to keep out the cold. He is very 
 tame, but if he thinks you are going to pass too close to 
 
92 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 him, he will eye you indignantly for half a second and 
 dive into some cleft or cranny. Later in the morning, 
 when the sun has warmed the air, he will take wing like 
 any other bird. 
 
 He is the first bird up in the morning, and the only 
 one you will find among the sun-scorched boulders in the 
 middle of the day, when even the sparrows have stopped 
 quarrelling among the coffee and are pretending to sleep. 
 
 On Sanaa plain there is another new species, allied 
 somewhat to the chats and wheatears. It is a biggish 
 buff-coloured bird, about the size and shape of our 
 common thrush, with remarkably erect carriage and alert 
 habits. Though fairly common, it is difficult to 
 approach. It frequents open ground, usually perching 
 on an irrigation bank or a clod of loam in a bit of bare 
 fallow, and is a fine judge of distance, so far as the range 
 of a small shot-gun is concerned. It has received the 
 name of oenanthe yemenensis. 
 
 But enough of small fry. I do not suppose that 
 anyone has a penchant for vultures, though he cannot 
 but admire the soaring flight oi gyps fulvus (the Griffon 
 vulture), as he climbs in easy spirals up the sky. These 
 vast birds, with their eleven-foot wing-spread, patrol the 
 heavens on solitary beats all day, to sink at dusk to some 
 remote ravine. Few human eyes descry them, mere 
 specks, high-hung and widely scattered, in a fervent sky, 
 like a vault of glowing steel, but there each bird cruises 
 tirelessly on its appointed course, searching, with far- 
 seeing, steadfast gaze, ravine and crag and peak. When 
 a sick baboon crawls under a boulder to die on the 
 mountain-side, away from the mischievous herd, or a 
 camel kneels down for the last time on the caravan-route, 
 gyps notes the occurrence, and comes down to investi- 
 
BIRDS Ax\D BEASTS 93 
 
 gate, on a long descending spiral that usually finishes 
 with a magnificent volplane. If you are anywhere about, 
 you will hardly be aware of his presence, until you hear 
 the air screaming through his wide-set pinions ; but that 
 sweeping, spiral flight has signalled to outlying cruisers, 
 which close in on the beat of the lucky bird and repeat 
 its manoeuvre. The larger the carcase the greater the 
 concourse that will arrive to deal with it from the remoter 
 sky. 
 
 That is how vultures find their prey ; by eyesight and 
 patient co-operation, though, to the casual observer, it 
 seems almost miraculous that a carcase can attract, from 
 an apparently empty sky, a host of feathered fiends to 
 hiss and gaggle and fight and tear till only the bones are 
 left. 
 
 Then comes the chance of the lordly laemmergeier, 
 who likes bones, but has neither the flesh-tearing beak 
 of the griffon nor its punishing wing-power. 
 
 Yet he is a first class exponent of aviation, and has 
 probably been sailing about for hours, like a giant kite, 
 watching the proceedings with fierce, red-ringed eyes. 
 
 There is a rush like the wind in tall trees, a gaunt 
 pariah yelps and leaps hastily aside, and the laemmergeier 
 is gliding on easy pinions a hundred yards off, with a 
 bone in his beak. 
 
 The bird goes banking steeply up an ascending spiral, 
 to a height of a thousand feet or so, then drops the bone 
 and swoops down after it, a very good second, to earth, 
 for who can tell if some four-footed prowler may not be 
 lurking ready ? 
 
 If the bone is shattered the bird picks out the marrow, 
 if not, he repeats the performance again and again. If 
 the bone is too light to be thus broken, after several 
 
94 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 attempts he swallows it whole. I have taken a hatful 
 of bones and hair out of the crop and stomach of one 
 bird. 
 
 The male is slightly smaller than the female and of 
 general tawny hue. His better half looks much more 
 striking, with jet-black shades across her back and a 
 champagne-coloured breast. She measures about four 
 feet from the tip of her hooked beak to the end of her 
 kite-like tail, and twice as much across the wings. These 
 birds would frequently hover above my camp and the 
 Ottoman outposts at Sok al-Khamis, but are very wary 
 and difficult to approach, being always on the wing, 
 except when they snatch a bone. The only way to get a 
 shot was to be busily engaged at skinning some sizeable 
 bird or beast, when a laemmergeier would come sailing 
 over to see what you were doing. To catch the bird's 
 eye was fatal ; he would ' bank,' and sheer off at once, but 
 a cautious, sidelong gaze, and a well-timed snatch at a 
 1 2-bore, loaded with swan-shot, would often be success- 
 ful. My camp was on the edge of a big drop, and I 
 generally found the bird dead after its fall. A wounded 
 laemmergeier is difficult to tackle, without injuring it 
 as a specimen, for it has a vicious beak, and its huge 
 talons grip like a steel trap. I once * downed ' a female 
 onto some fallow, below my camp, with a broken wing. 
 She hurtled down like a disabled aeroplane, and I found 
 her full of fight. She was far too good a specimen to 
 spoil with any clumsy coup de grdce^ so I closed with 
 her, shielded by a piece of blanket, and chloroformed 
 her with a handful of cotton-wool, saturated with the 
 drug. 
 
 The female is much scarcer than the male in the 
 Yamen highlands, and I have seen neither in any other 
 
BIRDS AND BEASTS 95 
 
 part of Southern Arabia. Both sexes have the same 
 baleful eyes — a staring, black pupil, set in a straw- 
 coloured iris, ringed with scarlet. 
 
 One dreadful fact must be whispered about these 
 lordly birds : they are full of lice, and the taxidermist, 
 who does not change and tub, after skinning one, is in 
 for a very bad time. 
 
 The imperial and golden eagles range the lonely 
 peaks of Yamen, but are few and far between. Hawks 
 and harriers are far too common, and will often take a 
 stricken bird before the indignant naturalist can get to it. 
 
 Before turning to beasts proper we will consider beasts 
 improper. Noxious reptiles and insects are not common 
 in Yamen generally, and very rare in the highlands. At 
 mid altitude I have found a few big cobras up to eight 
 feet in length and seldom less than six, but I never saw 
 a scorpion or a tarantula the whole time I was in the 
 country, though both are common in the Aden hinter- 
 land and Somaliland. 
 
 Bright blue lizards nod and bow at you as you skirt 
 the fields, and chase each other along the stone terraces, 
 but they are quite harmless, though they fight desperately 
 with each other. The conqueror becomes a still more 
 vivid blue and blushes a bright terra cotta along his tail, 
 while the vanquished turns in a flash an unobtrusive 
 greyish brown and scuttles for cover. They have the 
 same uncanny gift when stalking insects in the open or 
 unwilling to court observation. It is very embarrassing 
 to say " Look at that bright blue lizard," and be asked 
 " What bright blue lizard ? " You have never taken 
 your eyes off the creature, and yet it has vanished. Such 
 incidents require explaining. 
 
 The prevalent creepy-crawly in Yamen is certainly the 
 
96 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 millipede. He is also the creepiest crawly, though he 
 hasn't got nearly a thousand feet and is quite harmless. 
 
 Strictly speaking he is not a beast, but my wife called 
 him that when she found one in the tent after a rainy 
 evening. 
 
 He was a lustrous cylinder of brownish black, about 
 as thick as a stout lead-pencil and half a foot long. At 
 one end was his head, a pair of short antennae and pro- 
 minent eyes, and the other end was neatly rounded off 
 like a sausage. 
 
 All the underneath of him was a rippling fringe of 
 pale brown legs that looked like a column of infantry 
 out of step. When handled he curled up into a tight 
 coil, and was flung into the night. 
 
 They live chiefly on decayed vegetable matter, are 
 very common after rain, and are not found at low 
 altitudes. 
 
 The typical mammal of the Yamen highlands is the 
 jerbille, a soft-coated field-rat, with a delicately pencilled 
 tail and kangaroo-like habits. He honeycombs the field- 
 banks of Sanaa plain and inhabits the stone terraces of 
 upland farms. He sits bolt upright at the mouth of his 
 hole, but is more of a quadruped than his cousin the 
 jerboa, who depends almost entirely on his hind legs for 
 locomotion. The jerbille travels like a rat training for 
 the long jump, and is a mixture of curiosity and timidity. 
 He will sit watching you with a gaze that seems eternal, 
 dive earthwards when you move a finger, and creep out 
 cautiously again — a whisker at a time — to see what you 
 are doing. 
 
 It is best to shoot at fair range such specimens as you 
 require. 
 
 They are too wary to enter a cage-trap, and the ' back- 
 
BIRDS AND BEASTS 97 
 
 breaker' or any trap that kills them makes them the 
 certain prey of ants (the foe of every naturalist). It is 
 difficult to trap in the Yamen highlands. There are so 
 many nocturnal beasts of prey, such as civet cats and 
 hill foxes, that a live captive creature has a poor chance, 
 and you probably lose trap and all, while a dead specimen 
 is an ant-eaten horror by morning. 
 
 Mammals are scarce in the better-cultivated districts 
 of Yamen, partly owing to the large population, the bulk 
 of which is armed with weapons of precision. 
 
 The sportsman will find mountain-hare among the 
 tamarisk, on Sanaa plain, and its smaller, lowland cousin 
 on the inland edge of the Tihama. Chinkara or ravine 
 gazelle occur on the inland plateau, but are scarce and 
 wild. 
 
 Ibex are far to seek, and need not be looked for except 
 in thinly-populated mountain districts, particularly 
 toward the south-east. They have ceased to exist in 
 central Yamen. 
 
 Conies are found at mid-altitude among the rocks. 
 Leopard and lowland gazelle have already been 
 mentioned. 
 
 Baboon range the less frequented slopes at 6000 feet 
 or so, and make well-organized raids on any crop that 
 takes their fancy. 
 
 The outraged husbandman seldom gets within effec- 
 tive rifle-shot, past their vigilant outposts. Men credit 
 them with human cunning, and recall the Koranic 
 quotation that cites God's sentence on the sabbath- 
 breakers of Ailah, " Be ye apes and wander wild." 
 
 Among the terraced fields, stones are often piled in 
 the rude semblance of human form, and when the crops 
 are ripening, a watchman sits with loaded rifle, in a loop- 
 
98 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 holed eyrie, to ward off human marauders by night and 
 the stealthy herd at dawn. Baboon do not raid after the 
 sun is well up, so the watcher gets home to breakfast, 
 and may smoke and drink coffee all night. 
 
 The slingers, who ward off the attacks of sparrows 
 from the crops on Sanaa plain, have a much harder lot. 
 They must be on their lofty machan at peep of day, when 
 their chilly fingers can hardly hold the sling, and shout 
 and hurl all day, till the birds go to roost. 
 
 It is the constant cracking of their slings, accompanied 
 by guttural yells, that makes the birds so wild on Sanaa 
 plain ; but the slinger is a sporting carl, and will hold 
 his hand if he sees you stalking, and tell you where the 
 leverets feed among the lucerne. 
 
 While at work in Yamen, the naturalist should bear 
 in mind that he is allowed on sufferance among a rather 
 turbulent population, ruled nominally by a Power that 
 has many difficulties to encounter elsewhere. He should 
 therefore make a point of avoiding local friction, and 
 causing the Government, that has sanctioned his enter- 
 prise, as little trouble as possible. Crops should be 
 respected, and his armed escort should not be allowed to 
 pilfer among garden-land. The gift of a few pigeons 
 or a guinea-fowl, properly ' hilalled ' in Allah's name, is 
 just as efficacious as a brace of birds to tenantry at home. 
 The Yamen farmer is a sportsman, when he knows his 
 property will be respected. 
 
 The naturalist should know the language, and if he 
 has any medical knowledge, and can use it with discre- 
 tion, he will soon win the confidences and esteem of the 
 district. 
 
 As regards his equipment, he must bear in mind that 
 though Yamen is full of illicit fire-arms, openly carried in 
 
BIRDS AND BEASTS 99 
 
 defiance of authority, it is difficult to import sporting 
 arms and ammunition for bona-fide personal use. 
 
 I did most of my work with a double hammerless 
 .410 'collector' (a toy-like weapon, which passed openly 
 through the Customs), and a borrowed 12-bore procured 
 me such heavy specimens as laemmergeiers. 
 
 A small rabbit-rifle would have been a great conveni- 
 ence, but the Customs would never have passed it. 
 
 Yamen is no sportsman's paradise, but the naturalist 
 will find it interesting. I worked Central Yamen rather 
 thoroughly, and Southern Yamen from the Dthala 
 frontier in 1902. I doubt if there is much new stuff 
 anywhere from Sanaa to Aden that I have not got, but 
 the Asiri country is quite untouched, and will probably 
 remain so until the Turks and the Idrisi have settled 
 definitely who is to be top dog. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CROPS AND CLIMATE 
 
 Yamen has been noted throughout the ages for its 
 extensive agriculture and general fertility — this refers 
 chiefly to the hills of the central plateau, and not to the 
 maritime ranges, still less to the arid Tihama, which is 
 mostly desert, save where some great wadi cuts its way 
 through to the sea in occasional life-giving spate. 
 
 The coastal edge of the Tihama is saline and sterile, 
 though gardens are maintained near some of the larger 
 seaports, by means of constant irrigation from wells. 
 
 Inland, toward the foot of the maritime hills, there 
 are broad, arable tracts that depend on the spring rains ; 
 these rains seldom reach the coast, though I have known 
 Hodeida to get a violent rainstorm^ at this season. 
 
 The principal crops of the Tihama are red and white 
 millet and sesame — a low plant bearing oleaginous 
 capsules, from which is extracted an oil, used largely as 
 an article of diet among the natives, while the refuse, 
 after crushing, forms a valuable fodder for cattle, much 
 as our oil-cake. 
 
 The soil along the inner edge of the Tihama must be 
 very fertile, for the husbandmen at Bajil, for example, 
 get three successive crops, from one sowing of millet, 
 within the year, though the third crop is often very light 
 and of little use except as fodder. 
 
CROPS AND . CCfMAtfe : 'ioi 
 
 Sowing takes place after the spring rains have fallen, 
 when a plough can get through the soil. 
 
 Among the hills of the maritime range there is little 
 cultivation, except in valleys of considerable size, for 
 along the rocky uplands, well bushed as they are, there 
 is not the soil to cultivate. The population of these 
 hills is too scanty to attempt the extensive system of 
 terraces that marks the higher ranges, nor is the surface 
 drainage enough to justify such an attempt. Millet is 
 the staple crop, as in the Tihama, but sesame keeps to 
 lower ground, and maize is grown largely in the spring, 
 either to be harvested entirely in three months, or cut 
 as required throughout the droughty season. 
 
 Rain falls, in these foot-hills, from the beginning of 
 April to early summer, in the form of thunderstorms, 
 which never occur in the forenoon, but usually in the 
 middle of the afternoon, ceasing before dusk. 
 
 By June the lower slopes and valley of the maritime 
 hills are thick with crops and vegetation, though burnt 
 brown as an overcooked biscuit during the winter 
 drought. 
 
 At higher altitudes, on lofty inland massifs and the 
 western scarp of the main watershed, there are spring 
 rains too, but the principal ramfall is in the summer, 
 from June to September, when the heaviest thunder- 
 storms occur. An enormous amount of surface water 
 drains down the principal wadis onto the inland edge of 
 the Tihama, reinvigorating that district, which also gets 
 the margin of these summer storms. 
 
 Mountain agriculture differs widely from husbandry 
 in the lowlands. The latter follows the principal valleys, 
 as previously stated, and relies largely on irrigation from 
 flood-water, through channels cut along the banks of the 
 
I02\ : f '■ i ;<' ; '< . <- : i^RAWV^' INFELIX 
 
 main wadis. These channels have been traced with 
 great skill and a marvellous eye for level : occasionally 
 they present the striking portent of water running 
 uphill. This occurs as follows : a flimsy barrage of 
 thorny bush and stones is laid across the dry bed of the 
 wadi and, just above this point, a broad irrigation channel 
 will be cut in a gentle slope up the bank, with its intake 
 pointing up stream and its outlet onto the adjacent fields. 
 
 When the spate comes down, it is checked by the 
 slight obstacle in the wadi and, during that check, the 
 first shallow rush of the stream swirls up the slight 
 ascent of the intake and down into the nearest field, to 
 be let through gaps in the surrounding bunds (or 
 earthen banks) onto successive fields, as far as the supply 
 will hold out. A big spate will of course gather force 
 and sweep over the flimsy obstacle in its bed but, having 
 no great grip on such a barrier, will not carry it down 
 stream. The barrage is left for a future occasion, 
 probably stronger than before, as the flood-wrack will 
 have helped to bind it together. The gaps in these 
 bunds are closed at all other times, and a rainstorm may 
 be relied upon to flood each field within its scope ; thanks 
 to the bunds^ the water stands until it sinks into the 
 ground, so each field gets the full benefit attainable. 
 
 Agriculture in the mountains has to meet very 
 different conditions. To begin with, the terrain is 
 rocky, and water-channels cannot be cut, as in the loamy 
 soil of the lowland valleys. Then, too, the rainfall is 
 greater, and the tremendous surface drainage, on such 
 hard ground, cannot be handled by the primitive means 
 available to local husbandmen. 
 
 Moreover, the soil has been formed under other 
 conditions. In the lowlands, all the larger wadis have 
 
CROPS AND CLIMATE 103 
 
 been bringing down detritus, from the upper heights, 
 for uncounted ages, and this has formed broad, arable 
 belts on either bank. These soil-deposits are permanent, 
 for all practicable purposes, though subject to beneficial 
 renewal by means of alluvial silt during heavy floods. 
 
 No such benign influences favour the mountaineer 
 farmer. He has to wrestle with elemental forces that 
 may cover acres of coffee under tons of debris, or skin 
 the surface-soil from his carefully prepared gardens, and 
 dump valuable alluvial deposits beyond the reach of 
 even a baboon. 
 
 His only tools are the hoe or mattock, a reed basket, 
 and an empty kerosene tin for carrying water, but these 
 are wielded with skill and infinite perseverance. 
 
 It is not too much to say that, in the highlands of 
 central Yamen, every accessible spot where crops will 
 grow has been terraced and tilled for coffee, corn or 
 garden produce. These terraces are faced with stone, 
 and follow the contours of the hill, sometimes enclosing 
 a mere strip some few feet wide, and sometimes an acre 
 or so, according to the profile of the slope. Most of 
 them were built centuries ago, and they are maintained 
 and cultivated by constant toil and vigilance. 
 
 Let a mountain-rill but cut its way onto one of these 
 terraced plots from above and, unless noticed and 
 diverted, it may swell, in some sudden storm, to a 
 torrent that will bring an acre or two down with it, into 
 depths beyond the reach of man^ or, worse still, deposit 
 the lot onto some other farm. Then the question of 
 ruined crops and ownership of the soil is thrashed out 
 with bitter, and often bloody, feud. Legal procedure, 
 whether Ottoman or Arab, tends to put responsibility 
 where it should be — on the owner of the upper farm. 
 
I04 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 He may be called upon to defray all expenses for clearing 
 his neighbour's land, beside damages to any crop under- 
 neath the landslip, and has also the mortification of 
 having lost a good slice of his own farm. 
 
 All these possibilities unite to promote careful and 
 painstaking husbandry, while the large population, and 
 more regular rainfall of the highlands, make such 
 detailed methods practicable and profitable. 
 
 Apart from the rainfall, however, the soil of the 
 mountains is not so fertile as that of the lowlands. None 
 of those wild mountain-torrents can be trusted to deposit 
 alluvial silt on terraced ground ; they are far too drastic 
 in their action. Therefore the highland farmer must 
 renew his soil from time to time, carrying it in laborious 
 basketflils up some mere goat-track, from any deposit 
 he has been lucky enough to find unclaimed. The soil 
 can only be turned over to a limited extent, and a plough 
 can barely reach — still less cultivate — any but the larger 
 and more accessible fields. In the smaller upland plots 
 the soil only lies a foot or two deep, and must be tilled 
 gingerly. The principal highland crops are coffee, 
 barley, bearded wheat, white millet, garden-produce and 
 kat {katha edulis\ the leaves and tender shoots of which 
 are much in demand for their exhilarant properties. 
 
 Animal manure is stored near most of the villages in 
 large heaps, against the stone field-terraces, and deodor- 
 ized with light soil. It must be used freely, especially 
 for coffee, and is often carried for miles in open panniers 
 on donkey-back. 
 
 The lowland farmer can rely on floods alone to 
 fertilize Kis fields, and would laugh at the idea of water- 
 ing his broad acres by hand, as the mountaineer has to 
 water his coffee and kat in times of drought. 
 
A HIGHLAND FARMER. 
 
 To face page 104. 
 
CROPS AND CLIMATE 105 
 
 On the other hand the lowlander has no cunning 
 cisterns of cement-dressed masonry, built into steep 
 ravines, to be tapped or closed as required, with a wooden 
 plug and a few handfuls of clay. Along such ravines, 
 these tanks occur at intervals to collect surface drainage, 
 and there is no doubt that on a larger scale, in suitable 
 spots, they would give an enormous impetus to the 
 agricultural mdustry of Yamen. 
 
 The Menakha district, and such isolated massifs as 
 Bura and Reima, owe their marked fertility to the fact 
 that — from natural and artificial causes — an adequate 
 amount of surface drainage can be held up and utilized. 
 
 Sok al-Khamis owes its comparative sterility, partly 
 to the limestone spur on which it stands, but still more 
 to the fact that rainstorms, when they do burst over the 
 spur, cause surface drainage that no local resources can 
 deal with. It is not that the western scarp of the central 
 plateau is any less fertile, generally, than the outlying 
 massifs mentioned above, for the Ans district — at the 
 head of the Siham valley, along which most of the 
 thunderstorms play — is noted for its coffee, while Sok 
 al-Khamis — though within the coffee-growing district of 
 Harraz — ^^does not produce enough coffee for local con- 
 sumption. 
 
 Thunderstorms rage all round Sok al-Khamis during 
 the summer, but the actual vicinity has a scanty rainfall. 
 
 I have known local husbandmen to approach some 
 saintly mullah, with a view to putting up invocations 
 for rain. The worthy man casts a look round the sky, 
 and, if it seems clear, suggests that the applicants shall 
 pass a day or so in prayer and preparation, and call again. 
 
 On the next occasion there is probably a storm banking 
 up, and the law of averages ordains that the district shall 
 
I06 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 have rain after a certain lapse of time. If rain falls 
 before the farmers come again their good intentions have 
 sufficed, but if not, they walk in line abreast across their 
 parched fields, with the mullah in the centre, all chanting 
 a weird, monotonous invocation, in rising and falling 
 cadence, on two notes. If they get rain all is well, if 
 not, further petitions are indicated, and a goat, sheep 
 or steer (according to the means of the supplicants) is 
 killed on each occasion for the entertainment of the poor. 
 It is first led round with the party, who usually consider 
 themselves poor enough to partake of it later on. 
 
 Broadly speaking, the western scarp of the main 
 watershed of Yamen has two rainy seasons, one in early 
 spring and the other in late summer, with a winter storm 
 or two of rare occurrence. 
 
 On the eastern scarp, toward the Great Red Desert, 
 the rainy season, such as it is, occurs in the winter, from 
 November to February. 
 
 Sanaa plain, and, in fact, most of the central plateau 
 itself have a rather uncertain rainfall the bulk of which 
 is expected in summer, but is often short, and local 
 famines are not uncommon. 
 
 Husbandry in Sanaa, and its environs, is largely 
 dependent on well-irrigation, and the perennial brook of 
 Alaf north of the city. Subterranean springs must 
 percolate freely beneath that plain, for, beside the 
 numerous wells in the city itself, there are many outside 
 the walls which reach water at a depth of sixty feet or so. 
 
 Eastward of the central plateau the country becomes 
 less and less fertile, though the Mareb district must have 
 been a paradise in the days of the great dam. This vast 
 work is mentioned by the French traveller, Arnaud (who 
 visited Mareb in 1843), ^^ being two miles in length, 
 
CROPS AND CLIMATE 107 
 
 across a large valley, 300 cubits thick and 120 feet high. 
 It must have held back a lake of many acres, and Sale 
 gives the depth of the water at nearly twenty fathoms. 
 
 It provided the ancient city of Saba or Sheba with 
 water, and irrigated the country for many miles down 
 the valley on either hand, maintaining a high state of 
 cultivation, much belauded, and perhaps exaggerated, by 
 early Arabian writers. 
 
 It probably burst owing to some extraordinarily heavy 
 storm, which caused a rapid and overwhelming increase 
 of pressure along the face of the dam. The structure 
 itself had perhaps been neglected by local experts, for 
 it is one thing to build a great work, and quite another 
 to look after it for many centuries. 
 
 The memory of that great disaster, which destroyed 
 a city and laid waste a province, may have tended to 
 discourage similar undertakings, for no barrage scheme 
 of any magnitude has been attempted since then in 
 Yamen. 
 
 Yet the terrain lends itself to such an enterprise in 
 many districts, and the remains of the great dam still 
 exist to remind men of what has been done, and what 
 could be done again. 
 
 The climate of Yamen varies widely according to dis- 
 trict and altitude. On the coast the air is extremely damp, 
 and though the sea breezes lower the thermometer, the 
 excessive humidity makes the heat all the more trying 
 to humanity. Heavy winds are prevalent from the sea, 
 north-west in summer and south-west in winter ; both 
 are uncomfortably damp ; winds from the desert usually 
 bring sandstorms. 
 
 On the inland edge of the Tihama, the nights are 
 comparatively cool in the open desert, and though the 
 
io8 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 days are fiercely hot they lack the enervating dampness 
 of the coast. 
 
 Among the hills of the maritime range, days and 
 nights are hot and stifling, though a thunderstorm will 
 always cool the air. Above 5000 feet the nights are 
 always cool in summer or winter, and at Menakha, in 
 winter, three blankets are not too much covering, for 
 there are no such things as fireplaces, and the houses are 
 very draughty. Here driving fogs occur during the 
 winter months — ^regular Scotch mists that come up from 
 the ravines in early afternoon and lie thick till next 
 morning, and sometimes all next day. These fogs are 
 confined to the maritime scarps of the main ranges, and 
 are unknown at Sanaa. They reinvigorate cofi^ee and 
 crops during the winter drought. 
 
 With all this variation of climate, the rotation of 
 crops is naturally erratic. 
 
 On the Tihama, ploughing begins as soon as the 
 spring rains have set in, and millet (or dura) is sown 
 directly after, in order to get as many crops as possible, 
 from that one sowing, within the year. Maize comes 
 next and, after that, sesame as soon as the farmer can 
 get his land ready, for all must be sown before the spring 
 rains are over — that is by the end of April. Millet will 
 be ten feet high in June, and ready to be cut in July. 
 It is harvested with a curved, saw-edged knife, stalk by 
 stalk, for each stem is the thickness of a walking-stick, 
 and has to be hacked through. In some districts of the 
 Tihama this crop attains a height of nearly fifteen feet, 
 but such a length of straw usually means light heads. 
 The stalks are used as fodder for cattle, horses, mules 
 and camels. 
 
 Grass grows plentifully among the foot-hills after rain. 
 
CROPS AND CLIMATE 109 
 
 It reaches the upland and lowland markets in thick, 
 double twists the length of a man's arm. 
 
 Maize is ready to cut in three months from sowing, 
 though its harvest often goes on for months ; it ripens 
 irregularly, and much of it is sown late to ensure a supply 
 during the drought. Its stalks are also used as fodder, 
 and the big, enfolded heads are sold green in the market, 
 as a table delicacy. The crop is known as 'roumi' 
 (Greek or Roman), and was perhaps introduced into 
 Arabia during the early Moslem victories against the 
 Greeks. On the coast of the Aden Gulf, which is 
 closely connected with India, it is known as 'hindi.' 
 It is a lowland crop, as is also sesame. The latter is 
 ready to harvest in two and a half months after sowing ; 
 the heads are crushed in a rotating oil-press, operated by 
 a perambulatory camel, blindfolded, that he may keep 
 in his narrow, circular track, oblivious of the outer world. 
 
 At mid-altitude (about 4000 feet), millet is still the 
 staple cereal but, above this, bearded wheat and barley 
 compete with it. These crops are sown very irregularly, 
 even in the same district. At Menakha the millet is 
 harvested in the autumn, and even the roots have been 
 grubbed up, before the end of the year, to use as fuel. 
 Barley is sown in the early spring, and is followed by 
 wheat, both being three-month crops ; but Niebuhr, the 
 great Danish explorer, saw barley being cut up at Sanaa 
 on the 15th of July — a thousand feet in altitude will 
 make a great deal of difference to crops in the same 
 district. 
 
 Arab husbandmen still use the stars to guide the 
 seasons' toil. This is because the Moslem year is lunar, 
 and the intercalation of a month, every third year, to 
 readjust the solar computation, was condemned by the 
 
no ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Prophet as idolatrous, possibly owing to pre-Islamic, 
 pagan practices in connection with it. 
 
 As it is, any given day of the Moslem month moves 
 ten days backward each solar year. Thus, the Fast 
 which enters on the first of Ramadhan, began on August 
 14th in 191 2, and on August 4th in 191 3, while it fell 
 on Christmas eve in 1900. 
 
 Nature will have none of this, and the Yamen farmer 
 must conform to her. The vast clock of the heavens 
 confronts him every clear night, and all he has to do is 
 to study it and note its steadfast march. The Pleiades he 
 calls Thariyah, from a root meaning * wealth * or * moist 
 earth ' (synonymous terms to him), and when its lamp- 
 like cluster swings low in the west, after dark, he knows 
 that the spring rains are at hand. 
 
 When he sees the Ox {Taurus) on the western sky- 
 line at dusk, he gets ready to yoke his oxen and start 
 ploughing, for the spring rains have then set in and the 
 ground is soft enough to turn. 
 
 The dog-star, rising before the dawn, proclaims the 
 height of summer heat in July, and when the scorpion 
 lifts its curved tail in the south, it foretells hot winds 
 and simooms in desert districts. 
 
 At the setting of Arcturus after dusk, he knows the 
 millet harvest is ready (the last harvest of the solar year), 
 and he hates the sight of Orion, which he calls the 
 Twins,^ for it hangs in the night sky throughout the 
 winter drought. 
 
 Of all agricultural products of Yamen, coffee is 
 undoubtedly the most important, even in these hard 
 times, with prices dropping in Europe, owing to the 
 
 ^ Betelgeux is merely a corruption of Beit al Goz (The House of 
 the Twins). 
 
CROPS AND CLIMATE III 
 
 Brazilian output, while Yamen growers hold tight for 
 a rising market. There is always something doing in 
 coffee, and the local consumption is enormous, though 
 the beverage used by the thrifty Arabs is usually that 
 extracted from the * kishr ' or husk, the berry being kept 
 for the market. 
 
 The Yamen coffee-grower has much to do and long 
 to wait before he can hope to get a crop. First he must 
 pluck the ripe 'cherries' or coffee-fruit fresh from the 
 tree, and place them on the flat roof of his tower, to dry 
 in the sun, until the outer husk or kishr cracks, and 
 may be easily opened. In doing this he must be careful 
 not to remove the thin inner skin or endermis^ which 
 envelopes the bean and is essential to its growth. He 
 then selects a patch of ground free from stones, and with 
 at least a foot's depth of good soil. After damping this 
 ground and smoothing it down firm, he presses each bean 
 separately onto the prepared surface, sprinkling them 
 over to a depth of a few inches with loose, fine soil. 
 
 Artificial shade must then be erected over the spot. 
 This is usually composed of a few loose stones and 
 branches, leaving an aperture at the top through which 
 the sunlight may fall on the planted surface for an hour 
 daily, or even less in a hot climate. This bed is watered 
 every second or third day, and the coffee-shoots should 
 appear in a month. 
 
 The seedlings may be transplanted four months after 
 their first appearance. Greater delay gives a better 
 chance of strong plants, but after a year the young 
 sapling is diflicult to move. 
 
 The young plants should be set wide in a well-manured 
 patch, each with a depression at its foot to accumulate 
 surface-water. They should not be exposed to the 
 
112 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 direct rays of the sun for eight days after transplanting, 
 and should be watered every third day until they have 
 fairly struck. 
 
 Coffee, in Yamen, reaches maturity in five years, and 
 attains a height of eight or ten feet. It is considered too 
 old for profitable bearing after twenty years. 
 
 A ground-shoot or sucker, from a mature tree, is often 
 bent over to touch the ground, and kept in that position 
 with a heavy stone, the head of the shoot being twisted 
 upwards. It will strike in that position after a month 
 or two, thus forming a fresh plant. The connection with 
 the parent-stem becomes atrophied in due course and 
 may be severed. 
 
 The cofFee-harvest in Yamen is — broadly speaking — 
 in the autumn, but the cherries on the same tree ripen 
 at different intervals, according to their position on the 
 tree and the amount of sun they get. Then, again, one 
 coffee-garden may be shadowed by some overhanging 
 peak, and another, adjoining it, may be in full sunlight. 
 When we also consider that coffee is grown in Yamen, 
 from the Aden frontier to the latitude of Loheia, and 
 at any altitude between 4000 and 8000 feet, it is im- 
 possible to speak with any degree of accuracy as to its 
 harvest. 
 
 Local political conditions and financial pressure on 
 growers^ also cause irregular harvesting, and all this 
 tends to alter the standard of coffee connected with 
 various districts. 
 
 Generally speaking, the Harraz district heads the 
 market for quantity and quality of output, and that 
 grown in Ans and Beni-matar (tribeships along the 
 
 ^ Most of the small growers have been in the grip of capitalists 
 ever since the last shortage of rain in 19 10. 
 
CROPS AND CLIMATE 113 
 
 upper reaches of the Siham valley) is considered as the 
 highest grade. The other coffee-growing districts in 
 descending order of merit are Bura, Reima, Heima, 
 Hifash and Melhan, which produces a yield considered 
 inferior to all other grades. Taiz is the centre of the 
 southern coffee districts, which send most of their export 
 trade down to Aden, since Mokha ceased to exist as a 
 commercial port. 
 
 Cotton is grown on the Tihama belt, in the Beit 
 al-Fakih and Zabid districts, as also indigo, but neither 
 to any great extent. The only other agricultural product 
 worthy of more than passing mention is kat. 
 
 Katha edulis forskali — to give its full botanical title — 
 is cultivated over limited areas, in such districts as suit it, 
 at an altitude of about 5000 feet. It belongs to the 
 Celastraceae^ of which our best known representative is 
 the spindle-tree, found in the hedges of Devonshire 
 lanes. 
 
 Katha edulis was first classified by Dr. Forskal, the 
 botanist, who accompanied the Danish scientific expedi- 
 tion to Yamen in 1763, and died of malaria at Yerim. 
 It is a standard shrub with alternative, simple, serrate 
 leaves, and terminal panicles of numerous small, white 
 flowers. 
 
 Plantations are grown from slips, and tended with 
 jealous care in walled enclosures, for kat has a ready 
 sale, at a high price, in any Yamen market. The tender 
 shoots and leaves, that sprout after rain has fallen, are 
 chiefly in demand, but in drought the confirmed kat- 
 eater will chew the tough, old foliage, sooner than go 
 without. It is packed for transit in small bundles, tied 
 up within a covering of well-damped, leafy twigs, and 
 its price increases enormously in proportion to the 
 
114 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 distance it has to be transported, and the existing 
 rainfall. 
 
 Neither kat nor coffee are indigenous. Both were 
 imported from the Abyssinian highlands during the 
 Ethiopian invasion of Yamen, before the dawn of Islam. 
 According to tradition, slips of both were planted at 
 Odein, which means ' two twigs.' A beverage was 
 extracted from kat before coffee was drunk, but neither 
 could have been popular in the time of the Prophet, or 
 there would probably have been some mention of them 
 in the Koran. ^ 
 
 When abstinence from strong drink was generally 
 enforced, the use of kat and coffee began gradually to 
 gain ground. Coffee soon ousted its rival as a beverage, 
 and seems to have been recognized as a natural substitute 
 for intoxicating stimulants, as its Arab name ' Kahwah ' 
 was formerly applied to wine. Yamen traders brought 
 it to Cairo in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and 
 in 151 1 it was publicly condemned at Mecca by an 
 assembly of muftis^ lawyers and physicians, as injurious 
 to mind, body and soul. 
 
 In 1 513, coffee-houses were wrecked in Cairo by a 
 fanatical mob, and those who kept them were pelted with 
 their broken crockery. The first cafe at Stamboul was 
 opened in 1554. The Sultan, Selim I., reversed the 
 decree against coffee-drinking, and even hanged two 
 Persian doctors for saying it was injurious to health. 
 But coffee was again to be the object of fanaticism, and 
 became known later on as one of the Four Ministers of 
 
 ^Avicenna and other Arab physicians mention bun or coffee in 
 their pharmacopoeia long before coffee was generally used as a 
 beverage by the Arabs. Bun is the beverage from the berry, kahwah 
 that from the husk. 
 
CROPS AND CLIMATE 115 
 
 the Devil, the other three being tobacco, wine and opium. 
 That grim despot, Mowad VI., ordered all coffee-houses 
 to be closed throughout the Ottoman Empire in 1633, 
 and forbade the use of coffee and tobacco under pain of 
 death. Both survived persecution, and made such head- 
 way that after 1730, no attempt was made to legislate 
 against them. 
 
 Coffee was first brought to England in 1652, by a 
 Mr. Edwards, of the Levant Company, and was sold in 
 Paris in 1672, at half a crown a cup, by an Armenian, 
 whom lack of encouragement drove to London. 
 
 Coffee-houses soon became popular in England, and 
 though Charles II. did his best to suppress them, as 
 centres of sedition, his efforts were in vain. 
 
 Coffee, infused from husk or berry, is universally 
 drunk in Yamen to-day, and all but the most ascetic are 
 in favour of smoking. 
 
 Many districts of Yamen are suitable to the growth 
 of tobacco, but the Regie monopoly prevents its cultiva- 
 tion. 
 
 The Yamen farmer lacks many things essential to the 
 better development of his land. 
 
 Agricultural roads, which need be but tracks, practic- 
 able to camels, would greatly facilitate cultivation. As 
 it is, farm produce and requisites must be carried by hand, 
 or in absurdly small loads on donkeys, which have to be 
 half carried themselves up some of the mountain tracks. 
 
 When the husbandman has got his produce to a 
 caravan-route, he is faced with exorbitant transport, 
 unless he is a camel-owner himself, and then there is a 
 question of fodder and maintenance. 
 
 To crown all, the caravan-routes themselves are beset 
 by marauders, toward the coast, where his best market 
 
ii6 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 is. So he plods on in his old-fashioned way, with an 
 occasional growl at the powers that be, and, finding his 
 market remote and uncertain, confines himself to meet- 
 ing local requirements. This means under-production, 
 which brings its own penalty, for any marked scarcity of 
 rain in the agricultural districts entails a general famine, 
 as the people are living from hand to mouth. Centuries 
 of strife, past taxation and present commercial depres- 
 sion, have all tended to establish this procedure, which 
 has become a serious drawback, impairing the resources 
 of the vilayet. 
 
 Yamen is fertile enough. Her husbandmen sow 
 sparingly, with Arab thrift, and reap a generous harvest. 
 Durra yields a crop of 140 fold, and in the Tihama, 
 where there are three crops from one sowing, even 400 
 fold, though this is a maximum. 
 
 Wheat yields fifty-fold in the highlands of Yamen, 
 and on the rich irrigation lands of Bagdad only twenty- 
 fold. 
 
 Yet with all this prodigality of nature there is not a 
 flour-mill in Yamen, except two small windmills at 
 Menakha, built by the Turks, and used very seldom for 
 grinding soldiers' rations of corn. The vilayet has not 
 got beyond the hand-quern. 
 
 And this is the country that imports more than 
 ;£ 1 00,000 worth of foodstuffs during a year of plenty, 
 and more than double that amount in a year of famine.^ 
 
 Yet, during the Italian blockade of Yamen, her 
 inhabitants managed fairly well on their own resources, 
 for farmers realized that the market was in their hands, 
 and rose to the occasion, as did also the Ottoman 
 authorities. 
 
 1 Consular trade report. 
 
CROPS AND CLIMATE 117 
 
 The fact that Yamen cannot feed her population is 
 not due to natural causes, or to individual sloth, but to 
 lack of security and combined purpose, for which her 
 administration is responsible. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 TRADE AND TRADERS 
 
 Yam EN has drifted into a backwater of commercial 
 stagnation ; whether she ever wins out into the stream 
 of prosperity again depends on the way her affairs are 
 administered, the responsive energy of her people, and, 
 above all, the financial resuscitation of her government. 
 
 Not only is the administration paralysed for want of 
 funds, but the pay of all troops and the civil department 
 is in heavy arrears. Individuals have no money to 
 spend, and the authorities have not the wherewithal to 
 keep things going. Men must live, and the administra- 
 tion totters gallantly on, but the lack of business 
 confidence in public and private life is almost ludicrous. 
 No transport owner of mules or camels will take private 
 baggage on a journey without being paid in advance, 
 and I have known local authorities at their wits' end to 
 collect sufficient transport for the movement of troops 
 owing to lack of cash to pay for it — the Arab camel- 
 owners scoffed at written vouchers. 
 
 Turkish officials have drained the vilayet of ready 
 cash, in years gone by, and no scheme for improving its 
 financial position has ever been carried to a successful 
 issue. The present situation is the logical outcome of 
 past policy. Under the Imams, in the eighteenth 
 
TRADE AND TRADERS 119 
 
 century, the monthly revenues a£cruing from the 
 principal towns of the Tihama have been roughly com- 
 puted as follows : 
 
 Loheia ;^6oo, Beit al-Fakih ^700, 
 Hodeida ;6'300, Zabid ;^300, 
 
 and Mokha ;^8oo, with nearly double that amount 
 during the months that Indian vessels called there. 
 
 Now Mokha has ceased to exist as a port, and 
 only Hodeida continues to pay any revenue worth 
 mentioning. 
 
 Hodeida imports chiefly food-stuffs from India, which 
 are not affected much by the prevailing commercial 
 depression, for folk must eat. A long way behind this 
 most important item come sheetings, cotton piece-goods 
 and yarn, from the United States and Manchester. 
 Petroleum, which penetrates further into Arabia every 
 year, comes from the United States and Russia. Iron 
 and steel for smithy forges are imported from Germany, 
 in quantities that have increased in value from ;^2oo to 
 more than ten times that amount within five years. This 
 is owing to the collapse of native iron, due to the 
 growing scarcity of fuel. 
 
 Finally, if the reader will try and imagine all that can 
 be found at a general store in a rural district, and label 
 it Austria or Italy, the rest of Yamen's imports will be 
 roughly represented. 
 
 Among such articles which include hard and fragile 
 ware, canned provisions, matches, much sugar and some 
 soap, we must mention bright-coloured blankets and 
 woollen goods, which are much in vogue, and boots and 
 shoes, which are greatly in demand. No man-about- 
 town, or really smart tribesman in the highlands, thinks 
 himself completely dressed without a pair of elastic-side 
 
I20 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 boots, once known to ribald subalterns as * jemimas.' 
 These are usually worn au-naturel^ but sometimes a pair 
 of grey socks are added. When strolling in the tortuous 
 bazars of Sanaa, and on one's best behaviour, to avoid 
 being mobbed as a Christian (in spite of a red tarboosh), 
 it is difficult to preserve a mien of Moslem calm on 
 meeting an elderly, armed tribesman wearing such foot- 
 gear, with a short kilt, thin, bare legs, and spectacles^ 
 which he has picked up somewhere as a charm against 
 the evil eye. 
 
 The only exports from Yamen worth considering now- 
 adays are coffee, sheep and goat skins, and bullock hides. 
 
 Coffee has always been considered the mainstay of 
 Yamen exports, but it is at present ousted by skins 
 and hides. Enhanced risk of transport, owing to the 
 hazardous state of the caravan routes, has made growers 
 chary of sending their produce down to the coast. They 
 know that they can store it indefinitely up-country, but 
 not down at Hodeida, where the damp would damage it 
 in a month or so. European merchants at Hodeida 
 know this too, and, with an anaemic market subject to 
 frequent spasms by cable from the outer world, they 
 handle coffee very gingerly. France is their best 
 customer, the United States next, and Great Britain a 
 bad third. 
 
 Skins and hides, on the other hand, always command 
 a fair price if properly selected. Skins are exported far 
 in excess of hides, and go to New York, Marseilles and 
 London, to be made up into gloves and fancy leather. 
 
 Hides are bought by weight and skins by the score. 
 The latter are graded by the European merchants 
 according to weight, size and quality, for the simple 
 pastoral Arab knows quite enough to stitch up cunningly 
 
TRADE AND TRADERS 121 
 
 any accidental cut, and rub it with mud to make it look 
 like a natural crinkle. 
 
 Skins and hides are often in the market when there is 
 no coffee to be had, as the former come largely from 
 Asir, where the roads are safer for native traffic than in 
 Turk-governed Yamen. 
 
 Though blackmailing brigands play the dickens with 
 traffic on the coastal stretch of the Hodeida routes, they 
 think twice before interfering with Asiri caravans. The 
 Turks are sensible enough not to molest Asiris in 
 Hodeida, realizing that trade is trade whoever brings it, 
 but the tribesmen from that revolted province always 
 come prepared for the worst, and armed to the teeth. A 
 caravan from Asir is well worth watching on its way into 
 the open market — an expanse of sand on the outskirts 
 of Hodeida. The tall, unkempt camels slouch along, 
 tied nose to tail, in one long line, beneath mountainous 
 bales of skins, for such merchandise is light and bulky, 
 packed in tribal style. On the loads, one may some- 
 times notice all sorts of weird loot from former battle- 
 fields, brought to Hodeida in the hopes of converting it 
 into cash or merchandise. I have seen the horn of a 
 gramophone, an officer's sword and Ottoman overcoats. 
 No questions are asked, for Turkish kit is scattered all 
 over Yamen, from a variety of causes. Such caravans 
 are escorted by frizzy-haired swordsmen, armed, too, 
 with modern rifles in addition to the universal ' gimbiah ' 
 or curved dagger. 
 
 The camels flop down in a loose cluster on the sand, 
 close to the sea, on the north side of Hodeida, where 
 the European merchants have roomy 'arishes,' or 
 thatched, stockaded sheds for storing skins and hides. 
 The loads are unlashed and promptly swooped upon by 
 
122 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 the ever-watchful native brokers, while the few Euro- 
 peans concerned hold aloof with studied dignity, but a 
 vigilant eye for the market and each other, leaving their 
 brokers to fight out the first quotations, which are merely 
 preliminary. 
 
 The final stages are fought out between man and man 
 in rather an ingenious manner. The broker, having 
 got bed-rock quotations from the caravan folk, hies him 
 to the European who is his best client, and enters his 
 office with an air of inscrutable detachment. There is 
 no privacy in the office of any Hodeida merchant, who 
 must keep in constant touch with his surroundings, and 
 there are far too many keen ears about to blab the state 
 of the market for general information. The broker 
 takes the European's hand, and, throwing a corner of 
 his robe over their two forearms, begins the real 
 negotiation. 
 
 The points of the market are indicated by the fingers 
 of the hand. The index finger is one, the forefinger 
 two, up to the little finger, which is four. The whole 
 hand is five, and the index finger (bent to distinguish it 
 from ' one ') is six. Seven is the index and forefingers 
 together, eight the next finger with them, and nine all 
 four fingers together. These points cover all likely 
 fluctuations of the market, whatever the quotations may 
 be. The European of course knows within a few points 
 what the market should be, and to what limit he is 
 prepared to go. It is an amusing game to watch. You 
 see the enveloping mantle agitated, as if it held a brace 
 of ferrets, and the European smiles and shakes his head. 
 Then there is more agitation and the white man protests 
 emphatically, for the broker is trying to get hold of the 
 wrong finger. Also, he may force the wrong finger on 
 
TRADE AND TRADERS 123 
 
 his client, and if that is clutched and held in mistake for 
 one representing a lower numeral, the error is an expen- 
 sive one when camel-loads of skins are involved : a little 
 care and dexterity in ascertaining how many fingers there 
 are on each side of the indicating digit is an adequate 
 safeguard. 
 
 The European works up and the broker down. If, 
 and when, the two prices coincide, the bargain is ratified 
 over cofi^ee and cigarettes, and the broker goes off to 
 arrange delivery. 
 
 It is a complex business for the European, who buys 
 hundreds of skins at so much a score, and then has to 
 sort them out in grades at various prices for export. 
 Yet skins and hides are coming steadily to the front, 
 and cofi^ee is taking a back seat, owing largely to 
 insecurity of transit and political unrest. Unlike all 
 other produce, skins and hides do best in time of 
 drought, for stock must be killed when fodder is scarce. 
 
 Local industries are moribund, thanks to the financial 
 slump and over-seas competition. 
 
 The dyeing industry of Zabid has been dislocated by 
 tribal disturbances, and much of it has been transplanted 
 to Hodeida, where there was already a small, similar 
 industry. There it continues steady, in spite of an 
 increasing tendency to use synthetic indigo from 
 Germany, instead of the home-grown product which the 
 Zabid district used to supply. 
 
 There is also a colony of weavers at Hodeida, many 
 of whom have come in from the disturbed area between 
 Beit al-Fakih and Zabid. They weave a coarse, cotton 
 cloth in stripes of black, red, green, and white, on a long, 
 narrow loom. This cloth is retailed in lengths suitable 
 for shawls and kilts, as worn by the natives. 
 
124 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 There are some small dhow-building yards south of 
 Hodeida, along the beach, where a few such craft are 
 usually in hand or being repaired. The Yamen dhow 
 or 'sanbuk' — used for transporting cargo to and from 
 vessels in the roadstead — is about fifty feet long, double- 
 ended and sharp prowed. The mast is sturdy and 
 comparatively short ; it rakes forward, carrying a big 
 lateen sail on an almost perpendicular gaff of great 
 length and well tapered. The rudder is operated by 
 tiller ropes leading direct to it, well below the water-line, 
 from either gunnel. Such a craft will take at least three 
 months to build, and cost ;^ioo. Stem and stern posts, 
 knees and ribs are made of up-country acacia — a very 
 hard and durable wood — but the planking comes from 
 the Malabar coast, and the supply is uncertain. Seams 
 are served with hot pitch and cotton waste. 
 
 Sea-going dhows are built on the same lines, but 
 larger, with a small mizzen-mast well aft, raking forward 
 as the main-mast, and also lateen-rigged. 
 
 They are decked fore and aft, and the bulwarks, along 
 the open waist, are often temporarily raised with strips 
 of matting to keep the seas from breaking inboard. 
 Passengers berth aft, under an awning on the raised 
 poop. 
 
 It is a fast build, and seaworthy in spite of its out- 
 landish look. Beyond the dhow-yards, southward, there 
 are a few limekilns, where neat circular stacks, some 
 fifteen feet high, are built up in alternate layers of coral 
 and firewood, from a pit that receives the burnt lime. 
 This industry is strictly limited by the fuel supply, which 
 is brought from a considerable distance inland. 
 
 Hides are dressed and made into sandals at most of 
 the lowland centres, and sheepskins are soft-tanned for 
 
TRADE AND TRADERS 125 
 
 * poshteens ' in the larger towns up-country, where cheap 
 European boots are preferred to open sandals on account 
 of the cold. 
 
 There are few minerals of potential value com- 
 mercially. 
 
 Rock-salt occurs plentifully at Salif . The flourishing 
 salt works there are under the control of the Ottoman 
 Public Debt. 
 
 Gold is said to occur, and no doubt did in ancient 
 times, though most of it was brought by south Arabian 
 traders from the Indies. An Imam of the eighteenth 
 century tried to introduce a gold currency, but foreign 
 gold coins had to be melted down to make it. 
 
 Copper and sulphur have been found scattered scantily 
 over a wide area, but the sole available supply is 
 imported now. 
 
 There is a certain amount of native iron, coarse in 
 fibre, and brittle. The scarcity of fuel makes its smelting 
 impracticable, for coal is only found in insignificant 
 quantities, while wood fuel gets scarcer every year, 
 owing to reckless deforestation, and hardly suffices for 
 domestic purposes. 
 
 Among the hills round Sanaa fine stones are found, 
 such as agate, chalcedony, onyx and cornelian. 
 
 Petroleum has long been known to exist in the Farsan 
 Islands. A concession was granted to an Ottoman 
 subject to work it, but, beyond experimental borings 
 of doubtful issue, nothing was done before the Idrisi 
 seized those islands in 1912. The Turkish flag again 
 flies there now, and perhaps the opportunity may be 
 taken of conducting more definite operations for oil. 
 Whatever happens in Yamen, the Turks ought to be 
 able to protect a working party on Farsan group, unless 
 
126 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 they again fall foul of a Power in a position to blockade 
 the Yamen coast. 
 
 Two things are essential before any serious attempt 
 can be made to develop the resources of Yamen : she 
 must have an adequate harbour, and easy transit between 
 that harbour and her larger towns. 
 
 The local authorities have always recognized the 
 importance of these two factors, and at a very early stage 
 in the Ottoman occupation commenced the road that 
 links Hodeida and Sanaa. This, however, is of more 
 strategic than commercial value, for its surface and 
 gradients forbid ordinary vehicular traffic, and even 
 camel caravans avoid its mountain passes, preferring 
 longer but less arduous routes. 
 
 The history of public works and enterprise in Yamen 
 is a gloomy one. 
 
 From 1902 to 1908, stone jetties and a breakwater 
 were being slowly constructed at Hodeida, and not until 
 their completion did the authorities find out that the 
 water was not deep enough to allow loaded lighters to 
 come alongside and discharge — the raison d'itre of the 
 whole scheme. The contract had been given to a French 
 engineer, but he sublet it to an Italian, who did the 
 actual work. That futile undertaking cost nearly 
 i^ 1 4,000. 
 
 A condenser and ice-machine were installed at 
 Hodeida in 1907, capable of distilling ten tons of water 
 and making three tons of ice in a day. The plants cost 
 over ;^2ooo, and were imported by contract with an 
 Italian firm. Both seem permanently out of order and 
 are no longer used. 
 
 Then the Ottoman Government conceived a more 
 ambitious project — perfectly sound in theory — of con- 
 
TRADE AND TRADERS 127 
 
 struct! ng a harbour for Hodelda, which has only an open 
 roadstead, with an exposed anchorage for steamers three 
 miles off the beach. The proposed site was ten miles 
 north of Hodeida, where there is a deep, natural inlet, 
 protected by a long spit, which projects boldly northward 
 and is known as Ras al-Katib (Shingle Point). 
 
 The scheme was to give a five-fathom anchorage to a 
 dozen vessels, beside providing a stone quay where three 
 such vessels could tie up and discharge simultaneously. 
 
 All this was only part of an undertaking, since known 
 as the Hodeida-Sanaa railway scheme. 
 
 The harbour at Ras al-Katib was to be linked up with 
 Hodeida by a metre-gauge line running inland to Obal 
 and up the Siham past Mefhak to Sanaa, thence to 
 Amran. This involved 200 miles of track at a total 
 cost, including harbour, of two millions sterling. A 
 concession and contract was issued by the Ottoman 
 Ministry of Public Works and a French syndicate was 
 formed to handle the enterprise. 
 
 A preliminary survey was completed in April, 19 10, 
 when the original scheme was found too expensive, so 
 another survey was organized to make alternative traces 
 to Sanaa from the coast via the Zabid valley and Dhamar, 
 also southward along the Tihama past Zabid up to Taiz 
 and so onto the central plateau through Ibb, Yerim and 
 Dhamar to the capital. 
 
 At the same time a strong party of continental 
 engineers came out to commence construction at Ras 
 al-Katib. 
 
 Izzet Pasha cut the first sod in March, 191 1, and the 
 railway was pushed forward from Ras al-Katib before 
 adequate arrangements had been made there for the dis- 
 embarkation of heavy material. When war broke out 
 
128 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 between Italy and Turkey, the Italian engineer in charge 
 of the enterprise was replaced by a Frenchman, who 
 seems to have had friction with his staff and the local 
 authorities. 
 
 At the end of 1 9 1 1 , the consulting engineer came out 
 from France and reported most unfavourably on the 
 work done. He stated that two million francs' worth of 
 material at Ras al-Katib had become mere scrap-iron, 
 that the harbour had not been made or linked by rail 
 with Hodeida, and that nearly half of the funds allotted 
 (which were less than a million sterling) had been 
 expended. This report, in conjunction with the Italian 
 blockade of the Yamen coast early in 1912, decided the 
 Directorate in Paris to shut down and cut their losses. 
 
 The net results, as I saw them in the summer of 191 3, 
 comprised some 8000 tons of railway material conveyed 
 by steamer to Ras al-Katib, and valued at three million 
 francs. Most of the heavy stuff had been dumped on 
 the beach for want of an adequate jetty or cranes to 
 handle it, and the lighter material was stacked in the 
 open. There were some well-constructed buildings of 
 corrugated iron for quarters, offices, etc., all in good 
 condition. About five miles of rusted, single track 
 extended from the temporary jetty at Ras al-Katib 
 toward Hodeida, and on it was a locomotive and two 
 passenger coaches, about three miles out from the depot. 
 A low embankment had been constructed for another 
 ten miles across the tidal fiats of the coast and into the 
 bush, curving inland a mile north of Hodeida and 
 running parallel with the up-country caravan route. 
 
 It is not for me to criticize an undertaking that lacked 
 neither zeal nor ability, but it is permissible to consider 
 the causes of failure for the guidance of similar ventures. 
 
TRADE AND TRADERS 129 
 
 The climate down on the coast is hot and damp, 
 detrimental alike to personnel, labour and material. The 
 native labour procurable was absolutely unaccustomed to 
 such work and required the closest supervision, while the 
 local government, which did its best for the enterprise, 
 was itself in difficulties. 
 
 In view of the known engineering problems inland, 
 too much was attempted with the capital available, and 
 proper facilities for discharging cargo at Ras al-Katib 
 should have been the first consideration. 
 
 Stone for the jetty was not procurable locally, but had 
 to be brought in dhows from the mountain island of 
 Zoukar, at considerable delay and expense. If the line 
 had been extended another twenty miles across level 
 country to Bajil, unlimited stone could have been got 
 there. It is easy to be wise after the event, but a pre- 
 liminary scheme, ensuring a decent harbour connected 
 with Hodeida, and the linking of that town with 
 Hajeilah, among the foot-hills, would have been feasible 
 enough, for there is no great engineering difficulty 
 en route^ and the entrance to Ras al-Katib lagoon is 
 already thirty feet deep. 
 
 Rail-head would then have reached the foot of the 
 mountain road to the interior. A good round sum 
 spent on that road would have vastly improved it for 
 traffic, and the scheme might have shown a working 
 profit. It would have been time then to consider its 
 further extension. 
 
 As it is, the Turkish Government has dropped a lot 
 of money, and those who tackled the enterprise have 
 burnt their fingers. All this tends to discourage similar 
 undertakings in future. 
 
 Before the affairs of Yamen can be placed on a sound 
 
I30 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 commercial basis, her currency and customs must be 
 overhauled : both are enough to drive a brisk business 
 man frantic. 
 
 The gold coin of the country should be the Turkish 
 pound, but that is getting as rare as a Great Auk's tgg. 
 The English sovereign is accepted readily where gold is 
 known at all, and the French Napoleon is also in circula- 
 tion. Without talking about coins which no longer 
 exist, or are purely imaginary, there are two opposition 
 silver standards in Yamen. One is the Austrian Maria 
 Theresa dollar, known as the rial, and dear to all Arabs 
 as good value for the money, being as big as a four- 
 shilling piece, and worth about half that sum. The 
 other is the official medjidie dollar of Turkey, worth 
 about three shillings, or as many piastres as you can get 
 for it — it has dropped from 20 to 1 7 piastres in the last 
 few years. This used to be the only legal tender, and 
 the importation of the Austrian dollars was officially 
 prohibited, but Arabs, outside the large towns, will not 
 take the medjidie except as a gift, and then they look at 
 it doubtfully. 
 
 Even the local authorities have to make all payments 
 in rials, and eventually withdrew the prohibition against 
 them (July, 19 10). 
 
 The Theresa dollar is now accepted in payment of 
 tithes and other dues, and the post and telegraph offices 
 do not refuse it, though they penalize it with an exacting 
 rate of exchange. 
 
 Small silver is represented by two-piastre and four- 
 piastre pieces. The piastre is a nickel coin, divided into 
 four copper hilal. No other coins are worth serious 
 commercial consideration. Relative values vary con- 
 siderably, but you can usually get ten Theresa dollars 
 
TRADE AND TRADERS 131 
 
 for an English pound, and twelve piastres for a dollar, 
 though a sovereign is quoted at about 112 piastres. I 
 always considered a Theresa dollar as a florin, and had 
 nothing to do with medjidies unless I wanted to buy 
 stamps. 
 
 Hodeida merchants use Indian rupees as currency, and 
 base their exchange calculations on the value of a 
 hundred rials in that currency. This rate comes from 
 Aden and is fairly stable. 
 
 The bane of a merchant's existence at Hodeida is 
 undoubtedly the gamrak or customs. A complicated 
 system of cross-checking, between the various ofllicials, 
 merely tends to make the whole procedure cumbersome, 
 without being any safeguard, for systematic book- 
 keeping is unknown. No official statistics of trade are 
 ever published ; the customs cannot give the required 
 data. 
 
 Until 1907 imports paid an 8 per cent, duty ad 
 valorem^ exports to foreign countries i per cent., and 
 exports to places in the Ottoman Empire 2 per cent. 
 That last remarkable tariff was not abolished till Novem- 
 ber, 1909. 
 
 Since June, 1 907, imports pay 1 1 per cent, ad valorem^ 
 of which 8 per cent, may be paid m kind, with a rebate 
 of 10 per cent, if cash is tendered. The remaining 3 
 per cent, must be in cash without rebate. 
 
 The I per cent, duty on exports to foreign countries is 
 payable in cash or kind. 
 
 Inland revenue now depends solely on ashdr and 
 market-dues ; the latter go to the local municipality, and 
 are 10 per cent, on all produce sold, a piastre on every 
 goat slaughtered and 10 piastres on every bullock. 
 
 The ashur or tithes are the modern counterpart of 
 
132 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 the alms which the Prophet ordained as compulsory on 
 all Moslems. They were levied originally on all fixed 
 incomes, merchandise, land-produce, and live-stock, at 
 a rate varying from lo per cent, to 2% per cent. 
 The revenue accruing was allotted as follows : 
 
 f to the poor, 
 
 ^ „ relief of temporary distress, 
 
 ^ „ the collectors, 
 
 ^ „ relief of honest debtors, 
 
 ^ „ ransom of invalid slaves, 
 
 ^ „ Jihad or Holy War, 
 
 ^ „ the repatriation of strangers, 
 and ^ for rewarding infidels' services to Moslems. 
 In organized Moslem states the ashur have lost all 
 their original character, and are just plain taxes with all 
 the unpopularity attached. In Yamen they are only 
 levied now on assessed value of crops, at any rate below 
 lo per cent, that can be extracted, and only when they 
 can be enforced. 
 
 The assessment alone causes friction, and the actual 
 collection often requires the co-operation of a battalion 
 and a machine-gun or two. All tolls, transit dues and 
 inland octroi have been abolished by firman as a con- 
 cession to the Arab population of Yamen. 
 
 This concession deprived the authorities of any local 
 revenue for the upkeep of roads and the security of 
 caravan traflSc ; two important commercial factors. 
 
 Local ofiftcials do their best under very trying condi- 
 tions, for the situation requires constant tact and delicate 
 handling. The prevailing commercial depression is due 
 to the action of their predecessors, and lack of adequate 
 financial support fi-om the central government at 
 Stamboul. 
 
A MARKET IN THE FOOT-HILLS. 
 
 A TIHAMA DANCE. 
 
 To face page 133. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 NATIVE LIFE 
 
 This chapter is an attempt to describe the natives of 
 Yamen, from a more intimate standpoint than that of 
 the ethnologist, and deals with their mode of life and 
 habit of thought. 
 
 It is always difficult to get at the back of an Oriental's 
 mind ; his point of view on any subject, and, in fact, 
 his whole outlook on life, vary so widely from European 
 standards. 
 
 In Yamen the difficulty is much increased by the 
 mutual suspicion between Turk and Arab — the legacy 
 of oppression on one hand, and bloody reprisals, not 
 unmarked by treachery, on the other. " Never trust an 
 Arab," say most Turkish officers who have been long in 
 the country, and quote the case of Ahmed Rusti. 
 
 Ahmed Rusti was a Turkish officer of distinction, who 
 held an administrative appointment at Dhamar a quarter 
 of a century ago, and had, by his drastic methods, 
 incurred the enmity of the local tribesmen. 
 
 In his absence, on a tour of inspection, certain Arabs 
 managed to introduce large stores of gunpowder into 
 the basement of his house. This could easily have been 
 done without the knowledge of the hapless family, who 
 tenanted the upper storeys in harem-like seclusion, but 
 the native servants must have been in league with 
 
134 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 the conspirators. The coarse, black, Arab powder was 
 brought in charcoal sacks and stored in the basement, 
 where large reserves of fuel are often kept in up-country 
 households. 
 
 A time-fuse did the rest at dead of night, when the 
 family slept and the faithless servants had scattered to 
 their homes. All that awaited the stricken husband and 
 father at his frantic home-coming was a shattered ruin 
 and a few tattered scraps of humanity. 
 
 Ahmed Rusti re-entered military service and was 
 killed in action shortly after, at Loheia, fighting in the 
 forefront of the battle with all the abandon of one for 
 whom life has nothing more. 
 
 Arabs, on their side, can point to deeds of callous 
 tyranny and brutal suppression wrought by the govern- 
 ing race. Even in districts where Ottoman rule is 
 paramount, country folk glower at every tarboosh they 
 see. Townsfolk are moderate men as a rule, for they 
 have no ashur to pay. They dwell at administrative 
 centres, where they can see the machinery of the Govern- 
 ment at work, and it must occur to them that every effort 
 is being made now to keep the country quiet and avoid 
 friction. At least they realize that the Turks are no 
 worse than their former Imams and have guarded their 
 lives and homes in time of stress, though the citizens 
 of Sanaa seem to have forgotten that. 
 
 With Imam and Turk outwardly friendly, yet covertly 
 jealous and watchful of each other, it follows that a 
 discreet Yameni will commit himself to no definite 
 statement, on any political or social subject, unless he 
 knows his man, for he feels that he may be haled before 
 Ottoman officialdom for sedition, or incur some recondite 
 penalty of the Islamic code. 
 
NATIVE LIFE I35 
 
 My work as a naturalist necessitated long sojourn in 
 outlying villages and lonely towers, with daily excur- 
 sions in secluded districts, attended by an escort that 
 learned to accept me as part of the scheme of things, 
 while my slender medical knowledge brought me into 
 touch with the countryside. 
 
 Such a life affords more opportunities of studying 
 native character than consecutive travel over a wide area, 
 and previous years among the tribes of the Aden hinter- 
 land have taught me what one may believe, and what 
 one is wished to believe. 
 
 The daily life of the people — though far less complex 
 than ours — is so self-contained that one may live for 
 weeks in the midst of it and not grasp its fundamental 
 features, still less its details. 
 
 At Hodeida, and most coastal towns, there is a large 
 mercantile class busily employed in their own operations, 
 and with little time or inclination for the wider affairs 
 of the vilayet. The Sheria weighs little on them, remote 
 from the Imam's seat of government. They regard the 
 Turks as their natural protectors against possible raids 
 by such warlike neighbours as the Asiri or Dheranik. 
 They deplore government's inability to cope with exist- 
 ing disorders and so establish security of commercial 
 transport, but are prepared to make the best of things 
 as they are, including the local climate, which is an 
 affliction in itself. 
 
 At Hodeida, the wealthier classes live in tall, white 
 houses, and pervade the sandy streets in flowing robes, 
 silk waistcoats and expensive turbans — all imported from 
 Europe or India. 
 
 Almost every important house has on its flat roof an 
 arish or two — frame huts or lean-to's of matting and 
 
136 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 reed, in which the principal members of the household 
 sleep at nights, during the hot weather. These struc- 
 tures give the houses an unkempt appearance, like a man 
 with a battered straw hat, but houses that have not got 
 them, or some compensating advantage of position, must 
 be an inferno to their inhabitants. 
 
 Throughout the stifling night one hears the fractious 
 wailing of feverish children and, at dawn, when the 
 sea-breeze faintly stirs the niuggy air, one sees at barred, 
 upper casements, little naked figures stretching forth 
 brown limbs to catch the slightest coolness. 
 
 Food, among the native upper classes on the coast, is 
 much as that on the plains of India. Rice (imported) is a 
 staple article of diet, with well-seasoned curries. 
 
 The poorer population eats flat, circular loaves of 
 unleavened bread, with sesame oil or ghi, and lives 
 chiefly in the vast maze of stockaded arishes beyond 
 the precincts of the original town. Hodeida was once 
 walled, but the remains of that wall are not easy to 
 find. 
 
 On the beach to the south are the huts of the fisher 
 folk, who spend their nights till early morn in patient, 
 watchful toil. Then they go straight to market with 
 their catch and, according to their luck, they will spend 
 the day on the beach, mending their nets and dozing 
 in the shade of some stranded dhow, or take their ease 
 in Arab cafes listening to the professional story-teller 
 with his pauses for a fresh collection at critical points in 
 his narrative, and the street musician, with his plaintive 
 pipe and rhythmic tabor. Sometimes they join in 
 droning native song, usually an amorous and quite 
 unprintable ditty of local tradition. In these cafes you 
 may also find tribal visitors to the town — a floating 
 
NATIVE LIFE 137 
 
 population with no fixed address, who come and go 
 unquestioned and avoid intercourse with strangers. 
 Half of them are from outlawed or insurgent tribes, 
 and some are freebooters from desert tracts, intent on 
 learning the movements of caravan traffic. 
 
 Stevedores ply their calling all day, wading out up 
 to their armpits to sanbuks moored off the customs 
 jetty. They handle sacks of corn and rice, and big, 
 sticky packages of Bussorah dates done up in matting. 
 Their loads are kept clear of the slight swell, if possible, 
 and if not, well, what is the use of making a fuss about 
 a little salt water.? Up the tide-washed, wooden steps 
 they go, and off, at a short-paced run, to the customs 
 weighing machine where the tallyman does his work, 
 and other porters take the loads in to bond. 
 
 Huge iron-bound bales of European fabrics are 
 handled with more ceremony — half a dozen men get 
 under one of them, alongside the sanbuk^ and move 
 shoreward cautiously, with linked arms, admonished by 
 warning yells from the consignee on the jetty. Once 
 on terra firma, the bale is rolled along with much effort 
 and thunderous bumps, its menacing bulk cleaving a 
 way for itself through the press of humanity on the 
 jetty. 
 
 These stevedores are a class in themselves — cheery 
 souls, with an arduous manhood and a rheumatic old age, 
 if they ever reach it. They beguile the monotony of 
 their toil with song, one taking the solo and the rest 
 murmuring the refrain. I heard such a gang once 
 loading cargo for a Syrian (or Shami) broker. The 
 soloist kept up a spasmodic chant of fundamental ideas, 
 while the chorus ejaculated an allusion to the shipper 
 at the end of each line : 
 
138 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 O / Allah / cash 
 
 Waugh! you Shami 
 Tired / wet / and hot 
 
 Waugh! you Shami 
 Coffee / tumbak / ease 
 
 Waugh! you Shami 
 The soloist went on to describe the most intimate 
 details of their employer's domestic life, to which an 
 appreciative chorus shouted the tag. 
 
 Mechanical appliances for handling heavy goods do 
 not exist, and street porters may be often seen staggering 
 along with an iron girder, or a heavy baulk of timber, 
 slung low from cross-bars which the men bear across 
 their shoulders, two and two, with the load between 
 them. This requires nicety of adjustment and co- 
 operation, or naked toes will suffer. 
 
 The men move at a short, shuffling pace, gasping the 
 name of God in unison, to which a single voice adds an 
 improvised supplication : 
 Allah 
 
 be with us always 
 AllXh 
 
 and guide and guard us 
 Allah 
 
 our trust is in Thee 
 and so on. 
 
 If the chant stops suddenly, you may know that the 
 load has taken charge and dropped, involving a bare 
 shin or two. 
 
 This procedure compares favourably with the one used 
 in Christian lands, wherein the name of God is not taken 
 until something untoward happens — and then in vain. 
 
 Away from coastal towns, on the arid plains of the 
 Tihama, pastoral clans range and settle, as grazing and 
 
NATIVE LIFE 139 
 
 water dictate. They build huts among the scanty bush — 
 wigwam-like structures of matting on a few poles — the 
 black goat-hair tents of the inland desert-dwellers being 
 seldom seen in the Tihama. 
 
 These huts occur in clusters, for the Tihama shepherd 
 must form communities for mutual defence against the 
 prevalent lawlessness of the maritime plain. 
 
 Simple furnishing is the rule, for the whole camp may 
 have to trek for many miles when the grazing gives out 
 or the water supply fails. There will be a rickety 
 charpoy or two, a few gourds for sour milk, some conical- 
 lidded baskets ornamented with cowries and holding 
 pantry stores. If the head of the household is at 
 home his rifle and bandoleer will hang on a peg, well 
 away from the low-arched entrance, ready for chance 
 marauders. There will always be a primitive hookah, 
 made out of an empty coco-nut, and two hollow sticks. 
 This, with the coffee-pot of blackened, fireproof clay 
 and several small bowls of green glazed earthenware, 
 complete all the paraphernalia essential for entertainment. 
 One family, one hut ; and there is no attempt to separate 
 the sexes, for all are within the degree of relationship 
 which the Koran forbids to intermarry. 
 
 The parents sleep on the charpoy. In a large family 
 there may be another charpoy for the older girl-children, 
 and the rest sleep on the floor. Females of all ages wear 
 a long slip of navy-blue cotton, and sleep in it, merely 
 taking off their bead necklaces and covering their feet 
 with a shawl of the same colour and material as their 
 dress, which is used as a hood by day.^ 
 
 ^ Hill-women wear a shorter slip and trousers of similar material, 
 fringed with embroidery and reaching to their ankles. The collec- 
 tion of firewood is their staple outdoor occupation, and they have to 
 climb wearisome distances to get it. 
 
I40 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Male adults sleep with their coloured cotton kilts still 
 belted on, often wearing their curved daggers, while rifle 
 and ammunition are close at hand in case of night alarm. 
 
 The boys ungird the piece of cotton fabric, which is 
 their sole garment, and giving it a comprehensive down- 
 ward flick with their toes, sleep under as much of it as 
 there is. 
 
 The entrance is closed with a piece of matting, and 
 there are no apertures to serve as windows, which would 
 merely let the sand in during heavy winds. Close 
 quarters for all ; but they have the open desert to range 
 by day, and on hot nights may sleep in the open — I did. 
 
 The men go to the nearest market town, with their 
 few camels, when they have skins to sell, and bring back 
 grain, salt, coffee-husk, spicery and tobacco, which, with 
 stinking sulphur matches and kerosene, make up the 
 marketing of a pastoral settlement on the Tihama. 
 
 Meat they have and milk, ghi too, or liquid butter, 
 to go with their unleavened bread, for meat is by no 
 means of an everyday dish. 
 
 The elder women do the cooking, and the younger 
 ones bring water from the distant well, which is usually 
 a longish journey, for it is not pastoral etiquette to camp 
 anywhere near a well, lest flocks and herds foul the water. 
 On their return, some of them must turn to and grind 
 corn for the day's meal. This is arduous work, for 
 grazing camps have no rotatory querns, which would be 
 too heavy to carry about on trek. The corn is slightly 
 moistened, and then triturated on a concave stone with 
 a stone spindle which is grasped at the ends with both 
 hands, and rubbed to and fro over the concave surface. 
 The girl has to kneel to her back-breaking job, and sings 
 cheerfully most of the time. They have a * song of the 
 
NATIVE LIFE 141 
 
 quern' which I could never get hold of, for when 
 questioned about it they just giggle, and the men don't 
 know it, or say they don't. 
 
 CofFee-husk, ginger, and a little cardamom are ground 
 together in the same way, to make the beverage dear to 
 all Yamen Arabs. 
 
 Meat is cooked in an earthenware jar, with a handful 
 of herbage to close the mouth, or in a copper stew-pan, 
 if the family can afford it. There is a Tihama method 
 of stewing meat with 'howaig' (black pepper-corns, 
 cinnamon, and nutmeg pounded with ghi)^ which makes 
 an excellent dish. By some culinary cunning, meat, 
 however tough, is made tender, and the startling blend 
 of condiments gives the raciness of oriental curry, 
 without its unbridled fervour. 
 
 The children of both sexes tend the flocks and herds 
 from dawn to sunset, when they drive their charges 
 home to a fold of thorn bushes, or a mere open ' steading ' 
 between the huts. 
 
 A hard life it is for all, and a grim one too, when the 
 grip of drought will not relax and the scanty scrub 
 withers far afield, and goats and even sheep must be 
 killed before they die of inanition, and there is no milk 
 for any one. 
 
 And even when the rare rain has fallen, the fresh- 
 sprouting scrub brings another anxiety, for this is the 
 season when those who have lost much stock in the 
 previous drought endeavour to replenish their herds by 
 raiding. The peace of a starlit night may be shattered 
 by the flash and rattle of firearms, and the men of the 
 little community must seize rifle and bandoleer, and slip 
 forth into the darksome desert to battle for their means 
 of livelihood. 
 
142 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 The husbandmen, who live in scattered villages on 
 the inland edge of the Tihama, are in better case, for no 
 one can come by night and lift a field of standing corn, 
 but they, too, dread the drought, when the rains refuse 
 to leave the hills, and crops wither as they stand. They 
 often envy their more fortunate neighbours along the 
 greater wadis, which bring down water after heavy rain 
 has fallen in the hills and fertilize the land. 
 
 These valley men have their trouble too, for their 
 homesteads are easy of access, and, when the crops are 
 well up, the Turkish tax-collectors are sure to visit them, 
 while locusts — if on the wing — always seem to come 
 their way after the assessment has been made. 
 
 Grumbling is the privilege of agriculture in many 
 lands, but the Yamen lowland farmer has some real 
 grievances. Transit to market for his produce is very 
 unsafe, and blood-feuds are so rife on the maritime slopes 
 of the foot-hills behind him, and on the Tihama itself, 
 that he never knows when he may not be * potted ' while 
 ploughing, in a quarrel he has never heard of. Two 
 well-known bad characters from the coast were shot at 
 Bajil by zaptieh^ on duty, while attempting a burglary. 
 This involved a blood-feud between their tribe and that 
 of Bajil district, making the route to Hodeida unsafe 
 for any Bajil man. The local government is powerless 
 to prevent these feuds, though it does its best to avenge 
 reprisals on its representatives for acts committed in the 
 course of duty. 
 
 The denizens of the maritime foot-hills have it all 
 their own way. They are chiefly pastoral, and have little 
 land-produce worth taxing, while they are usually remote 
 from feasible routes, along which an outraged govern- 
 ment might strike. 
 
NATIVE LIFE 143 
 
 Their stone towers and * shielings ' will stand a lot of 
 knocking about, and even a mountain battery can hardly 
 get within range of them. These outlanders commit 
 occasional depredations, but, if within reach of the 
 Ottoman arm, avoid serious outrages that might justify 
 the expense of a regular expedition against them. 
 
 Native life on the upper heights — be they detached 
 massifs or part of the main inland watershed — contrasts 
 sharply with that prevailing below 4000 feet. 
 
 The terrain is far more fertile, and devoted almost 
 entirely to agriculture. The population is much denser 
 (for a given area will feed a greater number of people) 
 and more settled (for movement among those soaring 
 peaks is difficult). Stone for permanent buildings and 
 field works is available everywhere. With every tower 
 and village a stronghold in itself, by build and position, 
 the local folk feel more secure against each other and 
 outsiders, and have not always to be on the qui vive. 
 Blood-feuds are not popular here. To begin with, you 
 can't murder a man with any degree of comfort and 
 security in a populous neighbourhood, with a tower full 
 of folk (all agog at the sound of a shot) on every salient 
 peak. It is also difficult to dispose of the body on rocky 
 ground, with every bit of soft soil under cultivation and 
 frequently visited by somebody. 
 
 I would not say that the upland men are less blood- 
 thirsty than the lowlanders, when really roused ; in fact, 
 their past history seems to indicate the contrary, but they 
 can't be bothered with unprofitable feuds, which * upset ' 
 the younger men and play the very mischief with 
 methodical agriculture. 
 
 The mountain farmer, as we may call him to dis- 
 tinguish him from the lowlander of the foot-hills, or the 
 
144 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 plainsmen of the Tihama, is the backbone of Yamen, 
 whether you regard the numerical proportion of his class, 
 its stability, prosperity or economic value. The high- 
 land agriculturists of central Yamen are practically the 
 only part of the population that contributes to the inland 
 revenue of the vilayet. They do not like to, and only 
 do it under compulsion ; in fact, the turbulent husband- 
 men on Mount Reima have recently * bottled up ' a 
 district-governor on their heights, and may have slain 
 him by now. I sincerely trust not, for the man meant 
 well, and only wanted to get some tithes out of them. 
 Unfortunately, neither he nor his escort were big enough 
 for the job. This time last year (April, 191 3), tithes 
 were being collected up there with a battalion of 
 Ottoman infantry and two field-guns. 
 
 The sons of the soil, whose history is a kaleidoscope 
 of shifting dynasties, regard Turkish rule as a mere 
 ephemeral incident, for the Turks have never tried to 
 identify themselves with the land, or with those who till 
 it, and now are unable to get in touch with, or control, 
 events. They have long looked on the agricultural class 
 as a milch cow, and now the cow has kicked the pail over. 
 
 The farmer in the Yamen highlands is a methodical, 
 self-centred, placid type but, when he gives current 
 affairs his attention, he is a power to reckon with. 
 
 Every village is a fortress in itself ; one that guns 
 can batter perhaps, but guns have first to get within 
 range — no easy matter, even for a mountain battery, 
 anywhere off the road. 
 
 I recall many such eyries perched on hills well away 
 from any recognized route, and with no possibility of 
 attaining a position from which they might be shelled, 
 except by goat tracks, which hostile riflemen would beset 
 
NATIVE LIFE 145 
 
 from ideal cover among the boulders of well-nigh 
 inaccessible slopes. 
 
 All such villages have certain features in common ; 
 they stand on an already difficult crest of bare rock, from 
 which rises a lofty rampart, composed of loopholed 
 towers, joined continuously by ' curtains ' of masonry 
 wherever any gap occurs between them. Thus, the 
 garrison of the outer towers actually live at their posts. 
 The towers are built up rapidly rising ground toward 
 the centre of the village, where the ' keep ' of the local 
 chieftain rears its battlements above all the others. 
 
 I paid several visits to such a home, to attend the 
 village chief for eye-trouble. 
 
 I was escorted through the massive main door of the 
 village, up a street of slippery rock, commanded from a 
 hundred loopholes, to an iron-studded wicket of remark- 
 able solidity. After a long, corkscrew climb up dark, 
 stone steps, lit only by occasional loopholes, I reached 
 an inner chamber, carpeted with camel-hair rugs in black 
 and cream stripes, with somewhat dingy cushions round 
 the walls. 
 
 In the centre were one or two tall hookahs of ebony, 
 inlaid with silver and brass — the true old Sanaani work. 
 
 Leaving my collector-gun among the rifles of the 
 escort at the door, I slipped off my hill shoes and moved 
 across to my patient, who always received me at one of 
 the narrow, low-set casements, made so that a man may 
 fire down from them without exposing himself. 
 
 Coffee was always made in the room for the party, in 
 a dark copper flagon, big-bellied and narrow-necked, 
 such as once held a genie. A youth would appear 
 bearing live charcoal in a brazier of fireclay, on which 
 were arabesques in red, white, and black. A white metal 
 
146 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 tray, with a pedestal-foot, held tiny white china bowls, 
 which our host filled with amber-coloured coffee, 
 flavoured with cardamom. When the hookahs were 
 gurgling in full blast, the talk became general, for my 
 escort was composed of local men known to the old chief, 
 and I then had leisure to look at the view through the 
 open casements. 
 
 The village stood at the head of an awesome abyss, 
 that was terraced for coffee a short distance down, and 
 then dropped almost sheer toward the lowlands, which 
 swam in a thin blue haze some miles away, and about 
 five thousand feet below. 
 
 In all other directions visible to me were rugged peaks 
 and spurs, surmounted by similar strongholds. This 
 one was probably as accessible as any, yet I should have 
 felt very serious about guiding a mountain battery 
 within range of it, for the only feasible track lay through 
 rocky gullies, commanded from above. Infantry would 
 have to advance across an absolutely bare plateau, right 
 up to the village, and, even if they forced an entrance, 
 would find themselves in a death-trap among those tall, 
 loopholed towers. 
 
 In the one direction I could not see, I knew that the 
 plateau rose to a precipitous bluff, and along the foot 
 of that bluff ran the Hodeida-Sanaa road. This is far 
 below and out of sight of the village, but not out of 
 mind, for the local riflemen could creep to the edge of 
 the plateau and terribly harry a column of route. 
 
 I have also seen, near Sok al-Khamis, isolated towers, 
 so massive that Ottoman guns had only chipped the 
 upper works, and, in one instance, a tower that had been 
 evacuated by night, then seized by the Turks and fired. 
 It was completely gutted from top to bottom, and stood 
 
NATIVE LIFE 147 
 
 six stories high, yet the structure itself was intact and 
 showed no sign of what had taken place within. 
 
 The Turks have shown they can fight their way 
 gallantly through hostile Yamen, keeping to a made road 
 and shelling every stronghold that would dispute their 
 passage, but it is a much more difficult undertaking to 
 subdue the highlanders in arms. 
 
 There are no civilians, except the mechanical classes, 
 and Jews in large centres. Modern arms and ammuni- 
 tion are readily procurable and, at the first sign of 
 trouble, everyone cuts in for all he is worth, if the game 
 is only of sufficient interest to him. 
 
 The authorities have never taken a census in Yamen, 
 but the combatant population of the highlands may be 
 reasonably estimated at a quarter of a million. That is 
 why Turkish rule only follows the road, and is often a 
 very narrow riband even there, while it is powerless to 
 enforce its will over a wide area. 
 
 I have mentioned the Jews. I am sorry to say that 
 I know very little about their inner life, for they are 
 timid with strangers, and mistrusted my armed escort. 
 The Turks have freed them from many restraints,^ v/hich 
 will probably be re-enforced now that the Islamic code 
 has once more got a grip on the vilayet. They are only 
 found in the towns and larger settlements of the high- 
 lands, where I have known entire villages populated 
 exclusively by them. Every male adult pays an annual 
 capitation tax of one rial. The fighting Arab has a 
 good-humoured contempt for them, but respects their 
 skill and industry, and would be loth to do them harm. 
 It is the townsfolk who give them a bad time, recognizing 
 
 1 They are still not permitted to build their houses more than two 
 storeys high. 
 
148 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 the power of their commercial rivalry. That is why 
 Jews are leaving Sanaa just now. They are seldom 
 found in the towns of the Tihama, and never beyond 
 the Yamen plateau, eastward. Here the pastoral life 
 recurs, and becomes more and more nomadic toward the 
 vast inland desert. Raid and counter-raid are frequent, 
 and the Turks have no control. When Glaser, the 
 traveller, went to Mareb, through Turkish territory, he 
 had to take a local escort. That was in the 'eighties,' 
 and the Turks had far more hold then than they have 
 now. What little I know of these regions was acquired 
 on my previous journeys through the Aden hinterland, 
 and is given in another place. ^ 
 
 In Yamen, however, I have frequently met men from 
 Nejran — the ancient Christian diocese. Christianity is 
 merely a half-forgotten tradition to them now, and they 
 are Moslems, knowing very little of their past history. 
 Still these folks attracted me in spite of their uncouth 
 Arabic, for they lived on the border of the Empty 
 Quarter. More than one affirmed that caravans — few 
 and far between — arrived among them, at rare intervals, 
 from the Eastern sea (presumably the Persian Gulf) by 
 way of the Reml or Sand — their word for the Great Red 
 Desert. They declared that these hardy travellers had 
 not taken the long and comparatively easy route, skirting 
 Nejd and down the great Dawasir valley, but came right 
 across the desert, arriving in haggard state, with gaunt, 
 half-dead camels. These were fast, well-picked animals 
 when they started, for my informants derided the idea 
 of any mere baggage camel doing such a journey, with 
 the waterholes some days apart. 
 
 That vast unknown tract (presumably of desert) has of 
 I'The Land of Uz' (Macmillan). 
 
NATIVE LIFE 149 
 
 course no bearing on practical politics, but the great 
 trade-route of Wadi Dawasir, with wells at convenient 
 distances all the way from Nejd (the biggest independent 
 Arabian power in the peninsula), should have some 
 interest for the authorities. 
 
 Yet the Turks know even less than the British about 
 these regions, where forces may yet be generated to drive 
 them headlong. 
 
 It is not much more than a century ago that the 
 Wahabite movement burst forth in Nejd, to spread fire 
 and sword and ruin in all directions. Signs are not 
 wanting that the next great movement from this quarter 
 will be political, and of even greater import to alien 
 authority than the fanatical wave of Wahabism. 
 
 The Yameni is not fanatical. He has his own religious 
 views, but realizes, from the sects into which his own 
 people are divided, that there are at least two sides to 
 every religious question. 
 
 He is a patriot ; and who, indeed, could help loving 
 a country like the highlands of Yamen, in spite of past 
 and present woes.'^ His patriotism, however, does not 
 blind him to the fact that his local rulers have done and 
 can do little for the welfare of his country. He would 
 gladly throw off his present yoke for any change of 
 government that promised more stability. 
 
 Yamenis have frequently declaimed to me on the 
 blessings of British rule. While agreeing, I have always 
 pointed out that my country would not take theirs as 
 a gift under existing conditions. There can be no 
 greater mistake than for a Christian to believe, that just 
 because the Moslems he meets praise his government 
 and institutions, they would brook either. The Italian 
 'agents' committed this error in Tripoli. On all sides 
 
ISO ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 the Tripolitans inveighed against the Turks to interested 
 listeners but, when the matter came to be tested in the 
 crucible of war, the Italians were surprised and not a 
 little annoyed to find that the indigenous population 
 changed its previous attitude^ 
 
 It will always be so where Christians and Moslems are 
 concerned. They admire our administrative methods, 
 but they do not want W5, and are amused and horrified 
 at our social code. 
 
 Any system that would give Yamen a stable Moslem 
 ruler, with British administrative control and enterprise, 
 as in Egypt, would be popular enough, though there 
 would be trouble about taxation at first. The tribesmen 
 think that they should not be taxed. Under their 
 Imams they were exempt, but gave military service if 
 called upon, provided they did not disapprove of the 
 quarrel in hand. This system is an absurd anomaly 
 under organized rule. 
 
 Yamen wants many things ; among them a licking 
 for her outlaw tribes, while her law-abiding folk would 
 do well to remember that no government would 
 guarantee their safety and immunity of goods, without 
 exacting a quid pro quo to feed the machinery of 
 administration. Tribal governments level such exac- 
 tions on all their civil population, and often fail to carry 
 out their side of the bargain, as the system of tribal 
 military service is too unstable for the maintenance of 
 public security. 
 
 The Turks exact tribute where they can, and maintain 
 order if they can : their methods are not successful. 
 
 The Yameni is not a difficult type to handle, really, 
 though the vicissitudes of his administration have made 
 him a bit cantankerous. He is always open to convic- 
 
NATIVE LIFE 151 
 
 tion, and is as shrewd as they make them, in the ordinary 
 details of his daily life — be he farmer, shepherd or trader 
 — ^yet impracticable in great issues, because he cannot 
 see their trend. He is no coward, and has often shown 
 himself ready to die for his ideals, when once he has been 
 convinced of them. While clannish and always ready to 
 support his class, he displays an appalling ignorance and 
 a callous lack of interest as regards the welfare of his 
 fellow-men, due, no doubt, to his self-centred life. His 
 ideas on the healing art are barbarous, though his 
 country once gave great physicians to the world. 
 
 He believes that the best treatment for a bruise, from 
 the kick of a mule, is cautery with a heated mule-shoe. 
 I once had a patient on my hands for a fortnight, after 
 such treatment, and, even when I had put him right, he 
 half believed that the chief cause of the mischief was 
 that a fore shoe had been inadvertently used instead of 
 a hind shoe. 
 
 I have seen withered limbs simply due to the puncture 
 of a red-hot needle for rheumatism. 
 
 There is a vague idea that cojffee is a good antiseptic, 
 and a little boy was once brought by his mother to me, 
 with a huge Yamen ulcer on his leg, full of coarse 
 poundered coffee, and in a shocking state. Even infants 
 are not well looked after, though they suffer more from 
 ignorance than actual neglect. My wife had to attend 
 cases that showed a lack of elementary instinct on the 
 part of the mothers. Too much is left to the will of 
 Allah — an excellent trait within reasonable limits, but 
 Providence can be overworked. 
 
 I remember a child of two who used to play in my 
 quarters, at the top of a mountain fortress near Wasil. 
 He would lean out of the open casements, which were 
 
152 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 low enough for him to take a header through. I used 
 to grab him by the tail of his only garment, and shout 
 for someone to come and look after him, as I was very 
 busy. I warned his mother of the risk he ran, and she 
 quite agreed with me, adding, " We lost his brother like 
 that last year." 
 
 Yamen Arabs should be fairly free of ailments (except 
 in the Tihama, where the climate is unhealthy), for they 
 are moderate eaters and teetotallers. 
 
 Unfortunately, all but the poorest classes are addicted 
 to the kat habit, more or less ; the degree of addiction 
 being in proportion to the amount procurable. I have 
 already described this plant. The leaves and tender 
 shoots are chewed for their exhilarant properties. At 
 first there is a pleasurable sensation of intellectual ability, 
 and parties of kat-eaters will sit up all night discussing 
 anything and everything. By-and-by the habitue finds 
 himself incapable of clear and consecutive thought 
 without the herb, and its deprivation engenders much 
 mental discomfort and nervous irritability. Further 
 addiction induces marked symptoms such as constipation, 
 insomnia and, finally, impotency. The teeth are much 
 affected, becoming permanently discoloured and loose, 
 for the gums become flaccid. By this time the victim 
 of the habit is incapacitated for real thought or efficient 
 work by any accidental deprivation, which is bound to 
 occur at intervals, for the supply of kat is by no means 
 regular, and it will not keep. 
 
 In cases of slight addiction, the only marked failing 
 is that of memory, and many who thoroughly enjoy 
 kat, but can only get it in small quantities at long 
 intervals, are very little affected. There is, however, 
 always a certain mental *fuzziness,' even after a short 
 
NATIVE LIFE 153 
 
 bout ; the natural reaction after a strong, nervous 
 stimulant. 
 
 I have frequently eaten kat, when offered to me in 
 audience, at the courts of certain sultans in the Aden 
 hinterland. It has a somewhat bitter, but not disagree- 
 able taste, and the only after-effect I noticed was slight 
 insomnia. Other Europeans say the same, and I never 
 yet heard of one who liked it. The Turks never become 
 addicted to it.^ 
 
 I have had several cases of habitual addiction through 
 my hands, usually in advanced stages, when suffering the 
 pangs of deprivation or alarmed at their own symptoms. 
 I cannot point to a single permanent cure, though I have 
 been able to afford temporary relief, and sometimes to 
 frighten my patient off the habit for a considerable time. 
 All those who indulge in kat admit its bad effects, but 
 say they cannot do without it. 
 
 It permeates every class that can afford it, and many 
 that cannot, for sometimes a man will starve himself and 
 his family to get it. 
 
 Women do not often succumb to the vice, and when 
 they do are worse than the men, for they have less self- 
 restraint, and it makes them very irritable. Besides this, 
 theirs is a hard enough life even without that handicap. 
 
 Kat finds its way along the trade-routes of southern 
 Yamen into Lahej : the principal households in that town 
 are devoted to it, and there is quite a commotion in the 
 market when a kat-caravan comes in. 
 
 By the time it reaches Aden, where it is soundly taxed, 
 its price has put it beyond the reach of the average native, 
 
 ^Perhaps those who use akoholic stimulants at all fail to notice 
 the subtleties of kat. The few Arabs who drink are not addicted to 
 the other vice. 
 
154 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 and it cannot be exported, for it would not stand a 
 voyage. 
 
 In the Aden hinterland it is only grown near the 
 southern frontier of Yamen, and the tribesmen, as a rule, 
 will have nothing to do with it. They sometimes stop 
 kat-caravans, tear open the neatly-tied bundles of the 
 delectable herb, and strew it along the route in Allah's 
 name. This is when they are at loggerheads with Lahej, 
 where the blow is felt full sorely. 
 
 During all the years I have known the Aden hinter- 
 land, I never saw anything like the general addiction to 
 this vice as I have met in Yamen, during the last year 
 or two. There, the habit has become a serious social 
 evil, undermining the mental and physical health of the 
 native population ; the foe alike of thrift and industry. 
 
A HARD ENOUGH LIFE (p. 1 53). 
 
 SOME POWERS THAT BE, 
 
 To face page 155. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE POWERS THAT BE 
 
 Yam EN is now under dual control wherever any govern- 
 ment may be said to exist. 
 
 The Vali is responsible for her administration to the 
 Porte, yet the civil and criminal law governing her native 
 population is an anachronism, wielded by nominees of 
 the Imam, who has thus a great influence on private life 
 and public affairs. 
 
 Let us first consider this dignitary and his entourage. 
 The most curious thing that strikes the mere casual 
 traveller at first is the mystery in which he is veiled. I 
 remember being checked by a cautious Commissioner of 
 the Anglo-Turkish Boundary Commission, 1902, for 
 casual mention of the Imam at mess, lest the ill-omened 
 word should be wafted across the frontier to our hostile 
 friends the Turks. They were hostile just then — their 
 native outposts even fired on our Commissioners when 
 out for a stroll, and the jaunty excuse was given that it 
 was a custom in the Imperial Army, on field service, to 
 fire on anyone approaching their post. Ottoman regulars 
 even chased a harmless naturalist like myself, when out 
 their way to pick up a few upland larks, and I had some 
 difl^culty in getting my specimens home. One could 
 understand them then feeling a bit touchy about the 
 
156 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Imam for, somewhere up north among the Yamen hills, 
 his followers were in arms against them. Now, how- 
 ever, all that is changed, for the Imam is the ally of 
 Turkey, receiving the support of Ottoman troops and, 
 incidentally, a personal subsidy of ^T. looo per 
 mensem. Yet the sense of mystery is kept up, and to 
 mention the word ' Imam,' at an official audience in 
 Yamen, is worse than talking about Salonica. The very 
 air seems charged with intrigue, and everyone looks 
 uncomfortable. One would almost imagine that the 
 alliance was not a subject of congratulation. 
 
 The only people who do discuss him unrestrainedly 
 are Turkish officers, in the freedom of their own quarters. 
 Once, in such an environment, I expressed a hope that 
 the Imam displayed zeal and ability in the welfare of the 
 vilayet, as a return for the princely salary he drew. 
 "He!" chorused my hosts, and an officer just back 
 from service at Khamir added, " He just sleeps and eats, 
 and drinks coffee." I gathered that he took no very 
 active part in the affairs of the vilayet, beyond receiving 
 reports from his nominees and adherents, which should 
 keep him in touch with everything that goes on. He 
 never smokes, lest he should offend the strict Moslem 
 prejudice of his more fanatical supporters, and conforms 
 to all the rigours of Islam. His capital cannot be a very 
 bright place to live in ; service there is most unpopular 
 among officers and men of the Ottoman army, for the 
 little indulgences dear to the cheerful Turk — Moslem 
 though he be — are strictly forbidden there, and all have 
 to be on their best behaviour. 
 
 Every officer I have met, on his return from service 
 with the Imam, has described himself as 'shabaan,- or 
 fed to repletion (in a psychical sense). " Sanaa is bad 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 157 
 
 enough," said one. "With everyone on the look-out 
 to see if you take something with your coffee, and 
 you can't smoke a cigarette out of doors, during daylight, 
 in Ramadhan." He conveyed to me the impression that 
 Khamir was the absolute limit. " Allah knows I'm no 
 drunkard," he remarked, " but I do like a drop of cognac 
 now and then, when I can get it, for it is good for 
 the stomach and keeps the cold out ; Islam does not 
 forbid alcohol as medicine, but to have even an empty 
 bottle in your possession will get you into trouble at 
 Khamir." 
 
 At this point I produced my only bottle of brandy, 
 kept for medicinal purposes ; the case seemed to 
 indicate it. 
 
 Khamir stands high, and is colder than Sanaa or even 
 Menakha, which is very bleak at times. I know an 
 Ottoman official who was held prisoner there for months, 
 and he suffered intensely from the cold. He told me 
 that there was a weekly market, and that folk were in 
 the habit of buying enough meat then to last them the 
 whole week. I know of no other town in sub-tropical 
 Arabia where that could be done, especially as Moslems 
 will not touch meat that is at all tainted. 
 
 The Imam's is an ambiguous position. He must keep 
 in with the fanatical, tribal element on which his power 
 depends, and yet he probably realizes — being a clever 
 man — that mediaeval methods do not suit modern Yamen. 
 Nevertheless, he has to pose as the champion of Islam, 
 if he means to hold his militant followers together. The 
 economic part of the population in central Yamen would 
 never see him through if he got into trouble with his 
 vassal tribes, and so he cannot be expected to go out of 
 his way to consider them. 
 
158 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Again, it does not do for him to appear in any way 
 Turcophile, yet he draws a good round sum from the 
 Ottoman Government every month, which is paid when 
 due, whoever else goes short. The entente costs the 
 Porte £T. 30,000 yearly, if we reckon in the payments 
 made through the Imam, to his vassal chiefs, in order to 
 keep them quiet. This large expenditure may or may 
 not be essential to Turkish rule in Yamen — the Turks 
 must think it is or they would not pay it — but it is 
 certainly the basis of the Imam's sway now. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that he is less powerful on 
 the side of government than he was in opposition. He 
 has no marked ability as a soldier or administrator. As 
 the rightful though persecuted ruler of Yamen, and the 
 direct descendant of Ali, he meant much to all Arabs, 
 but not as a proteg6 of the Turkish government, which 
 he now is. 
 
 He is a middle-aged man of undoubted attainments, 
 in fact, his theological scholarship is widely recognized, 
 and he is surrounded by men of learning. Whether 
 these qualifications and advisers stand him in good stead 
 when he has to deal with the affairs of a turbulent race, 
 is another matter, but they come in useful to him as head 
 of the law. 
 
 Very exaggerated notions prevail about the power of 
 the present Imam, due, perhaps, to the trouble he gave 
 the Turks a few years ago, when those who called upon 
 his name swarmed in from outland districts to grapple 
 with the Osmanli. 
 
 Neither he nor the Turks tolerate casual callers at 
 Khamir, where he must, perforce, adopt an anti-Christian 
 attitude, so I have had no opportunity of meeting him 
 personally. 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 159 
 
 His failure in 1913, either to cope with the Idrisi or 
 come to terms with him — though backed by the Turks — 
 does not speak well for his strategy or statecraft, and the 
 fact that the Turkish troops have to support him is not 
 a testimonial to his temporal power. 
 
 He must, however, wield some influence in Yamen 
 through local chiefs, who are in touch with him to an 
 extent in proportion to their distance from Khamir, and 
 through the kadis he nominates to administer the code. 
 
 The Vali, on his own admission, wrote to him, when 
 my wife and I were at Sok al-Khamis, asking him to 
 arrange that we were not molested. While there, I saw 
 a circular letter from him, addressed to the local chiefs, 
 urging them to observe friendship with the Turks, and 
 abstain from acts of violence. It was written in red ink 
 on inferior stationery, headed with the crescent, and bore 
 the Ottoman official seal, familiar to all who have ever 
 seen a piastre. It was signed 
 
 Yehya who trusts in God 
 
 Emir of the Faithful. 
 Letters of similar import were sent to all chiefs of 
 Yamen proper, in the summer of 191 3. Except as 
 interesting mementoes of an illustrious personage, they 
 seem to have had little value, judging by the present 
 state of affairs, for Yamen is no more proper now than 
 she was then. As for our two selves and our safety at 
 Sok al-Khamis, the local population, having once 
 ascertained that we were not Turks, received us in 
 friendly fashion. 
 
 I was quite interested, while up at Sanaa, to observe 
 the attitude of the varied population, when the Imam's 
 judicial sway was ratified by firman. The Arab town 
 blazed from end to end with flares of kerosene-soaked 
 
l6o ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 waste, along its lofty towers. The squat houses of the 
 Jews were in darkness for some time, as if their occupants 
 were wondering how they stood in this affair, and then 
 were lit up in frantic haste, as if some one had come along 
 and kicked them into a proper state of patriotism. 
 
 The Vali's residence was illuminated in style, and 
 every other Turkish home in our quarter remained 
 wrapped in gloom. 
 
 By now the average citizen of Sanaa looks on the 
 Islamic code as an antiquated nuisance. It is cumber- 
 some and irksome to him, as armour to a man-about- 
 town. He never did take to it kindly, centuries ago, 
 and now it is getting a perfect bugbear. 
 
 The excitement of tracking down infringements of 
 the code is beginning to pall — two can always play at the 
 same game, and between them make life for either hardly 
 worth living. Religious dogma has never been Sanaa's 
 strong suit — she has always been a big business centre, 
 and would be again if she were given a proper chance. 
 
 Nowadays the Sanaani trader cannot do big business 
 unless he is in touch with European merchants at 
 Hodeida, dealing in European goods. This means bills 
 of lading, per contra accounts, credit on invoice, and the 
 usual machinery of civilized commerce. Unless the 
 Sheria is applied with reasonable gumption, our trader 
 fetches up against one or other of its clauses at every 
 turn. The mere fact of an ordinary business conference 
 with a Christian merchant down at Hodeida, is quite 
 enough to set a rival on his track when he gets back to 
 Sanaa. "What was he doing down there.? Business 
 with that tippling unbeliever ? " Cigarettes and coffee 
 would have been handed round in accordance with the 
 custom of the country. " Of course the coffee contained 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE i6i 
 
 the forbidden spirit (they have heard of liqueurs). Kafir ! 
 Infidel ! O sin ! O damage ! " and off someone rushes 
 to lay information. 
 
 That is the worst of the Sheria ; it has got to stretch 
 if it is to cover the conditions of modern life, and where 
 it stretches it inevitably tears, for the fabric is old. 
 Through such rents any vice can crawl and rouse the 
 tribal militancy of outraged Islam. 
 
 Yamen farmers had no delusion about the code before 
 the firman, proclaiming its ofl&cial recognition. It had 
 already been revived, and the highland husbandman does 
 not like to have his prayer-times too closely checked. 
 He has to be up at dawn, and the dawn can be very 
 sharp, at several thousand feet above sea-level, before the 
 sun has warmed the air. Prayer means certain ablutions. 
 Some of the more luxurious agriculturists have a little 
 water warmed for their lustrations, by their women folk, 
 who are always up betimes, as cofi^ee must be prepared 
 before their men go to the field. Prayers are then said 
 in the comparative warmth of the guest-chamber, by all 
 adult males present, making the prescribed prostrations 
 in unison, and timing the last one to coincide with sun- 
 rise. This is correct beyond all cavil, but the poorer 
 husbandman, whether he tills his own soil or that of 
 another, has to leave his stone shanty at dawn, and go to 
 work in air that is downright frosty. He gets later and 
 later with his devotions, and I have often seen a man 
 dabbling away on the edge of a garden tank — previous 
 to prayer — when the sun had already waxed hot. Sooner 
 or later some busybody comes along and derides the 
 efficacy of such belated devotions, calling shame upon 
 him and threatening further measures. In time he 
 shirks ablutions and prayer, and he needs both. Nor 
 
l62 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 are the myrmidons of government free from the general 
 mania for supervision. While I was at Wasil, half a 
 dozen Arab gendarmes put up at the village caravansary 
 on their way down to the plains on duty from Menakha. 
 They arrived tired and jaded just at sunset, and did not 
 pray. They were ' spotted ' by some traders travelling 
 up the road on mules. These men pressed on to Hajrah 
 and laid information before the Kadi of Menakha (who 
 resides there), and then retired to rest as men who have 
 performed at least one good action that day. 
 
 Messengers arrived at Wasil before dawn from head- 
 quarters with peremptory injunctions to the local chief 
 to bring all six men up at once to stand their trial. I 
 saw him just before he started with the delinquents, and 
 the things he said about the Kadi, busybodies in general, 
 and even the Sheria itself will not bear repeating. 
 "And," he added, as a culminating grievance, "those 
 dogs of informers neglected the sunset prayer too." 
 
 The gendarmes were let off with a light fine of ij4 
 rials each (about three shillings). They wasted three or 
 four days of duty while my friend had an arduous 
 journey at a time he was not fit to leave home, all 
 for a matter that the best Islamic standards agree to 
 leave to conscience, for the men were entitled to 
 the Koranic exemption as ' people of the road ' or 
 travellers. 
 
 Religious revival is desirable in any religion that 
 contains, under whatever form, the basic principles of 
 morality and spiritual truth, but this is not so much the 
 object of those who wield the Sheria in Yamen as 
 temporal advantage. 
 
 Even the Idrisi is not above using the code as a 
 means of crushing possible rivals. The only other man 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 163 
 
 in Asir whose influence he really feared was one Ahmed 
 Sharif Pasha, who resided at Sabbia for many years — an 
 Arab with Turkish sympathies. 
 
 A covert struggle for supremacy has gone on for a 
 long time between the two, but the last I heard from Asir 
 was that the Idrisi's myrmidons had seized the Turco- 
 phile, and brought him, bound hand and foot, before the 
 popular leader, who charged and convicted him of 
 offences against the Sheria. Both his hands were cut off, 
 he is said to have been bereft of his property and family 
 and was deported from Asiri limits. I heard of him 
 early this year in Cairo. He was passing through on his 
 way back to Yamen, and the shipping agent who booked 
 him told me that * there was something funny about his 
 hands.' The unfortunate man had been to Paris, where 
 artificial hands were fitted to him. He is now at 
 Hodeida, enjoying the protection and confidence of the 
 Turks, which he perhaps deserves no more than the 
 barbarous penalty inflicted upon him. 
 
 All this manoeuvring for position does not guarantee 
 the fidelity of the big militant tribes which make and 
 unmake rulers. The Hashidi, for example, have 
 declared partly for the Idrisi and partly for the Imam. 
 Defections either way occur with the ebb and flow of 
 local politics, though the whole tribeship is unanimous 
 in disliking Turkish rule. 
 
 And what of the Turks, who are doing their best to 
 maintain a decent semblance of order, in spite of political 
 unrest and inadequate support ? 
 
 The vilayet of Yamen, as previously stated, is 
 governed by a Vali, with headquarters at Sanaa. Under 
 him are mutasarrafs or governors of the larger towns, 
 kaimakams or sub-governors of lesser districts, and 
 
l64 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 mudirs of still smaller townships, with control over a 
 very limited area. 
 
 I have already described the girdle of Turkish 
 dominion in Yamen. These officials are all within reach 
 of a feasible route, and are, metaphorically, threaded like 
 beads of various sizes on the telegraph wire when that is 
 in working order. 
 
 Turkey is not represented in districts where she cannot 
 support her representative, and, as it is, missions detached 
 for administration or diplomatic purposes to remote parts 
 of the vilayet usually get into trouble, and sometimes 
 cannot be extricated. 
 
 Let us glance at telegraphic communication in Yamen 
 — always an important strategic factor in a country of 
 big mountains and bad roads. The obvious weakness 
 of such a link is that in time of real stress, when it is most 
 wanted, it is almost bound to be cut. The Turks know 
 this well enough, and have a provisional chain of 
 military signalling posts, which could maintain com- 
 munication between Hodeida and Sanaa in emergency 
 so long as these posts were adequately held. 
 
 There is a double wire from Hodeida to Sanaa, one 
 for local messages and the general public, the other a 
 trunk line for State messages. This reaches the outer 
 world from Hodeida via Beit al-Fakih, Zabid, Hais, 
 Mokha, Sheikh Said, and across by a short cable to 
 Perim. 
 
 This wire was intact when I was last at Hodeida in 
 October, 1913, but it could be cut at any time, for it 
 traverses turbulent territory for many miles quite beyond 
 the protection of local authority. 
 
 There is also a telegraph line from Sanaa along the 
 plateau through Dhamar, Yerim and Ibb to Taiz, and 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 165 
 
 thence down to Mokha, but this line is not at present in 
 use. 
 
 Hodeida is still in telegraphic communication with 
 Loheia, by land, and a wire branches off from this line 
 to Salif, and thence by a short cable to Kamaran Island, 
 where there is an international quarantine station for 
 oriental pilgrims. 
 
 The public is not allowed to use code or cipher. 
 Messages between Hodeida and Sanaa may be in French. 
 All other inland messages must be in Arabic character, 
 and are often mutilated beyond recognition. 
 
 The telegraph service in Yamen is not well paid. 
 Assistants get from £T. 3 a month, an operator in charge 
 at a small station gets £T. 5 or so, and a superintendent 
 at Hodeida or Sanaa may get £T. 1 50 a year. All are 
 required, on joining the service, to take an oath on the 
 Koran not to divulge the contents of messages. I take 
 it that this refers to State telegrams, for a message 
 of particular interest that reached me was known in 
 the settlement before I got it ; in fact, I was told 
 of its contents, with the wire still unopened in my 
 pocket. 
 
 To send a wire from a wayside station requires tact 
 and diplomacy. If you just fill up a form and leave it, 
 with the cash, the operator will perhaps feel hurt, and 
 your telegram may lie for days under a paper-weight on 
 his office table. Go in and discuss the matter with him 
 over a cup of coffee, and you will find him courtesy itself. 
 While you smoke a cigarette or two he will ring up 
 your station, tick off your message, and — what is more — 
 get the receiving station to tick its acknowledgment. 
 The rest — as he will tell you — is in the hands of Allah. 
 I once got an answer to a reply-paid wire between 
 
166 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Hodeida and Menakha on the same day, and have 
 never known it later than the third day after trans- 
 mission. The postal service has already been mentioned. 
 It is tolerably efficient, but has not to handle any great 
 mass of correspondence, most of which is Turkish, 
 though there is a certain amount of Arab business letters 
 between Sanaa and Hodeida. While at Menakha I 
 found that all my mails reached me, and although at first 
 some of it was often over-carried to Sanaa, it always 
 came down again. Unpunctuality was largely due to 
 the irregular steamboat service between Aden and 
 Hodeida, for the Ottoman Government in Yamen will 
 not pay a mail subsidy. 
 
 During the Balkan war, I was much struck by the 
 dearth of news that reached the public in Yamen. I do 
 not except Turkish officials or officers of rank, save those 
 at headquarters up at Sanaa, perhaps. In fact, the Arabs 
 knew more of what was actually going on, as many of 
 them got Egyptian papers. 
 
 After a while, Turkish officers were disgusted with 
 the mythical accounts of Ottoman victories in journals 
 they got from Stamboul. When I was in camp near 
 Sok al-Khamis I used to receive Reuter's telegrams, 
 through the courtesy of our vice-consul at Hodeida — a 
 typed copy of the world's news in brief, issued by the 
 Eastern Telegraph Company at Aden. This was recog- 
 nized as an unbiassed source of information, and soon 
 after its arrival I was the centre of a spell-bound circle, 
 listening to news of their own land. I gained much 
 unmerited kudos by prophesying the reoccupation of 
 Adrianople and Kirkilisse, an obvious strategic proba- 
 bility based on my European news ; I even named the 
 day. This long shot came off, and a few nights later 
 

A. SOWARI. 
 
 ARAB GENDARMERIE. 
 
 To face page 167. 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 167 
 
 we saw Menakha all aflare with lamps and torches, thirty 
 miles away across the hills. 
 
 News of Turkish reverses or successes left the bulk 
 of the Arab population cold, though there was a certain 
 amount of frothy talk from some of them, which did not 
 indicate their real feelings, and was, I think, meant to 
 hide them. 
 
 In mountainous country I have occasionally seen 
 vultures perched aloof on the rocks, watching some sick 
 and moribund beast with coldly critical eyes, devoid alike 
 of expectancy or curiosity ; just watching for the 
 opportunity that they know must come. Such is the 
 attitude of the neutral population in central Yamen 
 toward Turkish rule. 
 
 Ottoman officialdom in Yamen depends entirely for 
 its dealings with the native population on Zaptieh or 
 Arab gendarmerie. They it is who convey administra- 
 tive orders to the people concerned, do their best to 
 smooth the thorny way of the tax collector, act as 
 intelligence agents, keep order in the bazars, carry 
 messages, and escort travellers and convoys entitled to 
 the protection of government. 
 
 The corps musters four battalions, with headquarters 
 at Sanaa. Two battalions are scattered throughout the 
 vilayet, on duty at various centres, one is held in readi- 
 ness at Sanaa, for service m any direction, and the fourth 
 is on permanent duty in the metropolis itself. They 
 are all upland people recruited from tribal families. 
 
 There is also a battalion of mounted gendarmerie, 
 known as Sowari, of which one company is at Hodeida, 
 two companies on detached duty, and the fourth at head- 
 quarters at Sanaa. These men escort officials of rank, 
 the Ottoman mail, and, in the Tihama, all such as are 
 
168 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 entitled to an escort, for the maritime plain is no place 
 for mountain infantry. In the lowlands they are rather a 
 mixed lot. Among my escort on the Bajil stage there 
 was usually a Sudani from Darfur, who called himself a 
 British subject. In the Hodeida company (with a 
 detachment at Bajil) many are mounted on saddle camels, 
 as more suitable to the fierce heat and sandy plains of 
 the Tihama. The rest ride ponies of fourteen hands 
 or so — hardy beasts of nondescript strain — ^Abyssinian 
 or Somali, with a dash of real Arab. The best nag I 
 saw in the vilayet, with any real claim to breed and 
 shape, was a compact little Jaufi ^ that used to carry the 
 genial Turkish chaplain up at Menakha. 
 
 In the Zaptieh, a man should get twelve rials a month, 
 an umbashi or corporal thirteen, and a shawish or 
 sergeant fifteen. Every sowari trooper should get thirty 
 rials a month, but has to find his own mount and feed it 
 — that costs him ten rials a month, and more in time of 
 famine. A sowari shawish should get thirty-five rials. 
 A sowari has to replace his mount if it dies or becomes 
 unfit for service, so he does not get much of a pull over 
 the infantry gendarme. 
 
 A malazim or subaltern of gendarmerie gets £S a 
 month, and a captain (yozbashi) ^I2. Each battalion 
 is commanded by a bimbashi or major, and all four are 
 under a colonel (miralai). I do not know the pay of the 
 higher grades. 
 
 All these rates of pay are good enough if only they 
 were paid. Last year the pay of the gendarmerie was 
 six months in arrears, during which time half a month's 
 pay was granted, and an issue of new clothing. The 
 
 1 A cross between Jaufi stallions and Turkish cavalry mares gives a 
 good light charger-strain w^ell suited for service in Yamen. 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 169 
 
 uniform is a dark blue turban, kilt and jacket, with plain 
 silver buttons, but the men usually wear the ordinary 
 tribal kilt of unbleached, native fabric. 
 
 It is a shrewd stroke of policy to keep them always in 
 arrears, for their fidelity to the existing regime is thereby 
 guaranteed to a very great extent. Men will stand by 
 a government whose fall would involve their back pay. 
 Still the idea can be overdone, and patience pressed too 
 far. I saw a good deal of the poverty to which these 
 men were reduced last year. The battalion for emer- 
 gency service up at Sanaa did not do so badly as a big 
 detachment of them were on escort duty with the Vali 
 on the Asiri border for a month or two, and would not 
 leave Sanaa till some of their arrears were paid. 
 
 The battalion on duty in Sanaa also gets a bit on 
 account, for it is in a position to make itself unpleasant, 
 if goaded too far ; but the men on detached duty, in 
 outlying districts, are kept very short. There are not 
 enough of them together to organize and enforce some 
 adjustment of their grievances, and if they did combine 
 they are too far from headquarters to get at the men 
 who matter. 
 
 The straits to which the local gendarmerie were 
 reduced last year had a very bad effect on discipline 
 and were unworthy of an organized government. My 
 own small escort did not feel the pinch quite as much 
 as the others, for they got a piastre a day each from me, 
 and the umbashi in charge two piastres, paid regularly. 
 This slender allowance kept them going, and there was 
 considerable competition to get on my escort, though a 
 man was never changed unless the local authorities 
 wanted his services, or he proved unsuited to my require- 
 ments, which seldom happened. 
 
170 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Though not in Yamen to doctor folk, I sometimes 
 attended a case in my spare time, if unable to visit me. 
 If the household was affluent, my escort — knowing that 
 I refused fees — would get food there, and sometimes, I 
 fancy, touch the master of the house for a loan. I 
 winked at this, for I knew the position they were in. 
 Local merchants had long since refused to accept a 
 voucher from any gendarme on his back pay, not because 
 they mistrusted the man's integrity, but because they 
 doubted whether government would ever meet its 
 liabilities. 
 
 As adult Moslems, all gendarmes are usually married, 
 and most have families to maintain. The sowari feels it 
 worst of all, for he has his mount to feed as well. 
 
 The Arab gendarme is not a bad type, and fulfils his 
 duties as well as can be expected, but these chronic 
 arrears of pay do not tend to maintain his efficiency or 
 his respect for the government he serves. 
 
 While in camp at Sok al-Khamis, I had to interfere 
 in a wrangle between one of my escort and the son of 
 the local mudir. The man was required to go on duty 
 down to Mef hak, and help collect transport from the Arab 
 camel owners in that district, for a battalion that was 
 coming up the road : he refused to go. The mudir's 
 son came to me and said that his father required the man's 
 services. " By all means," I replied. " Give your 
 father my salaams and say that the man is at his disposal." 
 " But he won't go," complained the youth. " I will if 
 you order me," remarked the delinquent, looking 
 meaningly at me. I was not going to disorganize the 
 escort I had trained for my needs to play the entirely 
 unauthorized role of a government official, so replied 
 that it was not for me to give orders outside my sphere 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 171 
 
 of authority. I reminded the mutineer of his bread and 
 salt, but this was an unfortunate remark. " If I could 
 only get the bread out of them," was his pointed 
 rejoinder, " I wouldn't bother about salt." This closed 
 the discussion, and the man remained master of the 
 situation. 
 
 Later in the day I sat skinning the morning's * bag,' 
 when the culprit came up, salaamed, and apologized for 
 his obduracy. 
 
 " Not my affair," I rejoined, " but if you shirk your 
 duty with me you will hear about it. What kept you 
 from going ? Sloth ? " 
 
 " Never," was his indignant reply, and then the truth 
 came out. He was the son of one of those camel- 
 owning Arabs, and was expected to use his influence to 
 get the transport, which could not be paid for just then. 
 " My people," he added, " disliked me joining the 
 Zaptieh at all, for my father wanted me to stay with him, 
 and help convey merchandise for folk up and down the 
 road ; sooner would I be a one-eyed camel walking round 
 an oil mill. The old man laughs at government employ. 
 I'm not going down there to tell him that the ' dowlah ' 
 wants camels, but can't pay for them." 
 
 There was trouble with those camel owners, during 
 which some were knocked about, and the transport was 
 snatched back into the foot-hills out of Ottoman reach. 
 
 The training of Zaptieh is theoretically sound, but 
 in practice falls short of the standard originally set. 
 
 Every gendarme is supposed to have been through a 
 course of training with his battalion at Sanaa, where 
 battalion commanders, who are Turkish oflficers of rank, 
 see to it that the men are trained. In actual practice 
 only the leading sections in each company have been so 
 
1/2 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 trained, which would not matter so much if the various 
 sections kept together, but they are scattered all over 
 the vilayet. 
 
 Among my escort at various times, I have noticed and 
 tested men who are efficient soldiers, intelligent, good, 
 natural judges of distance, and sound on discipline and 
 esprit de corps. On the same escort, there would be 
 others who had never been trained with their battalion, 
 had no idea of combined tactics, and could not even read 
 the vernier on the tangent sight of their rifles. But I 
 am bound to say that all had good eyesight, an instinc- 
 tive knowledge of cover, and sure-footed activity on 
 rough ground ; these are natural gifts of the Arabian 
 mountaineer. 
 
 Their weapon is an early pattern of Mauser, with a 
 tubular magazine under the barrel, holding eight to ten 
 cartridges, according to the condition of the spiral spring 
 actuating it. The weapon throws a flat-nosed, lead 
 bullet in front of a heavy charge of black powder, which 
 makes a good deal of smoke — a serious drawback in 
 mountain warfare. 
 
 It is a bolt action, and the calibre is about that of the 
 old Martini. A long triangular bayonet goes with the 
 weapon, but is never used or worn by the Zaptieh, except 
 under compulsion when training up at Sanaa. 
 
 At Menakha, shortly after the arrival of a new captain, 
 the local company of Zaptieh was marched out every 
 Friday, before noon-day prayer. 
 
 It was an exhilarating spectacle. All available men 
 of the company walked in several lines abreast, with 
 rifles sloped, holding on with the disengaged hand to 
 the man next them, in order to preserve their formation. 
 They moved at a majestic pace, yelling at the top of 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 173 
 
 their voices a chant improvised by some gifted poet 
 in the front rank. As he passed fresh couplets along, 
 between the stanzas, all would lean inward to pick up 
 the words. 
 
 Behind the command rode their yozbashi — a scholarly 
 Arab in Ottoman uniform and spectacles — and with him 
 the kaimakam of Menakha in civilian attire. 
 
 Once clear of the town, they straggled out with a 
 concourse of civilians, in a go-as-you-please walk for two 
 or three miles along the road, to a point where the 
 shoulder of the giant spur afforded a natural butte across 
 the head of a deep ravine. A couple of men ran round 
 and put up a few stones as targets along the face of the 
 cliff, and haphazard firing commenced. 
 
 The shooting was not bad, but there was no attempt 
 at supervision or instruction, which merely meant that 
 those who could shoot well, did, and those who could not, 
 didn't shoot. 
 
 Then they all walked home again, and dismissed 
 tumultuously opposite the Hukoomah. 
 
 This was the established military procedure of Arab 
 troops in Yamen, under their Imams, long before the 
 Turks took hold. 
 
 The Arab is nothing if not conservative, and though 
 he can assimilate modern drill, always reverts to his 
 original methods when he gets a chance. 
 
 The mischief is that the subordinate officers of the 
 corps are not professional soldiers, as a rule, but local 
 men chosen for their knowledge of office routine and 
 the machinery of taxation. They are well versed in their 
 civil duties, but are not the men to foster soldierly 
 qualities, nor does the individual welfare of their com- 
 mand concern them. I remember a handsome young 
 
174 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 gendarme, on my escort at Wasii, who had been married 
 not long before he joined my party, and used to pen 
 laborious letters to his wife, whenever I was sending a 
 mail, for he was literate. When I went down to the 
 coast to meet my bride, he went back home up to 
 Menakha. 
 
 I next saw him half a year later, when we were coming 
 down-country. He joined my escort at Menakha, 
 before the dawn, and by daylight I noticed that his face 
 was terribly marked with small-pox. He was a fellow 
 who took considerable pride in his personal appearance : 
 while I was framing suitable enquiries in my mind, he 
 told me all about it. He was seized with small-pox soon 
 after his return to Menakha, and his young wife looked 
 after him as well as she could — neither having any 
 knowledge of medicine. No one else came near him 
 though, as an enlisted man, he was entitled to medical 
 assistance. 
 
 I have met many types among the Arab gendarmerie ; 
 most were illiterate, as is the bulk of the population, 
 but some were men of good breeding and fair education, 
 according to local standards. Such had private means, 
 and did not feel the pinch of want like the others. 
 
 Theirs is a wearing life. They are brought into 
 contact with their compatriots under most unpopular 
 conditions ; in connection with taxes or trouble of some 
 sort. In return, they are a special mark for anyone who 
 can bowl them out over the Sheria, for they are always 
 in the public eye and are easily traced. 
 
 They have to carry out the behests of an enfeebled 
 administration somehow, and know that, if they are 
 involved in any friction while executing their duty, they 
 will probably be repudiated or rebuked. 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 175 
 
 The elder men recall with regret the days of the old 
 regime, when they were a power in the land, with a grim 
 and resolute government at their back. Now the 
 pendulum has swung and they must sing small ; there 
 are a few pickings to be made, and they can't even get 
 their pay. 
 
 They are the cog-wheels of Ottoman rule in Yamen, 
 and go on working as smoothly as they can, when the 
 motive power can hardly keep the machinery going. 
 
 Their fidelity is not altogether a virtue, for their 
 deferred pay is a serious consideration, bound to curb 
 any precipitate action that might jeopardize the govern- 
 ment they serve. Once let them think that their arrears 
 of pay will not be settled, or that a popular movement 
 is going to sweep aside Turkish rule, and they will make 
 common cause with their compatriots, and the present 
 administration will, automatically, cease. The local 
 authorities know this well enough, and never press a 
 point that may involve them in friction with the Zaptieh. 
 
 They have hitherto always been able to meet an 
 apparently hopeless deadlock with some timely conces- 
 sion, while they rely on non-interference to see them 
 through with the population. Whatever may be said 
 about Turkish officialdom, collectively, there is no doubt 
 that individual officials in Yamen are showing remark- 
 able tact and discretion under very trying conditions. 
 
 Unfortunately, Arabs have long memories. They do 
 not credit their present rulers with any good intentions, 
 but, remembering their past wrongs, consider the present 
 leniency a sign of weakness and a presage of future 
 freedom. 
 
 The relations between governors and governed in 
 Yamen have undergone a radical change during the last 
 
176 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 decade or two, owing to Turkey's laxity or inability to 
 check the surreptitious import of arms. 
 
 This covert traffic has gradually undermined the 
 pillars of Ottoman rule, honeycombing the whole vilayet 
 as well as outland tribes. 
 
 Now the population is as well armed as the forces of 
 government, far more numerous, and, on their own 
 ground, more formidable, man for man. 
 
 Any attempt at disarmament would cause a general 
 rising. Even in Ottoman strongholds like Menakha, 
 tribesmen saunter through the streets with breech- 
 loading rifles, and no vestige of authority to carry them. 
 
 There are weekly markets, at remote villages, where 
 ammunition is sold openly in large quantities. The 
 authorities must know of this, but they are powerless 
 to prevent it. As a mudir once remarked to me : 
 " What is the good of corking a broken bottle ? " 
 
 Hitherto I have endeavoured to show the extent of 
 Turkey's rule in Yamen, and the methods employed to 
 maintain it peaceably. We will now consider her 
 position if driven to use force. 
 
 The Ottoman army, in Yamen, is much below the 
 numbers necessary for the safety of the vilayet. 
 
 Izzet Pasha's expedition of 191 1 brought several 
 European battalions to the country, armed with modern 
 Mausers, burning smokeless powder. They have 
 returned with their rifles, and all ammunition of that 
 calibre has been shipped back to Europe or Asia Minor. 
 
 Yamen is garrisoned with Asiatic battalions, armed 
 with the same weapon as the Zaptieh, and the one or two 
 European battalions that are still left there are similarly 
 armed. 
 
 The battalions allotted to Yamen are recruited from 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 177 
 
 Turkey's Asiatic provinces, and form the XlVth Army 
 Corps. This musters two divisions of two regiments 
 each, and each regiment is three battalions strong. The 
 four-company system is in vogue, and the average 
 strength of a company is a hundred men. 
 
 In 1 9 13 large drafts were transferred to Europe and 
 Asia Minor from the battalions still at Yamen. Of 
 10,000 reinforcements earmarked for the vilayet only 
 3000 have arrived up to date. I estimate the present 
 strength of the XlVth Army Corps at 5000 men (April, 
 
 Its distribution changes with political conditions and 
 local emergencies. The bulk of it is at Sanaa, and with 
 the Imam. Hodeida comes next in importance as a 
 military centre, and from here troops are detached to hold 
 Loheia and the Loheia-Zahran line of posts along the 
 Asiri frontier. 
 
 There is a battalion at Menakha, distributed among 
 the forts and outlying posts. Detachments of it are 
 scattered all over the district of Harraz down to 
 Hejeilah. 
 
 The rest of the troops are posted at the principal towns 
 of the Tihama and the central plateau, with detachments 
 at outlying posts. 
 
 There are not enough men to go round. To give an 
 example, there are but two companies at Beit al-Fakih, 
 the centre of administration for the turbulent district of 
 the Dheranik. As a natural consequence, the garrison 
 has been beleaguered for months, and has yet to be 
 relieved. Concentration is indicated, and yet it is 
 difficult to say how this could be done without creating 
 an upheaval in outlying districts, which would spread 
 throughout the vilayet. 
 
178 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 From a military point of view, a withdrawal to 
 Menakha would be sound ; that fortress town should 
 then form the apex of a triangle, with its base on the 
 coast, from Loheia to Mokha. Within that triangle the 
 truculent tribes, at present out of hand, could be 
 •adequately dealt with. There is a strong Turkish 
 position at Sheikh Said, and the country between there 
 and Mokha could be easily safeguarded. 
 
 A line from Mokha, through Taiz and Moawiya 
 to Kataba, would not be difficult to hold, for all these 
 points are already garrisoned and connected by feasible 
 routes. 
 
 The most fertile part of Yamen — the only part where 
 taxes could be levied — would then be secured to Turkey. 
 The rest of the vilayet could be left to stew in its own 
 juice, thus freeing troops, at present frittered about in 
 positions of doubtful strategical value, for the mainten- 
 ance of order where such services are most required. 
 
 As for Sanaa, she can never feed herself, and is a 
 constant drain on Ottoman resources. As a productive 
 centre she is no longer of importance, and she will still 
 consume her share of the import trade through Hodeida, 
 whatever happens to her, unless she is effaced from the 
 earth. 
 
 With the Imam an ally of Turkey, it might be well 
 to reinstate him in Sanaa, with a compact force of 
 Ottoman regular troops to stiffen his native levies, and, 
 of course, guns. 
 
 Unfortunately, any withdrawal suggests weakness, and 
 the evacuation of Sanaa might be the signal for a regular 
 revolt. At the same time, I do not think that any tribal 
 force could take Menakha, unless the Turks were off 
 their guard, and as long as they hold that, they will be 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 179 
 
 able to maintain some semblance of sovereignty in 
 Yamen. 
 
 Much has been said recently about the Turkish army, 
 to its detriment. Its faults are traceable to slipshod 
 organization, weak finance, and political unrest, rather 
 than to inherent defects. 
 
 I can only speak with certainty about the troops I have 
 met in Yamen, but as they come at the tail-end of the 
 Ottoman army list, it is reasonable to suppose that they 
 are not the pick of the lot. 
 
 The men are as hard as nails, cheery and loyal under 
 conditions that would try both qualities. Last year they 
 had been without pay for many months, but got their 
 rations daily, and cheered the Sultan every evening 
 (except Fridays) for that boon. My last glimpse of them 
 at Menakha was in a cold September night, in driving 
 fog, when the garrison, not on duty, assembled in the 
 glare of torches outside the Hukoomah, on the Sultan's 
 birthday, to hear his imperial message read, and shout 
 till they were hoarse. They got an extra feed that night. 
 
 They hate service in Yamen ; it is a foreign country 
 to them, and they never know when they will get away. 
 They never pick up the language unless they happen to 
 be Syrians, whom, by the way, the Yamen Arabs despise. 
 They are not looked after well, and there is not the money 
 to keep them properly clad or shod. Worst of all — to 
 them — they may die out there, as is the lot of many, and 
 their folk at home may only hear of it through the chance 
 letter of a comrade — the idea of this disturbs them much. 
 
 There were two mutinies at Hodeida in the summer 
 of 1913. On each occasion it was owing to troops who 
 saw others leaving and feared that they might be left 
 behind for good. Some hitch had occurred in the charter 
 
l8o ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 of vessels required. Their officers were in no way to 
 blame, and acted with firmness and tact. 
 
 There is no officer class as in our army. . In Yamen 
 I have seen many types. There is, for example, the 
 officer of Abd ul Hamid's day — a capable old soldier, who 
 probably got Irishman's promotion when the new Con- 
 stitution was declared. He may be either a European 
 Turk, with a Parisian polish, or an Asiatic of Mongolian 
 type, who plays tric-trac in his leisure, and has an 
 eye like a hawk for a horse, a woman, or a military 
 situation. 
 
 Then there is the brand new product of German 
 education. He is generally on the staff — smart, self- 
 confident, with a thorough knowledge of his profession, 
 and withal a man of the world. 
 
 I have met several such — good horsemen with sport- 
 ing instincts — looking closely to the welfare of their 
 men, knowing what ought to be done, and learning to 
 content themselves with what can be done. They all 
 speak French and German. 
 
 In contrast to these is the Syrian officer, whose native 
 language is Arabic. He has perhaps been long in the 
 country and married a native wife. Years of profitless 
 exile have embittered him, for he is still a subaltern. 
 He sees no prospect of a career in his profession, but 
 performs, mechanically, a minimum of duty which has 
 become monotonous and distasteful to him. He knows 
 enough of the natives to distrust them thoroughly, and 
 they dislike him. He seldom sees his men except on 
 parade, and they have not the respect for him that an 
 officer should command. 
 
 His jimcrack sword and gold-slashed tarboosh, hang- 
 ing on the wall of his dingy quarters, remind him of his 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE i8i 
 
 early hopes, and a glimpse of the grim landscape, through 
 the loopholes of his ramshackle dwelling, mock them 
 and him. He usually finds himself on detached com- 
 mand, owing to his knowledge of the people and the 
 country. His native wife has palled on him, for she is 
 far below him in the scale of social evolution, and his 
 one solace is a chat with some chance-met traveller, over 
 a cup of coffee and a thimbleful of native arrack. 
 
 There is also the slovenly type. He has been a bit 
 of a dog at home, and will tell you frankly that his 
 present state of health is the result of his excesses in 
 the past. He is practically an invalid — poor chap — 
 liver and rheumatism m.aybe, so there is every excuse 
 for him. He attends a parade when he feels up to it, 
 and for the rest of the day is garbed in a stylish dressing 
 gown and underclothing, relics of the time when he 
 was a man of fashion. He hates Yamen, and finds the 
 light duty he does too much for him. His chief enjoy- 
 ment is derived from a gramophone and a varied 
 assortment of records. He has several extracts from 
 musical comedy, Turkish band pieces. Oriental love 
 songs in a nasal whine, to suit the native taste, and can 
 even switch on ' God bless the Prince of Wales.' 
 
 I have once encountered a wild, hairy type of Kurdish 
 aspect, who bore the rank and badges of a captain, but 
 was in one of the technical branches, being, in fact, an 
 armourer, and not a bad armourer either. 
 
 Taking them all together, Turkish officers in Yamen 
 are a capable set of men. That they have seldom any 
 interest in the country is not their fault. They look 
 on service in the vilayet as a necessary incident in their 
 careers, which may, with luck, be avoided, and, if not, 
 undergone with philosophy. 
 
1«2 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 There is little chance of active service that will bring 
 any advancement, and many possibilities of error that 
 may compromise their whole career. Through it all 
 they maintain a reasonable amount of discipline and 
 efficiency in their command, and do their best to cope 
 with covert discontent. One great gift they have, of 
 infinite value in dealing with troops on unpopular 
 service who seldom get their pay, they know when to 
 notice things and when to look the other way. 
 
 Turks, generally, have a poor time in Yamen. The 
 officials who made private fortunes there belong to the 
 past ; their successors cannot even get their salaries. 
 
 Keen officers sometimes volunteer for service in 
 Yamen, but they are soon disillusioned, for there is no 
 coherent policy there at present, and the financial straits 
 of the administration are felt in every department. A 
 fine old brigadier, whom I knew as a capable soldier 
 and a good office worker, was asked to return to Yamen 
 as Commander-in-Chief. He refused, unless the 
 military chest were adequately filled. This has not yet 
 been done. 
 
 The few Turkish ladies who find their way to Yamen 
 must detest their exile there. They come out with their 
 men folk, either in the civil or military departments, and 
 never know when they will see home again. The female 
 emancipation one reads about at Stamboul finds no place 
 in Yamen, where social life is at its narrowest. Such 
 literature as is available to them soon palls on those who 
 can read. Some do fancy-work rather well, but the 
 deadly monotony of their surroundings depresses them. 
 Sanaa alone has any attraction for them. There they can 
 stroll about, and visit each other in the garden quarter 
 of Bir al-Azab, and go shopping in the native town. 
 
THE POWERS THAT BE 183 
 
 There, too, in that walled city, they feel that they, and 
 those they love, are fairly safe from sudden death, which 
 is more than they are sure about at outlying posts. 
 
 There seems to be a general tendency at Stamboul to 
 consolidate the Ottoman Empire. It is for the Porte 
 to consider and decide whether to curtail Turkish rule 
 in Yamen, within bounds that can be adequately admin- 
 istered, or to reinforce and finance the local government, 
 so as to safeguard the vilayet within its present limits. 
 
 Persistent trifling with this problem is bound to lead, 
 sooner or later, to disaster. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE ALIEN'S LOT 
 
 There are few non-Moslem aliens in the interior of 
 Yamen now. Such Greek traders as there were, have 
 either left, or are on the point of leaving, on account of 
 the commercial depression and general insecurity. When 
 I was at Sanaa, in the autumn of 1913, there was still 
 a worthy Italian merchant there, who, by his upright 
 dealing and discreet conduct, had secured the good will 
 of Turks and Arabs for more than a quarter of a century. 
 
 The Turkish authorities tolerate merchants who keep 
 in towns, are engaged on obvious business which the 
 official mind can grasp, and can be watched and spied 
 upon as required. What they do not like is the 
 unattached traveller on scientific research, which they 
 cannot see the drift of, and which impels its devotee to 
 wander in remote districts beyond their immediate ken — 
 of course they can dog his heels with an escort, but the 
 escort may not be discreet. 
 
 In days gone by the Ottoman Government in Yamen 
 has always discouraged travellers, who might go home 
 and shout about atrocities, thus involving it in difficulties 
 with the Porte. Any atrocities that are taking place in 
 Yamen just now are certainly not Turkish, or within 
 Turkish jurisdiction. 
 
THE ALIEN'S LOT 185 
 
 There may be some suspicion of their next door 
 neighbour, southward, for Britain still has a reputation 
 for land-grabbing, though our pathetic attempts to cut 
 loose from imperial responsibilities in Somaliland and 
 the Aden hinterland should disarm suspicion on that 
 point. 
 
 Whatever the cause, the fact remains that alien 
 travellers in Yamen, especially British, have been the 
 victims of official persecution, or worse, ever since the 
 Turks have had anything to do with the country. 
 
 To go back to the first Ottoman occupation of Yamen, 
 we hear of Admiral Sir H. Midleton being sent, by the 
 East India Company, on a tradmg voyage to Mokha in 
 1610. 
 
 The Turks treacherously attacked all strangers in the 
 town and ships in the harbour. He and part of his 
 crew, after being surprised and overpowered, were 
 manacled like slaves, thrown into dungeons, and 
 threatened with execution. They were then taken to 
 Sanaa, and finally remanded back to Mokha, where they 
 were released with a stern injunction that neither they 
 nor any of their compatriots should revisit the ports of 
 Yamen. 
 
 Captain Saris, of the same service, who visited Mokha 
 next year, was treated with more civility. The French 
 had already a commercial treaty and a factory at 
 Mokha. 
 
 In 161 8 Captain Shelling of the Royal Anne got a 
 firman from the Imam of Sanaa and the Governor of 
 Mokha, permitting English to traffic in any port of 
 Yamen. 
 
 Twenty years later the French bombarded Mokha to 
 extract debts to the value of some ;^ 18,000. They 
 
i86 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 made the ' dowlah ' or local governor pay up, besides 
 reducing duties from 3 to 2^ per cent. 
 
 Mokha was the last town in Yamen held by the Turks 
 at the close of their first occupation. They must have 
 been a lively lot there — we hear of the fumigation of 
 Indian subjects, with sulphur, to extort money — this 
 combination of hygienic principles with profit is a truly 
 oriental touch. 
 
 Under Arab rule aliens fared better. Niebuhr's 
 expedition of 1763 v/as well received, though ill-fated, 
 for all but Niebuhr died of disease or accident. 
 
 Early in the nineteenth century, Pringle, the British 
 representative at Mokha, visited the Imam's court at 
 Sanaa, and was received with courtesy. 
 
 After the return of Turkish rule in 1849, ^^^^^ 
 travellers again were exposed to annoyance and disaster. 
 Deflers, the French botanist, was harried by the Vali at 
 Sanaa in '89, though he received friendly treatment 
 elsewhere in the vilayet, and was travelling under 
 firman. 
 
 Harris, who entered in disguise from the Aden 
 frontier in '91, was seized at Sanaa and sent down a 
 prisoner at Hodeida ; so was Wavell, who went up from 
 Hodeida in disguise in 19 10. Burckhardt and Benzoni 
 were murdered near Odein, the same year, by Arabs, 
 who are said to have mistaken them for Turks. 
 
 The European stafi-' of the Hodeida-Sanaa railway 
 scheme were in the country to serve the interests of the 
 Ottoman Empire. Even it complained of lukewarm 
 co-operation on the part of the local authorities, though, 
 I think, it failed to realize the difficulties confronting 
 them, and the slight amount of control they really 
 exercised. 
 
THE ALIEN'S LOT 187 
 
 I reached Hodeida in the late autumn of 1 9 1 2 (directly 
 after the Italian blockade of the Yamen coast had ceased), 
 with Ottoman credentials to the local governor or muta- 
 sarraf. In spite of many minor annoyances, which the 
 seasoned traveller disregards, I was allowed to conduct 
 my zoological researches under certain restrictions — 
 rational enough in view of the disturbed state of the 
 country — until the Vali decided that I had been long 
 enough in the vilayet. An ordinary European official 
 would have written and told me as much, with some 
 semblance of courteous regret, and I should have felt 
 compelled to withdraw with thanks for favours up to 
 date. This, however, is not the way of the oriental 
 satrap. 
 
 First of all, difficulties were made about the site of 
 our camp at Sok al-Khamis — a matter that I had already 
 thrashed out with the Vali, as he passed through on his 
 way to Sanaa from the coast. Our consular representa- 
 tive was asked to recall us on the score of personal risk. 
 I was able to convince him that these fears were 
 groundless. 
 
 Then two shots were fired close to our camp, one dark, 
 stormy night, causing the local authorities much apparent 
 alarm and anxiety. I turned the camp guard out, but 
 we failed to get our man. 1 knew by the sound, and 
 the short interval between the shots, that they were fired 
 from an automatic weapon using smokeless powder, and 
 traced the incident to a Turk up at the post, who was 
 said to have been testing an automatic pistol previous 
 to purchase. The fact that this detachment was leaving 
 next day for service with the Imam, gave colour to the 
 explanation. 
 
 The powers that be now began to stir themselves, and 
 
1 88 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 the poor old mudir at Sole al-Khamis (a friend of mine, 
 who loved a quiet life) was harassed by official telegrams. 
 I had to send a runner at last to district headquarters, 
 explaining that I had not been killed, wounded, or even 
 fired at, and that the shots in question were not a 
 demonstration of local antipathy ; and still the scare was 
 sedulously fanned in official circles. 
 
 The intrigue behind it all was obvious enough, so I 
 decided to go up to Sanaa and come to close quarters 
 with the Vali. He had already invited my wife and me 
 to visit the city, but I took care to have the invitation 
 confirmed before we started. 
 
 Shortly after our arrival I paid a formal call on the 
 Vali, and was received in depressing silence, in an 
 austerely furnished audience-chamber, among many local 
 notables. These sat bolt-upright on chairs all round 
 the room. As each man came in he saluted the Vali, 
 who waved him to a seat. He himself was dressed in 
 black broadcloth, and wore a red tarboosh. He lolled, 
 somewhat ill at ease, in an armchair, upholstered in 
 crimson plush, at the upper end of the room — a dark, 
 heavy- jowled Syrian of middle age and portly figure. 
 I was the only non-Moslem present, and hardly knew 
 two people there ; after returning their salutations, I 
 sat and watched and waited like everyone else. 
 
 The Vali rang a hand-bell, and in came a man in a 
 black frock-coat and trousers, wearing the usual red 
 tarboosh, to bring certain papers. I recognized him as 
 the erstwhile governor of Menakha, whom I had last 
 seen in a smoking cap, an antiquated lounge suit 
 and blucher boots. We gazed at each other without 
 recognition — he was now the Vali's secretary, on 
 duty. 
 
THE ALIEN'S LOT 189 
 
 After his departure the solemn hush was only broken 
 by occasional whispers among the congregation (I can- 
 not call it an audience). 
 
 Tall candles burnt at the other end of the room, and 
 all the scene really required was a corpse. 
 
 A dozen Arab gendarmes came in, kissed the Vali's 
 hand, and took their places at the lower end of the room, 
 while he harangued them about their duty, and spoke 
 reassuringly, but vaguely, of their back pay, and the 
 advantages of their service. I gathered that there had 
 been some reluctance to proceed on duty, and admired 
 his obvious grip of the situation. 
 
 They said that his will was theirs, he being their 
 father — and withdrew. Several members of the levee 
 retired too, but I sat tight, for I wanted to get a word 
 with the Vali if possible, or, failing him, the next in 
 civil authority. ' Still hunting ' is a feature of a natural- 
 ist's life, and I knew I could endure that seance as long 
 as anybody. 
 
 Occasionally a man rose, saluted the Vali, and with- 
 drew. It all reminded me of a game I used to play, in 
 my extreme youth, called ' Family Coach.' The resem- 
 blance was completed when tl\e Vali clutched the arms 
 of his chair, and we all rose and pressed toward him to 
 take our leave. I hung back behind the rest, but had 
 to pass out without a word, as they did. My whilom 
 friend, the secretary, accosted me as I left the presence, 
 and from him I understood that there would be no 
 objection to my working the neighbourhood for 
 birds, etc. 
 
 On the strength of this information I took a house, 
 but we had hardly moved in before troubles began. 
 The house was watched, and I was dogged everywhere I 
 
190 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 went by town police — fiartive prowlers in French grey 
 and cerise, a uniform I learned to dislike. Then my 
 escort of Zaptieh was withdrawn, and I heard that the 
 umbashi in charge, who had been with us at Sok al- 
 Khamis, was arrested — no one knew why, or where he 
 was. Next a police officer called — a courteous creature 
 in cream and crimson, reminding me of damson tart. 
 He said that the Chief of Police wished to see me, and 
 I gathered that officialdom desired our immediate depar- 
 ture. I drove round to the Hukoomah with my resplen- 
 dent friend in a rickety shandrydan that he had waiting. 
 There I was again requested to leave at once. I insisted 
 on seeing the Vali, and was shown up to his office. 
 
 After formal greetings on both sides, he commenced 
 a hurried harangue, stating that he was not going to find 
 me an escort any longer. All this was reasonable 
 enough, though it might have been put less abruptly, 
 but when I pointed out that we could not leave at a 
 moment's notice, he flew into a rage and threatened me 
 with fetters. Even an oyster would have felt roused : 
 he and I used the same brand of Arabic, and in that 
 stately but efficient tongue I briefly sketched his previous 
 attitude, contrasted it with his present conduct, and defied 
 him. I did mention that he was treacherous and 
 tyrannical, but, beyond calling him a Syrian, was in no 
 sense abusive. 
 
 We parted with some asperity. 
 
 My wife and I sat tight all next day, after making 
 arrangements for any emergency, and I awaited arrest, 
 the house being still picketed by police. 
 
 The day after, the Vali sent an ambassador proposing 
 that we should leave at our convenience in a few days. 
 I refused to do so, and was asked what my terms were. 
 
THE ALIEN'S LOT 191 
 
 By this time I knew that it was impossible to work afield 
 much beyond Sanaa, as the Turks had lost their grip on 
 the country, and I should certainly not be allowed to 
 make my own arrangements with the Arabs. I therefore 
 stipulated for another clear month at Sanaa, an adequate 
 escort, and permission to range where I would. 
 
 These terms were granted. 
 
 I quite saw, and still see, the Vali's point of view. A 
 naturalist must work afield, and Turkey can no longer 
 guarantee the safety of anyone outside the towns she 
 holds or off the road connecting them. His chief aim 
 and policy is to keep the peace if he can, and avoid 
 unnecessary responsibility. The truculent demeanour he 
 adopted at first was presumably an attempt to intimidate 
 me into compliance without further trouble, and perhaps 
 to impress the local population. The peremptory treat- 
 ment of Christians, especially subjects of a major Power, 
 tends to fan the dying embers of Turkish prestige in 
 Arabia, and is much easier than strong, consistent 
 government. 
 
 News of the attitude adopted by British diplomacy 
 regarding the re-occupation of Adrianople had just 
 reached Sanaa, and may have had some bearing on the 
 case. 
 
 The Vali adhered faithfully to his bargain, and I was 
 very busy for the rest of my stay at Sanaa. We 
 received and returned several calls among the Ottoman 
 community, chiefly oflBcers, who expressed some satis- 
 faction at my passage of arms with the civil authority. 
 
 I have nothing but gratitude to Turkish officialdom in 
 general for having been allowed to conduct my researches 
 in the country. Even the Vali's attitude had its com- 
 pensations for, had he behaved more tactfully, I should 
 
192 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 have felt obliged to comply with his injunction as soon 
 as possible, and so missed securing specimens of con- 
 siderable scientific value. 
 
 Practically all the alien population now is centred in 
 Hodeida, where even missionaries are allowed, though 
 covert difficulties are put in their way at every turn. 
 
 While the population of Sanaa has decreased remark- 
 ably in the last twenty years, that of Hodeida shows a 
 slight upward tendency. 
 
 In the absence of any official figures, I estimate its 
 present population at 42,000. There are about one 
 hundred Europeans, of whom most are Greeks, who have 
 shops in the town. 
 
 There were no residential British-born subjects at the 
 commencement of 19 14, but there is a community of 
 British Indians of nearly a thousand souls. 
 
 The few Europeans belonging to the greater Powers 
 are merchants engaged in the shipping trade or consular 
 representatives, or both. They are most hospitable, and 
 well it is for the traveller that they are so, for the only 
 semblance of an hotel in the place is a sort of casino on 
 the seafront, overlooking the garbage-strewn water of 
 the stagnant harbour. 
 
 In spite of the climate and their half-civilized environ- 
 ment they maintain the amenities of social life gallantly. 
 Every married household has its ' At Home,' and guests 
 brave the wind-swept alleys after dark in the wake 
 of an Arab kavass, who carries a lantern exactly like a 
 suburban street-lamp. 
 
 Hodeida is not badly policed. Watchmen are scat- 
 tered throughout the town within shouting distance of 
 each other. They patrol a short beat, and pass a long- 
 drawn howl along at intervals to show that they are 
 
.'?v« ' 
 
 THE CLUB GROUNDSMAN A TIHAMA TYPE. 
 
 To face page 193. 
 
THE ALIEN'S LOT 193 
 
 awake. Life and property are reasonably secure, except 
 when the troops get out of hand, and then they do not 
 interfere with foreigners as a rule, but fight it out 
 between themselves and loot the bazars. Some years 
 ago armed mutineers threw themselves into a mosque on 
 the outskirts of the town, and defied the authorities. 
 The Turks duly notified the consular corps of their 
 impending action, and then knocked that mosque about 
 with a small cannon until the mutineers surrendered — on 
 terms. Last year they had to face some three thousand 
 troops in open mutiny. For some days lawlessness was 
 rife, but a judicious blend of cajolery and force, with a 
 little bloodshed, straightened matters out. 
 
 Clumsy pickpockets abound in the bazars, and, to 
 study native character, one might do worse than stroll 
 that way with a pocketful of small change and watch the 
 attempts to take it and the delinquent's bearing when 
 discovered. 
 
 There is a tennis court near Hodeida in a walled 
 garden outside the town. Here many of the Europeans 
 assemble from time to time, and social functions are 
 held. 
 
 The European merchant has much to contend with. 
 Apart from the dilatory, slipshod methods of the Cus- 
 toms and the primitive means of handling cargo, he has 
 to face keen competition as the inland trade dwindles. 
 If he invests any capital up country to give an impetus 
 to affairs in which he is interested, the odds are that he 
 does not get his money back. The Arabs know that he 
 cannot go inland to collect the sums due to him, and if 
 he did, there is no legal machinery that can help him. 
 This undermines all credit. He toils on, however, 
 pitting his wits against the mesh of intrigue and 
 
194 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 chicanery that envelops him, and hopes for a turn in the 
 commercial tide. 
 
 When he gets fever he takes quinine, and when he 
 feels dull or depressed he hunts up his kind. If he can, 
 he gets away for the hot weather, and if he can't, he sees 
 it through cheerfully. 
 
 His chief aim and object is to do as well as he can, and 
 keep clear of the little cemetery of white, crossless tombs 
 that gleam forlornly in the desert beyond the north- 
 eastern outskirts of the town. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CURRENT EVENTS AND A FORECAST 
 
 Turkey's position in Yamen concerns us closely, for 
 there is no natural frontier between the tribes she is 
 supposed to govern and the Aden Protectorate : in fact, 
 some tribes are on both sides of the boundary line, and 
 owe divided allegiance. 
 
 If order could only be restored in the vilayet, no one 
 would be better pleased than the authorities at Aden, 
 who are in the position of respectable householders 
 adjoining a firework factory. 
 
 Aden herself has withstood, and will always withstand, 
 any tribal attack that could possibly be delivered, even 
 if tribesmen were not too shrewd to run their heads 
 against such a fortress. But we are still committed to 
 certain obligations in the Aden hinterland if treaties mean 
 anything at all. These obligations were rightly incurred 
 to secure the allegiance of our immediate neighbours 
 and the comparative safety of trade routes. It is for us 
 to consider how we stand with regard to our treaty tribes 
 if they are faced with attack and pillage owing to tribal 
 anarchy across the border. 
 
 The authorities might view with equanimity a certain 
 amount of strife and bloodshed among the clans of the 
 Subaihi — a tribe that has always been lawless and untract- 
 
196 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 able to British or Turkish influence, while it can look 
 after itself better than any other tribe in the Aden Pro- 
 tectorate, and has no economic value. 
 
 This is not the case with the other two protected tribes 
 that adjoin the Ottoman frontier : the Amiri and 
 Haushabi are productive and settled, and have observed 
 their treaty obligations with us. They have also shown 
 themselves incapable of resisting encroachment from 
 across the border, for we had to interfere and protect both 
 since this century began. Through their territory run 
 the principal trade routes to Aden. 
 
 So long as Turkey has any sort of hold on Yamen we 
 have, through her, some feasible channel of redress for 
 tribal aggression or encroachment on the Aden frontier. 
 
 There is some talk of an Ottoman expedition co- 
 operating with the Imam against the Idrisi this autumn 
 (1914) but, unless the Porte puts more 'drive' into it 
 than has marked previous attempts, the expedition will 
 not effect much and rebellion will be fanned, not 
 quenched. Turkey has already nominated a sub- 
 governor for Asir — a definite step, but hardly adequate. 
 It seems time enough to talk about the subjugation of 
 that province when the Tihama tribes near Hodeida 
 have been brought to heel. I refer to the Dheranik and 
 the lawless clans that beset the trade routes to the 
 maritime capital. They are still defying the local 
 authorities. 
 
 The question that concerns us is whether Turkey can 
 maintain some semblance of control in Yamen, and if she 
 means to do so. We know she has been flying financial 
 kites all over Europe, and is now in funds, but we also 
 know that her remaining European provinces and Asia 
 Minor have first claim upon her, in accordance with the 
 
CURRENT EVENTS AND A FORECAST 197 
 
 policy of consolidation which she was well advised to 
 adopt. The northern provinces of Arabia come next 
 in natural importance to her — Syria has long been 
 clamouring for autonomy, and is at present wildly 
 indignant about alleged election frauds in connection 
 with the appointment of her representatives in the new 
 Parliament. The Hejaz is in a more turbulent state than 
 usual, and Mesopotamia is seething with political unrest, 
 which is being fomented by agents of the Emir of 
 Nejd. 
 
 To crown all, public feeling generally is against the 
 fresh system of taxation, and the new Budget shows a 
 deficit of ^T. 4,000,000. The chances of a strong and 
 adequately supported policy in Yamen seem remote, and 
 yet it behoves Turkey to set her house in order there if 
 she means to keep the vilayet. 
 
 Right up between her Asiatic provinces drives the 
 desert wedge of independent Arabia, with Nejd as its 
 nucleus and central force. 
 
 Nejd — after many years of stormy rule — is now 
 governed by a scion of the Saoud dynasty (Abd ul-Aziz 
 bin Saoud), with the title of Emir. 
 
 In the summer of 1 9 1 3 he led a masterly raid into the 
 Turkish province of al-Hassa and, by a brilliant coup de 
 main took Hofuf (assisted by the townsfolk), and all 
 other Ottoman posts in the province fell to him. He 
 packed the Turks off to Bussorah, with what belongings 
 they could carry, and sent with them a note to the 
 governor of that vilayet pointing out that through forty 
 years of misrule the Turkish government had failed to 
 make good in al-Hassa, and that he meant to resist by 
 force any attempt to retake the province. 
 
 He remained the Sultan's obedient servant. 
 
198 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 The desert confines of Nejd discourage Ottoman 
 reprisals, nor has there been any attempt to win back 
 al-Hassa as yet. Meanwhile the Emir, in his capital of 
 Riadh, is consolidating his dominions and considering 
 the next move. 
 
 Marching up the Dawasir valley along the great 
 caravan route, an expeditionary force from Nejd could 
 emerge in turbulent and disaffected Asir to strike at 
 central Yamen. Here too there have been forty-three 
 years of Turkish rule, and the Arabs have had enough' 
 of it. 
 
 There are already rumours of further warlike activity 
 in Nejd, with a view to expansion. The Emir is a 
 young man (about twenty- two), but he knows his own 
 mind, is a dashing leader, and has bold but crafty coun- 
 sellors, whom he always consults. His aim is a tribal- 
 governed Arabian empire, with the central authority in 
 Nejd. Let him but advance up Wadi Dawasir when the 
 Turks and the Imam are bickering with the Idrisi, and 
 the tribes will flock to his standard from all directions, 
 and Yamen will fall to his grasp like an over-ripe pear. 
 
 Any Turkish operations against the Idrisi that promise 
 success may probably precipitate matters, for the rebel 
 leader would appeal to Nejd — he is already in touch with 
 the Emir, and would naturally prefer, for himself and 
 the tribes he controls, autonomy with an Arab suzerain 
 to bloody subjugation and Turkish sovereignty. 
 
 Nejd drove the Star and Crescent from her borders 
 and shook the Hejaz to its centre little more than a 
 century ago. Her triumph in al-Hassa is still ringing 
 in the ears of Arabs, who dislike Turkish rule and look 
 covertly to the Emir as the champion of Arabian free- 
 dom. She is no mere barbaric confederation of half- 
 
CURRENT EVENTS AND A FORECAST 199 
 
 armed and badly organized tribes. Little is known of 
 her by the outside world now, but this much is certain, 
 that the Emir's forces are armed as well as any troops that 
 Turkey could bring against them. All the ammunition, 
 cannon and mitrailleuses of the al-Hassa garrisons fell 
 into the hands of the Emir when the Turks surrendered 
 that province. The fact that he permitted the evacu- 
 ating troops to depart with their rifles shows that he 
 does not lack small arms. 
 
 He still acknowledges the Sultan as Khalif, but 
 repudiates the Ottoman Government and all its 
 works. 
 
 The deposal of Abd ul-Hamid and the inauguration 
 of the Constitution weakened Turkey's hold on the 
 Moslem races. The title of Khalif means * successor,' 
 and is personal. It cannot be bestowed by a temporal 
 government working for its own ends — with the best 
 intentions no doubt — in a mere corner of the Moslem 
 world. 
 
 The Arabs look to the present Sultan as Khalif (for 
 there must always be a Khalif in Islam), but they have 
 no sympathy with the power that appointed him without 
 consulting them. A Khalif can only be set aside or 
 appointed by the general expressed will of all Moslems. 
 That was of course impracticable in this case, and I do 
 not suppose that the Turks troubled their heads about 
 it — but the Arabs do. 
 
 This is only one of the anomalies that rise from a 
 spiritual dignitary being vested with temporal powers of 
 doubtful stability. Modern Turkey's chief problem is 
 pan-Islamism and all it implies. 
 
 Abd ul-Hamid — as Sultan — was a Moslem of the 
 Moslems, and stood for orthodox Islam. He even 
 
200 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 refused to grant an audience to the Agha Khan ^ of 
 Bombay as head of the Shiah schism. 
 
 With him you were either a Sunni (or orthodox 
 Moslem) and a factor in Islam or you were not, and did 
 not count. 
 
 This is exactly the attitude to suit Arabia (where the 
 Shiah element is comparatively unimportant), but it had 
 to be modified by an enlightened Constitution that 
 identified itself with union and progress. Unfortunately 
 these two qualities do not go hand in hand throughout 
 the Ottoman Empire, and are never likely to. 
 
 The present Turkish Government is treading the 
 doubtful path of those who habitually deal in half 
 measures. It is at present confronted with diplomatic 
 tension concerning the ill-treatment of Greeks in Thrace 
 and Asia Minor. Turkey may or may not want war 
 with Greece and the chance of winning back Salonica, 
 but unless her Moslem subjects come to heel a crisis may 
 occur before she is ready to meet it. 
 
 She has already lost Tripoli through similar causes. 
 
 The whole trend of modern Turkish thought is 
 national rather than pan-Islamic, for educated Turks 
 realize that anti-Christian feelings, which are the real 
 driving force of that great movement, must be curbed if 
 Turkey-in-Europe is to hold together. 
 
 Trite sayings in ornate Arabic character adorn the 
 walls of many a cultured Turkish home, and a common 
 \ one is this, " Be a Turk — a Moslem if you will, but first 
 and foremost a Turk." Against this feeling there 
 are the Asiatic provinces, with their strong anti- 
 Christian prejudice and total disregard or complete 
 
 ^ A lineal descendant of the * Old Man of the Mountains ' and an 
 excellent judge of Arab polo-ponies. 
 
CURRENT EVENTS AND A FORECAST 201 
 
 ignorance of the European problems that confront 
 Turkish rule. This is largely Turkey's fault, she has 
 always found it expedient to fan the embers of Moslem 
 prejudice to keep her own pot boiling, and, during her 
 trouble with the Balkan States, she scattered broadcast 
 throughout Arabia highly-coloured accounts and crude 
 illustrations of mythical victories. 
 
 Turkish Arabia has been kept in ignorance of 
 Turkey's real position in Europe, but is now beginning 
 to find out for herself, mistrusting official sources of 
 information and even underrating the status of her 
 suzerain. 
 
 The problems that confront Ottoman rule might 
 daunt the sanest government, and yet in Stamboul — 
 where at least consistent and united purpose might 
 be looked for- — the state of affairs betokens national 
 insanity. 
 
 Plot after plot comes to light, and is hardly crushed 
 than others appear like wasps in summer. 
 
 There is practically a military dictatorship, of which 
 the least that can be said is that it does not tend to 
 political unity or constitutional methods, while its 
 disregard of consequences fills friends of Turkey with 
 dismay. 
 
 Stable government and sound finance alone can save 
 the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 I have mentioned the financial embarrassment of 
 Turkish administration in Yamen, the other Arabian 
 vilayets are in much the same predicament ; and Turkey 
 is wasting good money on Dreadnoughts. 
 
 Every government office in Yamen had a collecting 
 box last year with a picture of one of these monsters 
 thereon, flying the Ottoman flag. 
 
202 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 This naval expenditure is presumably for eventualities 
 with Greece but, as one who sympathizes with Turkey in 
 her troubles, I hope she will learn to handle her new toys 
 before she takes them into action. To put all your eggs 
 into one basket is imprudent ; to drop the basket is 
 disaster. 
 
 The late Commander of the Hamidieh is to be in 
 charge of one of these capital ships.' A better man could 
 hardly have been selected. He was down at Hodeida 
 last summer with the Hamidieh. Discipline and efficiency 
 marked his entire command, and the contrast with the 
 usual Turkish methods was the subject of general 
 comment. This officer once remarked that Turkey 
 could buy Dreadnoughts and, at a pinch, man them, but 
 had no one fit to take charge of such vessels. 
 
 All the time Turkey's Arabian troubles are steadily 
 drawing to a head, and there is a general ebb of financial 
 and military resources from her remoter provinces. 
 
 I saw a good deal of Ottoman rule in Yamen, and 
 came to the conclusion that the Turk is an able man, 
 with a natural gift of handling Moslems and getting the 
 best results from them with the least possible outlay. 
 Collectively their administration is hopeless, for it lacks 
 consistency or singleness of purpose. The civil and 
 military departments do not hit it off, and I gather that 
 this is the case elsewhere in the Ottoman dominions. 
 
 The real weakness of Turkey's rule lies in the mixed 
 races and creeds she attempts to govern. It is not as if 
 these were small half -merged units that could be fused 
 in one homogeneous whole — they are large and sharply 
 defined divisions that only good statecraft can reconcile. 
 
 1 Commandeered by Great Britain at the outbreak of European 
 hostilities. 
 
CURRENT EVENTS AND A FORECAST 203 
 
 One of the first principles of statecraft in dealing with 
 Oriental is never to back one ruler in preference to others 
 unless he is, by personal qualities, position or resources, 
 fitted to wield paramount power. That is, if a chief 
 cannot rule unassisted it is very little use trying to 
 support him with overt force among warlike races, for 
 the mere fact of alien armed assistance will create 
 enemies for him until he becomes a sort of lightning 
 conductor for any political storms, and his suzerain gets 
 the shock. 
 
 In 1 9 1 1 the Ottoman authorities in Yamen followed 
 the line of least resistance, and inaugurated an entente 
 with the Imam rather than subdue his adherents, and 
 then give him what measure of power they chose. 
 They have, in past years, made the mistake of spurn- 
 ing the local Imams after their second occupation of 
 Yamen. A little tact and generosity in earlier days 
 would have saved them much trouble and an ambiguous 
 position. 
 
 It never pays to take sides in tribal affairs unless you 
 are backing a certainty, for tribal politics shift too quickly 
 and completely for anyone to follow : no administration 
 is more delicately balanced than that of a south Arabian 
 ruler who is merely a figurehead — unless he possesses 
 extraordinary personality — and has, moreover, no legis- 
 lative council to blame if things go wrong. 
 
 Turkey has backed her fancy in Yamen, and has put 
 her money on the wrong horse. Now she has to support 
 her protege against the tribes he is supposed to control, 
 and if she stands to her engagement with him there is 
 no saying how far she may be involved eventually. 
 
 The chequered, tottering rule of previous Imams is 
 written plainly enough on the pages of history ; the 
 
204 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 Turks re-entered Yamen on the troublous tide of 
 political faction between two rival Imams. 
 
 There is a vast difference between setting up a ruler on 
 your own initiative and being compelled to recognize him 
 by force of circumstances. Turkey might have done the 
 first, but ignored the situation until she was compelled 
 to adopt the second alternative. Her prestige and purse 
 have suffered in consequence. 
 
 Yamen is a perfect example of the ultimate results 
 accruing from a policy of drift and expediency — tainted 
 too with contempt on the part of the ruling race for its 
 native subjects. 
 
 The local authorities trifled with the prevention of 
 gun-running to their own undoing. They ignored the 
 office of Imam until they had to recognize it. After 
 years of extortion they went to the other extreme, in 
 panic at the gathering forces arrayed against them, and 
 abolished dues to which they are justly entitled. They 
 collect such taxes as are left to them, along the line of 
 least resistance, thereby putting a premium on lawless- 
 ness and opposition to their sway. Among the logical 
 consequences of this policy that now confront them are 
 general discontent and unrest, an expensive and fragile 
 puppet to maintain, an impoverished country which is 
 a constant drain on Ottoman resources, waning power 
 and a tattered prestige. 
 
 And what a chance they have missed ! By birthright, 
 creed and temperament no one is better fitted to rule 
 Moslems than the Turks. If only their administrative 
 ability were on a par with their other gifts, pan-Islamism 
 would be the greatest vital force in the world. They are 
 the natural rulers of Islamic races, born with the sceptre 
 in their hand, and they have thrown it away. Indi- 
 
CURRENT EVENTS AND A FORECAST 205 
 
 viduals among them still show what a Turkish admini- 
 strator could really be under a stable and consistent 
 central government. 
 
 They could have made Yamen their finest province in 
 Asia with its industrial population and undeveloped 
 natural resources. 
 
 Egypt is but an arable strip on each side of a big ditch 
 that often disappoints agricultural expectations. We 
 saved her from insolvency, made her a prosperous 
 country, and are barely tolerated. 
 
 The Turks entered Yamen at a time when any firm 
 rule would have been welcome, and got control of a 
 fertile country v/ith a boundless water supply if they had 
 only been able to handle it. Yet they could not improve 
 on the agricultural methods of the country, and cannot 
 point to a single public work undertaken, completed and 
 maintained for the public weal. 
 
 They have no continuity of purpose, and many 
 schemes of theoretical excellence have been inaugurated 
 in Yamen to die of inanition for lack of sustenance and 
 support. For example, free and technical education are 
 both to be found in the vilayet. The first means a few 
 scantily attended schools in the principal centres, and the 
 second an almost deserted house and garden outside 
 Hodeida, where there is a handloom and some excellent 
 tools for carpentry, etc., but no regular pupils. 
 
 The proper development of Yamen, with its diflScult 
 terrain, is a task of magnitude, but it would have been 
 well worth attempting, and no attempt has been 
 made. 
 
 The Turkish authorities had the prestige of their race 
 and the experience of former rule in Yamen to help them, 
 yet have even failed to gain the toleration of the people 
 
206 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 they have governed consecutively for the last forty 
 years. 
 
 There used to be an idea in certain quarters that we 
 would back Turkey in any case owing to our relations 
 with Moslem India. This idea is reduced to an absurdity 
 in connection with Arabia, for who would support her 
 in troubles of her own creation with oriental Moslems to 
 retain the loyalty of other oriental Moslems ? 
 
 There is a marked tendency throughout Turkish 
 Arabia to revert to patriarchal or tribal rule, with or 
 without some central authority. The Emir of Nejd 
 thinks he can take advantage of this tendency, and is — 
 from his position and prestige — the man to do it if 
 anyone can. 
 
 We, with our interest on the shores of the Persian and 
 Aden Gulfs and along the valleys of the Euphrates and 
 Tigris, would do well to watch events. Most great 
 Moslem movements have taken us by surprise for, 
 though we have a vast amount of Mohamedan 
 fellow-subjects, we seldom get into close touch with 
 them. 
 
 All the Aden authorities know of their hinterland is 
 contained in a few office files or filters through tortuous 
 native channels. It is now a recognized feature of 
 Imperial policy to let sleeping dogs lie, and if they are 
 not sleeping to pretend that they are or at least not 
 attempt to find out for ourselves. 
 
 Our position at Aden is that of a man, who does not 
 know much about horses, riding behind a friend whose 
 mount has its ears back. He hopes his friend will come 
 to no harm, but is still more anxious not to stop a kick 
 himself, and has the vaguest idea as to what he ought to 
 do if both nags get restive. 
 
CURRENT EVENTS AND A FORECAST 207 
 
 Ottoman rule in Yamen is an object-lesson in the 
 government of native races. We can not only see the 
 inevitable result of negligent administration but the 
 subterranean workings of a covert force which will, 
 sooner or later, undermine all governments in the world 
 that control alien subject races. That control has been 
 obtained in the first instance by force of arms, either 
 implied or openly demonstrated. So long as modern 
 invention kept advancing in the evolution of small arms 
 colonial Powers could be reasonably sure that their forces 
 would be better armed than the native races they 
 governed. Now that the modern rifle has attained 
 approximate perfection as a weapon of war and can be 
 produced and retailed at a price within the reach of all, 
 the surreptitious gun trade will soon catch up to it and 
 arm the governed as efficiently as the forces of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Those powers which rule vast numbers of alien sub- 
 jects in remote quarters of the globe will have to 
 combine to cut off this traffic at its sources or guard their 
 uttermost borders against it or curtail their control of 
 the races they administer. 
 
 Trifling with these alternatives has brought Turkey 
 to the predicament which now confronts her in Yamen. 
 Her turn has come first because she has not sufficient 
 resources to arm her colonial troops with the best 
 weapons obtainable or to guard her coasts adequately 
 against gun-runners, while her administrative methods 
 have raised for her a heavy crop of trouble. 
 
 Arabia, with her extensive seaboard, her warlike tribes 
 and stormy politics, is a natural market for arms. Her 
 unhappy political state is largely the outcome of the arms 
 traffic, which encourages her to defy established authority. 
 
208 ARABIA INFELIX 
 
 We view her troubles with composure, but might bear 
 in mind that illicit arms are only kept out of Egypt by 
 stringent preventive measures at considerable cost, and 
 trickle through Abyssinia into the Soudan by a thousand 
 elusive channels that cannot be closed. 
 
 Our Somaliland troubles are the direct outcome of 
 this traffic, which has spread all over Africa. Its prin- 
 cipal distributing centres on the Red Sea littoral are 
 Jibouti, in French Somaliland (where large commercial 
 interests are involved), and Massowa, in the Italian 
 colony of Erythrea, whence arms were freely shipped to 
 rebellious Asir during the Turco-Italian war. 
 
 There is no ethical side to this question, but it is a 
 curious fact that the very nations that are trying to 
 control half-conquered and warlike races with compara- 
 tively few organized troops, and whose rule is therefore 
 jeopardized by the gun trade, should yet hesitate to 
 check it and even use it as a covert weapon against an 
 adversary. 
 
 I hold no brief for civilization, which may as well die 
 out if it cannot justify its existence, but it seems a 
 remarkable paradox that it should forge weapons to be 
 used against itself. 
 
 FINIS 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbaside Khalifs, 1 1 . 
 Abd esh-Shems, 3, 4, 5. 
 Abd ul-Hamid, 18, 199. 
 Abraha, 9. 
 
 Abyssinian invasion, 9, 30. 
 Aden, 13, 195; government, i, 
 195, 206 ; hinterland, i, 6, 
 
 I3» 195- . 
 Administration, 163. 
 Aelius Gallus, 7, 8. 
 Agha Khan — the, 200 and note. 
 Ahmed Faizi Pasha, 15, d"], 68. 
 Ahmed Rusti, 133^/ seq. 
 Alaf— the brook, 70, 78, 106. 
 Alcohol, 80. 
 All's relations with Yamen, 10, 
 
 II. 
 Ambah, 44. 
 Amiri, 196. 
 Am-Amma Mount, i. 
 Amran, 40. 
 Ans, 7, 64. 
 Arabian lost tribes, 2. 
 Arabic — origin of, 3. 
 Architecture, 70, 71. 
 Arms-traffic — the,82,88,97, 139, 
 
 176, 204, 207 et seq. 
 Arnaud, 106. 
 Aryat, 9. 
 Asir, 13, 17, 196. 
 Asiri, 14, 15, 28, 29, 33, 121. 
 Astronomy, 109 et seq. 
 Aswad Mount, 67, jj. 
 Attara, 51, 52. 
 
 Aulaki, 5. 
 Ayesha, 11. 
 
 Baboon, 97. 
 
 Bajil, 41. 
 
 Bal-Haf, 4. 
 
 Bedouins, 31, 138 et seq. 
 
 Bees, 44. 
 
 Beh fort, 53, 54, 56, 64. 
 
 Beha, 42. 
 
 Behan al-Gezab, 4, 32. 
 
 Beit al-Fakih, 23, 119. 
 
 Benzoni, 186. 
 
 Bilkis, 5. 
 
 Bir al-Azab, 69, 73, 74. 
 
 Bird-life at Hodeida, 84 ; in the 
 Tihama, 85 ; among the foot- 
 hills, 85, 86 ; in the highlands, 
 87 etseq. 
 
 Bird of Paradise fly-catcher, 86, 
 
 87. 
 
 Boan, 12, 65. 
 
 Bura Mount, 42, 48. 
 
 Burchhardt, 186. 
 
 Caaba, 5. 
 
 Carriages, 72. 
 
 Cereals, 108, 109. 
 
 Chaplains — Turkish regimental, 
 
 61, 168. 
 Chikore, 62, 83, 88. 
 Christianity, 8 et seq., 148. 
 Cobra, 49, 95. 
 Coffee, 49, 1 10 et seq., 114 et seq. 
 
210 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Commercial depression, 1 1 8. 
 Communications, 26, 27, 164. 
 Conies, 120, 128. 
 Cotton, 1 13. 
 Country-men, 30, 31. 
 Crane — hammer-head, 46. 
 Cryptolopha umbrovirens yemen- 
 
 ensisj 91. 
 Currency, 130 et seq. 
 Customs, 131. 
 
 DawSsir valley, 21, 148, 149. 
 
 Deflers, 186. 
 
 Dhamar, 25. 
 
 Dheranik, 23, 29. 
 
 Dhu Nowas, 8, 9. 
 
 Diet of natives, iii, 136, 139, 
 
 140,141. 
 Domestic utensils, 71, 139, 145. 
 Dthala, 25. 
 
 Eagle — birds-nesting, 46 ; golden, 
 95 ; imperial, 95. 
 
 East — people of the, 32. 
 
 Eber, 2. 
 
 Education in Yamen, 73, 205. 
 
 Egyptian conquest, 5 ; fleet takes 
 Yamen ports, 1 2 ; occupation 
 of Yamen coast and Massowa, 
 
 13, H. 
 
 Empty Quarter, see Great Red 
 
 Desert. 
 Ethiopian invasion, 9. 
 European residents, 192, 193 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Farsan Islands, 17, 125. 
 Fisher- folk, 136. 
 Forskal, 113. 
 
 Gate of the Mountains — the, 47, 
 48. 
 
 Gendarmes — Arab, 45, 50, 70 ; 
 their duties, 58, 167; organi- 
 sation and pay, 167 et seq. ; 
 training of, 171 et seq.\ their 
 present status, 1 74 et seq. 
 
 Geography, 20, 21. 
 
 Glaser, 148. 
 
 Great Red Desert, 3» 30j 3»» 3^, 
 
 37» 148. 
 Greeks, 58, 184, 192. 
 Guinea fowl, 46, 83, 88. 
 
 Haddah Mount, 67. 
 
 Hadar fort, 53, 54, 56, 64. 
 
 Hadhur Mount, 64. 
 
 Hadramaut, 3, 5, 6. 
 
 Hajeilah, 43, 46, 47, 50. 
 
 Hajrah, 52. 
 
 Hamyar, 4, 6 ; Christian mission 
 
 to, 8 ; Seif, prince of, 10. 
 Hamyarite kingdom, 3, 5, 8 et seq. 
 Handicrafts, 78, 79, 123, 145. 
 Harbour works, 126, 127. 
 Harib — sharif of, 32. 
 Harraz (coffee district round 
 
 Menakha), 112. 
 Harriers, 85, 95. 
 Harris, 80, 186. 
 Hashidi, 21, 40, 163. 
 Hatim, Sultan of Yam, 1 2 
 Haushabi, 196. 
 Hawks, 95. 
 Heber, 2. 
 Hegur, 30. 
 Heima (coffee district, N.E. of 
 
 Harraz), 113. 
 Hejjan wadi, 43, 45, 47, 48, 51. 
 Hides — trade in, 120, 123. 
 Highlands — bird-life in the, 87 
 
 et seq.] agriculture in the, 102 
 
 et seq.', native life in the, 143 
 
 et seq. ; homes of the, 1 44 et seq. 
 Hodeida, 14, 119 et seq., 135 ^/ 
 
 seq., 192. 
 Howeib wadi, 49. 
 Hud, 2. 
 Hukoomah, 45. 
 Hyksos, 2, 4. 
 
 Ibb, 25. 
 
 Idrisi, 16, 17, 22, 23, 35, 36, 
 40, 162, 196. 
 
INDEX 
 
 211 
 
 Idz, 59. 
 
 Imam — the, 1 6 ; Arab distrust 
 of, 17 ; an account of, 37 ; 
 entente with, 16, 40, 78, 81, 
 i34» i55» 158, i59» 203 ; his 
 control of the Islamic code, 
 16, 155, 159; his influence, 
 16, 81, 159; and status, 155 
 et seq.'y supported by Ottoman 
 troops, 38, 40, 82. 
 
 Imams — former, 12, 13, 14, 186, 
 203, 204. 
 
 Imports, 119. 
 
 Infant life, 151. 
 
 Inland revenue, 131 et seq., 
 150. 
 
 Invocations for rain, 105, 144. 
 
 Ishmaelite Arabs, 27, 28. 
 
 Islamic code — restoration of, 16, 
 80 ; present unpopularity of, 
 38* 39» i34» 160, 161. 
 
 Ismail Malek — tradition of, 25. 
 
 Italian blockade, 17, 116. 
 
 Izzet Pasha, 16. 
 
 Jauf, 2, 3, 4, 6. 
 
 Jerbille, 96. 
 
 Jerboa, 85. 
 
 Jews, 30, 31, 147 ; of Menakha, 
 58 ; at Sanaa, 39, 74, 77, 79, 
 80 ; local Moslem feeling to- 
 ward, 33, 147. 
 
 Joctan or Kahtan, 2, 3. 
 
 Joctanic Arabs, 27, 28. 
 
 Kahlan, 4. 
 
 Kahtan, see Joctan. 
 
 Karmatian heresy, ii, 35. 
 
 Kama, 2, 7. 
 
 KSt (hatha edulis\ 46, 104, 113, 
 
 152 ^/ seq. 
 Kataba, 40. 
 
 Khalif — the office of, 199. 
 Khamir (capital of the Imam), 
 
 38, 156, 157, 158. 
 Kharid wadi, 7, 21, 70, 72. 
 Kharifi wadi, 65. 
 
 Laemmergeier — the, 93 et seq, 
 Lahab Mount, 45, 46, 49. 
 Lizards — blue, 95. 
 Locusts, 63. 
 
 Loheia, 26 ; former revenue of, 
 119. 
 
 Maan, 3, 4, 5. 
 
 Madhig, 3, 4, 7. 
 
 Mareb, 4, 32, 106, 148. 
 
 Maritime hills, 30, loi, 108,109, 
 142. 
 
 Masar — Mount, 43, 48, 49 ; 
 fort, 43, 50. 
 
 Massowa — Egyptian occupation 
 of, 13, 14 ; used as naval base 
 by Italians, 17, 
 
 Mecca — Abyssinian expedition 
 against, 9. 
 
 Mefhak, 60. 
 
 Menakha — administration, 58 ; 
 attacked by rebels, 54 ; birds 
 of, 88 ^/ seq.'y climate of, 108 ; 
 cultivation at, 53; forts, 52, 
 54, 56; garrison, 58; gover- 
 nor of, 83, 188, 189 ; hotel, 
 57; kadi of, 52, 162 ; suburb 
 of> 53 ; supplies and water at, 
 
 56; 57. 
 Menial classes, 30. 
 Merchants, 29, 135 ; attitude of, 
 
 135 ; difficulties of, 121, 123, 
 
 131, 160, 193; methods of, 
 
 122^/ seq. 
 Metna, dd. 
 Millipede — the, 96. 
 Minar Mount and caracol (or 
 
 fortified post), 64. 
 Minean kingdom, 2, 3. 
 Minerals, 125. 
 Missionaries, 192. 
 Moawiya — governor of Yamen, 
 
 1 1 ; town of, 40. 
 Mohamed Ali Pasha, 13. 
 Mohamed's policy in Yamen, 10, 
 
 II. 
 Mokha, 24, 119. 
 
212 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Moslem opinion of Christians, 
 
 33» H9» 150. 
 Mountaineers, 30, 34, 35, 143. 
 Musagid, 67. 
 
 Native diet, iii, 136, 139, 140, 
 
 141. 
 Naturalist — difficulties of the, 97, 
 
 98, 99, 184, 187, 191. 
 Nebi Shaib Mount, 64, 65. 
 Negus, 9. 
 Nejd, 148, 149, 198 ; Emir of, 
 
 197 et seq.y 206 ; his conquest 
 
 of al-Hassa, 197 ; Wahabi 
 
 movement in, 149. 
 Nejran, 7, 148 ; Christianity in, 
 
 8, 148 ; Said, bishop of, 10 ; 
 
 wadi, 21. 
 Nejrani sway in Yamen, 51, note. 
 Niebuhr, 13, 109. 
 Nukum — Mount,67,77; fort,69. 
 
 Obal, 43. 
 
 Oenanthe yemenenstSj 92. 
 
 Officialdom, 18, 19, 84, 132, 
 
 144. 
 Ommeiyad Khalifs, 11. 
 Ozal — ancient town of, 70. 
 
 Pan-Islamism, 199 et seq.y 204. 
 
 Parasitic vermin, 62, 67, 76. 
 
 Parisoma buryi, 91. 
 
 Patriotism, 149. 
 
 Peregrine, 49. 
 
 Persian — expedition, 10 ; rule in 
 
 Yamen, 10. 
 Pigeon — green, 87 ; rock, 89. 
 Plateau — the central, 64. 
 Police, 190, 192. 
 Poliospiza menachensis, 91. 
 Porters, 138. 
 
 Portuguese capture Aden, 13. 
 Postal service, 57, 166. 
 Princes of Yamen, 12. 
 Pseudacanthus yemenensis, 90. 
 Public Works, 126 et seg.^ 205. 
 Punt — land of, 5. 
 
 Railway scheme, 127 ^/ seq. 
 
 Ras al-Katib — proposed harbour 
 
 at, 127. 
 Rasoulides, 12. 
 Raya, 30. 
 
 Reimah Mount, 24. 
 Religious thought, 34. 
 Rhyncostruthus pericwaliy 90. 
 Risings — native, 15, 22, 25, 50, 
 
 54, 55, 66, 81. 
 Roda, 72, 74, 77. 
 Roman invasion, 6 et seq. 
 Ruba al- Khali, see Great Red 
 
 Desert. 
 
 Saba, 4, 6 ; great dam of, 4, 6, 
 106. 
 
 Sabean kingdom, 3 ; religion, 4. 
 
 Safaan Mount, 43, 48. 
 
 Saladin, 12. 
 
 Salami pass, 65. 
 
 Sanaa, 12, 15, 16, 50, 54, 60, 
 67, and Chap. IV. 
 
 Sardid wadi, 21, 64. 
 
 Sesame, 109, 136. 
 
 Shafei sect, 33. 
 
 Sharif — of Behan, 32 ; of Harib, 
 32 ; of Mareb, 32. 
 
 Sheba — see Saba; queen of, 5. 
 
 Shebt— valley of, 53, 54. 
 
 Sheikh Said, 17, 27. 
 
 Shiah, 12, 32, 200. 
 
 Shibam — fort, 52, 56; Mount, 
 43. 45» 48, 53» 54; moun- 
 taineers of, 1 2 ; their loyalty 
 to Turks, 5 5 . 
 
 Shikar, 62, 78, 88, 89, 97. 
 
 Siham wadi, 21, 60, 64. 
 
 Skins — trade in, 120, 123. 
 
 Slingers, on Sanaa plain, 78, 98. 
 
 Sok al-Khamis, 59, 61 et seq. 
 
 Sowari, or mounted gendarmerie, 
 167. 
 
 Stevedores, 137 et seq. 
 
 Stonechat — -the, 91. 
 
 Storms, 44, 57, 63, 64, 72, 105. 
 
 Strabo, 8. 
 
INDEX 
 
 213 
 
 Subaihi, 27, 195. 
 
 Sulaihi, 12. 
 
 Sunni, 12, 32, 33, 34, 82. 
 
 Surgery, 151. 
 
 Survey by French engineers, 21, 
 
 127. 
 Syllaeus, 7, 8. 
 
 Taiz, 24, 25 ; local legend of, 
 23. 
 
 Tannan, 41. 
 
 Telegraph service, 57, 164 et seq. 
 
 Thinam Pasha post, 66. 
 
 Thrush — a new, 91. 
 
 Tihama — the, 20 ; agriculture in 
 the, ICO, 108, 113; climate of 
 the, 107 ; lawlessness of the, 
 35» 40, 43 ; ^ife in the, 138 
 et seq. ; types, 29. 
 
 Tobacco, 115. 
 
 Tobba, 6. 
 
 Tribal governments, 150, 203, 
 206. 
 
 Tumbak (Arabian tobacco), 138. 
 
 Turco-Italian war, 17. 
 
 Turks — retake Aden, 1 3 ; evacu- 
 ate Yamen, 13 ; re-occupy 
 Yamen, 14. 
 
 Turkish army in Yamen, 47, 176 
 et seq., 179 ; deserters, 25 ; 
 judicial code abolished, 16, 38; 
 ladies, 182^//^^.; officers, 180 
 
 et seq, ; official quarters at 
 Sanna, 69 ; officialdom, 18, 
 144, 167, 170, 175, 182, 184 
 et seq. ; rule in Yamen, 13, 17, 
 18, 26, 40, 148, 167 et seq., 
 204 ; and its difficulties, 35, 
 40, 131, 144, 146 et seq., 176. 
 
 Vali — the, 16, 73, 155, 163,188 
 et seq., and preface ; his official 
 manner, 190, 191 ; venality of 
 a former, 18. 
 
 Vilayet — boundaries of the, 20, 
 22. 
 
 Vultures, 92. 
 
 Yameni character, 149, 150 etseq» 
 Yerim, 25. 
 Yeshbum, 4. 
 
 Wahabi movement, 13, 35, 149. 
 
 Wasil, 48, 49 ; chief of, 50 ; 
 people of, 50 ; water storage, 
 66, 105, 107 ; well-irrigation, 
 75, 76 ; white ants, 44. 
 
 Wavell, 186. 
 
 Zabid, 24 ; former revenue of, 
 119 ; dyeing industry of, 113, 
 
 123. 
 
 Zaptieh, see Gendarmes. 
 Zeidi sect, 32, 33, 34, 82. 
 
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