CHAPTER VII.

DHAMAR TO SANAA.

Although the city of Dhamar boasts of a considerable antiquity, it displays none of the more remarkable points of the interest of age, and except that a large portion of the place is in bad repair, it might have been built but a few years ago. There are no walls to the city, and necessarily no gates. The absence of this has led the inhabitants to extend the town in many directions, with the result that it occupies a much larger space than would be necessary for the population it contains. This, however, has not prevented the streets from occupying the narrow limits the Oriental loves to give to the passer-by, and in the bazaars especially only two or three people could possibly walk abreast.

Ibn Khaldun, in his geography of the Yemen, makes no mention of Dhamar, but this can scarcely be looked upon as meaning that the town did not exist in his day—in fact, it is more probable that his failing to notice the place was due to an omission, as the neighbouring fortress of Hirran is also left without mention, though from the remains existing there it is very probable that it was a site and fortress of no little importance in far earlier times than that of the native geographer; and El-Janadi, in his account of “The Karmathians,” speaks of the capture of Hirran by Ibn Fadl about the year 293 A.H., and as the fall of the fortress was only one item of the leaders successful march to Sanaa, it is very probable that the event was considered one of no little importance. Several of the other early Arab historians make direct mention of Dhamar itself.

[Illustration: ROUTE MAP—DHAMAR TO SANAA

BY W. B. HARRIS

W. & A. K. Johnston. Edinburgh & London.]

A few hours after my arrival in the city I sauntered out with Saïd to the bazaars, to purchase a few little luxuries in the way of food and fruit, for so far we had lived during our journey upon the bare necessities of life. Although at times a considerable crowd thronged us, we found the people extremely polite, and what little inconvenience we were put to was owing entirely to the curiosity of the inhabitants. The bazaars boast but little beyond their natural picturesqueness, which in many places is most noticeable. The shops are the usual little one-storeyed box-like dens of the Eastern world, and the trades are divided up into separate streets and quarters. Here, as elsewhere, the Jews have an entirely separate town, situated to the east of the city, from which it is divided by a large open space. Near this great square is the principal mosque of the town, a walled enclosure, with three large gates facing the city, and a handsome, though damaged, minaret. In one respect, however, it is in better order than that of another of the mosques, for it still maintains its upright position, whereas the other is sadly out of the perpendicular, owing to its having been struck by a cannon-ball. A third mosque of considerable size is within the bazaars, but none of them possess much claim to architectural beauty, being built in the simple and undecorative Arab style, native cement and mud-bricks being the principal materials used in their construction. Prettier, certainly, are one or two of the Shereefian tombs, with their white domes and arcades of arches. One of these, lying on the extreme south of the city, near where we had entered the town, is realty charming, with a small garden in front of it and a huge shady tree for the pilgrims to the sanctuary to rest under. Near here, but standing separate from the town, we saw the ruins of the Turkish barracks, which had been destroyed by the Arabs on their capture of Dhamar from the Turks a few months before.

At sunset we returned to Saïd’s house to spend the evening in a family party, the members of which varied between the ages of seventy or eighty and grimy babies of a few months old. However, it was an insight into Arab life, and was rendered by no means unamusing by Saïd’s wonderful lies about Aden, his earthly paradise. He fairly took the breath away from his relations with the startling untruths he told, but I scarcely believe that they gave him credence; and probably had he kept to the strict truth, and only told about the forts and troops and good government there, they would equally have taken it for exaggeration. Perhaps after all he pursued the best course, and possibly by knocking off some ninety-nine per cent for the native love of story-telling, they arrived at about the right result.

We were up with the sunrise, and enjoyed the luxuries of a Turkish bath. Fortunately the windows to admit the light were very small, otherwise we should, I think, have seen much that was not tempting; but one forgot any possible disadvantages in the luxury of soap and hot water. From the “hummum” we proceeded to a _café_ in the principal square, and perching ourselves cross-legged under an awning in front of the coffee-shop, joined in the swim of conversation over “hubble-bubble” pipes. A handful of troops were drilling before us in the square, poor dishevelled creatures, many without even a boot on their feet. There were perhaps a hundred and fifty in all, and I was told that of the four hundred who had been sent to garrison the place after Ahmed Feizi Pasha’s successful relief of Sanaa two or three months before, these were all that remained, sickness having carried off the rest—starvation probably. The officers seemed as disheartened as the men, and appeared to lack all interest in the drill. Many of the soldiers were smoking cigarettes, but no one seemed to take any notice of it; and after an hour or so the soldiers wandered off in different directions, without apparently being dismissed. It was sad to see their poor wan faces, thinned and paled with sickness and hunger.

Although crowds now and again collected round me, it was surprising how polite every class of native was to me, and I do not once remember, during all the time I was in the Yemen, except on one or two occasions from the guards of my prison at Sanaa, a word of abuse. The Yemenis are the aristocracy of Islam. Wild in appearance, their manners are perfect, and though their nature now and again leads them to violence, they are as a rule gentle and hospitable, and as my travels proceeded, the more I saw of them, especially the inhabitants of the mountains and the plateau, the more I liked them. Nor did I find any difference with the townspeople, and many a kind word of welcome was said to me now and again.

Much as I wanted to push on to Sanaa, I had promised Saïd to stay three days at his house at Dhamar, and to tell the truth, I was by no means sorry of a pretext to rest in such comfortable quarters. Many a visit I received there. I think that there could not have been a single Turkish official in the town who did not at some time or another come and see me, and although they seemed always to be suspicious as to the objects of my travels, they were charmingly polite. Nor were the Turks my only visitors, for many an Arab merchant in long robes of silk came and spent an hour or so over coffee and tobacco, and on one occasion I was honoured by the visit of a local Shereef, first cousin to Ahmed ed-Din, leader of the late rebellion, but who, wisely, had not taken part on either side, preferring before entering into the affair to see who was going to win. Saïd’s people thought a great deal of the visit of this Shereef, and personally I found him charming. He was a man of perhaps some thirty years of age, extremely handsome and beautifully dressed. He seemed well educated, and had travelled a little, and the hour he spent with me I shall always remember with pleasure.

But of all the insights that I obtained into Arab life during my time in the Yemen, the most interesting was the dinner-party given by Saïd in my honour. About seven o’clock our guests commenced to arrive—and what guests! The first to come were half-a-dozen Arab tribesmen, with long wavy black hair and a scarcity of clothing—in fact, their entire costume consisted of a turban and a dark loin-cloth, from the latter of which appeared the handles of their silver daggers. Strange lithe beautiful creatures they were, with limbs that would have been worth a mint of money to an artist to paint from. A couple of merchants followed a few minutes later, their servants carrying their silver hookahs. Natives of the same country, it is extraordinary what a difference is apparent between the townspeople and the tribesmen; and our merchant friends were fat and heavy, boasting little of the grace of their wilder countrymen, and in place of the scanty clothing, wrapped in long silk garments of gaudy hues, and wearing white turbans on their heads. More of the tribesmen followed, each as he entered placing his long spear against the walls in the corners of the room, till the place wore quite the appearance of an armoury. Then came the musicians, natives of the Hadramaut, wilder and longer-haired than the Yemenis present, and bearing, in place of spears, strange richly painted instruments. More and more guests, until our room, big as it was, was filled.

What a night it was! One of those nights in a lifetime which can never be forgotten. The cool dim light of the swinging alabaster lamps, the flashing spears heaped together in the corners, the wonderful dark crowd of swarthy men, the steam of the brewing coffee issuing from strange jars, the rich dark carpets and gaudy cushions, the murmur and the blue curling smoke of the pipes—ay, a dinner-party in Dhamar is worth seeing! And then the soft music and singing of the musicians, whose tall beautiful figures moved slowly here and there as they played strange melodies! It seemed like some dream:—no wild African feast, merely the echo of the long-past glories of Arabia!

Then they brought us great dishes heaped with food, for the most part our old friend the antiquated goat, and we dipped our fingers into copper bowls of rose-water and ate together. Then coffee and pipes, and the bitter herb _kat_, and music and dancing. And the cool night air blew in through the windows and sent the filmy smoke circling here and there, and now and again ruffled the raven locks of one or other of our guests, who lay recumbent and silent, expressionless and beautiful, listening to the tales of love that our musicians, with strange monotonous dancing, sang to the strains of their painted guitars. We were back again in the days of Haroun el-Rashid, and all the hurry and scurry of modern life seemed lost and gone.

At length I brought out my electric machine, and, the guests joining hands, felt, for the first time in their lives, a shock. They smiled, and asked for more. Then one was brave enough to hold the handles by himself. I turned it on full, and fairly whizzed the wheels round. With a scream the man jumped into the air, and then apologised. Silently, one by one, our guests arose, and shaking me by the hand with the compliments the Arab knows so well how to bestow, bade me good-night. Then, taking their spears in their hands, they walked slowly to the door, until fairly outside, when they flew down the stairs at a pace that was positively dangerous, and from the window I could see them tearing down the street at a break-neck run. Such was the effect of a small electric machine at a Dhamar dinner-party. The following morning we paid a visit to the tombs of the family of a Turkish general, Ahmed Rushti Pasha, who had himself fallen near Lohaya in the beginning of the rebellion. The enclosed garden, with its mosque and tombs, tells of a sad story, for the family of Ahmed Rushti were assassinated by their house being blown up with gunpowder some few years since. However, as the story is to be found in the chapter on the Yemen rebellion, I shall not refer to it more particularly here. The tombs are situated without the city, on the west side. An acre or two of land are enclosed with high walls, in which stands a summer-house, where the bereaved Pasha was wont to come and sit; but this, like the tombs themselves, was sacked by the Arabs during the rebellion, and little but the outside walls and the graves remain to-day. Passing back through the town we visited the Jews’ quarter, which, unlike the Moslem city, is walled, the gates being locked every night from the outside. Miserable squalor and dirt existed on all sides, although the Jews themselves seemed well to do, and their houses airy and large. They are built almost entirely of mud-bricks, plastered inside and out. This material forms a hard surface, and seems to be very durable.

[Illustration: _Hirran._]

Our last day was spent in visiting the old fortress of Hirran, lying a mile or two to the north of Dhamar; and well worth the trouble and heat I found the expedition, for Hirran boasts many antiquities. Passing through the north quarter of Dhamar, one emerges into the dusty plateau, across which the road continues for a couple of miles or so. Hirran is clearly visible from Dhamar itself, the dark rocky hill standing out black against the light soil. One reaches the place near the south-west point of the jagged rock, where are some old tanks sunk in the solid stone, and of very considerable size. Keeping still to the west side of the hill, we shortly reached the scene of an old cemetery, the flat rock being honeycombed with graves. These were often sunk to the depth of twenty feet and more, and generally measured some seven feet in length, and two to three in breadth, but one or two were circular. They did not point in any direction, but lay scattered about the little elevated rocky flat in which they were sunk, some east and west, some north and south. Besides the empty ones, there were a great many visible which had apparently escaped the hands of man, nor could I find out why or when those that had been dug out had been spoiled. An old goatherd, the sole inhabitant of Hirran, told me that he had always remembered them thus, and during his lifetime had never seen any one digging in the graves, though lately some of the larger cave-tombs further up the rock had been searched for treasure, but only a few coins and beads, he said, had been found with the bones.

[Illustration: _Cave-Tombs, Hirran._]

The hill of Hirran is double-peaked, each point rising to some hundreds of feet above the level of the surrounding plain. These peaks lie almost due north and south, the rock taking a curving form between them, so that the whole forms a sort of crescent, which was formerly defended by a huge wall, still remaining, joining the lower slopes of the two extremities on the eastern side.

Like the graveyard, the cave-tombs are situated on the west side of the hill, at a spot where the steep precipice, which rises to the summit, is joined by the lower boulder-strewn slopes. Although we entered all of the caves that are to-day open, there were signs of numerous others which the collection of falling material from the precipice had so blocked that considerable digging would be necessary to procure an entrance.

The first cave-tomb which I visited consisted of a circular chamber with a domed roof; the room measured some twelve feet in diameter, and the highest point of the roof was five feet eight inches from the floor. To the left of the entrance was an alcove three feet deep, three high, and four in length. The door was three feet wide and over five feet in height, but the walls were lower in the chamber.

[Illustration: _Ground plan of Tomb III._]

A little higher up the side of the precipice we were able to gain entrance to a second cave, which I call Cave II. This excavation formed two oval chambers, partly divided from one another by a buttress running out from the solid rock. On both sides of this partition, and on the main walls facing it, were ledges cut in the rock three feet above the ground; in the dust of one of which I found a few bones and an engraved bead.

[Illustration: _Interior of Tomb III., Hait Hirran._]

Cave No. III. was perhaps the most important I visited, and showed signs of more careful excavation than any of the others. A doorway led one into a circular chamber, off which to right and left two small rooms opened out. This circular entrance-hall led, opposite the door, into a still larger chamber, into which in turn opened two alcoves and a room, all of them four-sided. On the left and immediately in front the doors were raised above the ground and nearly square, the floor of the alcoves being level with the lower part of the openings. On the right, however, was a chamber level with the floor, entered through an archway. The two alcoves showed evident signs of having at one time been closed up, for in the lintels of rock were visible holes which may either have held a door or been used for joists to strengthen any masonry which may have been arranged to fill up the opening.

[Illustration: _Entrance to Tomb IV., Hait Hirran._]

Cave IV., again, to the south of the others, presented quite a new feature, the face of the precipice being cut to form a large square chamber, in the back wall of which a doorway opened into the tomb. Below this window, a foot or two above the ground, ran a series of five holes drilled a short way into the rock, and which seems at some time to have held the supports of a platform or seat. Apparently the whole outer chamber was lined with plaster, and may have been once separated from the face of the precipice by masonry. The window or aperture opening into the tomb was situated three feet from the ground, and was two and a half feet in height and two feet three inches in breadth. The interior consisted of an alcove six feet in length, two feet wide, and three in height. Here, as in Cave No. III., I found bones amongst the accumulation of dust, but nothing else.

The fifth cave consisted of one large room, some sixteen feet by eight, at each end of which were ledges in the rock eight feet long by eighteen inches wide. The door leading into this cave-tomb was three feet six inches wide, and the roof inside five feet in height. The rock here was strewn with small chips of rock, and I found no signs of bones.

All these caves showed signs of having been opened, and my old guide the goatherd said that such was the case. Asking him how Moslems reconciled themselves to breaking open tombs, he replied that they were the tombs of “unbelievers,” and that had they been Mahammedan graves no one would have dared to have touched them. This he exemplified to me by pointing out some tombs on the summit of the rock, in which Moslems are supposed to be buried, and it was quite apparent they had been left untouched.

Following the hill to its southernmost extremity, I climbed by a difficult ascent to a tank cut in the rock where water was formerly collected. To reach this spot, so difficult and slippery was the path, I had to go barefooted, a by no means pleasant task, as the stones were so hot as to blister my feet. Descending again, we proceeded to the site of the former “fortress,” formed by the two eastern points of the hill being joined by a great wall. This, however, showed signs of early Arab work, being built of the peculiar cement which is typical of Arab construction. This wall is of enormous height and width, being some hundred and fifty yards long and twenty feet high, and one could drive a carriage and pair anywhere on its summit. The only one dating from Arab times that I have seen to equal it in size is the great wall attributed to Mulai Ismail at Mequinez in Morocco. Within the wall is a deep well, the upper portion of which is built, the lower part sunk into the solid rock. Above the northern end of the great wall are a series of three tanks, reached by a roughly cut stairway. Still ascending, one arrives at the summit, where are the five Moslem tombs I alluded to, enclosed in low stone walls, and the remains of much old building, of which it is difficult to gather any distinct idea, to such a state of ruin has it fallen. At all events, the enormous amount of broken pottery, some of gorgeous colour and fine design, speaks to the size of the place.

From the summit one gains a fine view of the surrounding country,—a great flat plain broken by ridges of dark volcanic rock, like that on which we were standing, until in the far east a tall range of mountains appeared on the horizon. Below us to the south lay Dhamar, almost as yellow as the plain itself, for there is but little green in its neighbourhood, although it is said that in the rainy season the whole country entirely changes its aspect. To the east of Hirran, and immediately below it, lie the remains of an old city, the loose stone walls of the houses still standing to the height of a few feet above the ground. Altogether the place must have been one of great importance in early times, and I regretted much that I was unable in my hasty visit to find any inscriptions. However, I was able to take the notes given above before a mounted Turkish soldier appeared on the scene, sent by the Kaimakam to watch my movements, and who begged me politely to return. Fearing that any suspicion on the part of the Governor toward myself might prevent my continuing my journey to Sanaa, I stated my readiness to comply with his request, and bidding adieu to the old goatherd, once more mounted my mule and returned to the town.

I was able to learn but little about Hirran in Dhamar, or in fact anywhere, except that it was once the centre of a great trade, a sort of caravanserai for the goods of Sanaa and the north, the kingdom of Saba or Sheba, and Aden. This is the only early tradition the natives seem to have concerning its former wealth and its being a centre of trade in very early times, and this tradition has led me to a conjecture—it is nothing more—that Hirran may be the site of the Haran of the Old Testament. The places mentioned in the same verse are, I believe, all in Southern Arabia, and have all been recognised, Haran alone remaining undiscovered. It is more than possible, judging from the similarity of names and the report of its former importance in trade, that they may be one and the same place.[40]

During the afternoon I paid a farewell visit to the Kaimakam, which was returned an hour later, when he promised me a couple of soldiers to see me safely to Sanaa.

The following morning we left Dhamar. There was, of course, a great leave-taking of Saïd, and just as they had done on our arrival, a long string of relations, illustrating all the seven ages of man, with many of the intermediary gaps filled in, streamed out of the house to bid him farewell. Good simple people they were, though the younger members of the family, when away from their parents’ eyes, were importunate in their demands for _bakshish_. The road led us to the west of Hirran, close to the large tanks I mentioned as having seen on my ride to that place, and then on over the dreary plain. Leaving the large-walled village of Jaffa to our left for a time, we saw but little signs of life.

The early morning effect upon the flat plateau was one of great beauty, in spite of its dry arid appearance. A dull warm haze hung over the more distant desert, for such it really was at this period of the year, through which the far-away mountains shimmered in the heat, turquoise-blue in colour. As we proceeded the cultivated land became very sparse, the soil for the most part consisting of sand and stones, until, passing through a narrow gorge of rock, we entered a great circular plain enclosed by low rocky hills on all sides, no doubt the crater of some long-extinct volcano. From this point one catches a glimpse of Jibel Doran, a range of mountains of great elevation, which terminate in a strange sugar-loaf peak, unequalled in curious form by any I have seen elsewhere in the world, with the exception perhaps of “The Needle of Heaven” in the I-chang gorge of the Yangtze-Kiang, some eleven hundred miles up that river.

[Illustration: JIBEL DORAN—EARLY MORNING.]

At a small _café_—half a cave, and half built of rough stones—we spent an hour or two during the hottest part of the day. Quite a number of men and camels had arrived before us, and in spite of the fact that scarcely a blade of anything green was to be seen, the surroundings were by no means unpicturesque. Joining in with the caravan-men, a cool corner was found for me in the cave, and our mid-day rest passed quickly and pleasantly enough. Far above us, perched on the summit of a hill, was the large village of Athaik, its tall towers dominating the surrounding plain and giving the place the appearance of some old feudal castle. A descent led us to a slightly lower portion of the plain. The soil here was richer, but I noticed that there was no cultivation, a fact that was explained to me to be owing to the rebellion, which had deterred any investment in crops that were bound to fall a prey either to the Turks or independent robbers. To our left we could see the walled town of Resaaba, but wishing to push on to Sanaa, and as it did not lie in our road, I did not visit it. There is but little of interest, I was told, to be seen within its walls. It is, in fact, rather a very large village than a town, and bears all the characteristics of the villages of the Yemen plateau. Again, another reason deterred me from penetrating there; that I felt it advisable to give as wide a berth as possible to any places where I might be likely to run up against Turks and Turkish authorities. To have so nearly reached Sanaa, and then be turned back, would indeed have been a disappointment.

Several times along the road we passed the deep rock-cut tanks that even to-day form the water-supply of the passing caravans. One that we stopped to drink at as evening was approaching bore rough designs of men on horseback, and inscriptions in the Himyaric language cut in the plaster that lined the rock walls. Like so many of these tanks, a flight of steps led to the water’s edge, at the summit of which was a smaller pool, to be filled by hand for the beasts of burden to drink from, and, like the main reservoir, circular in form. The mountains we had seen all the afternoon far ahead of us were now growing nearer, and as evening drew on we found ourselves in a large open valley, semicircular in form, and closed at the far end by steep broken crags. The soil here was well cultivated, though, as we were still nearly nine thousand feet above the sea-level, the young crops had not yet begun to show, and the place looked dreary and burnt up. That the soil must repay cultivation is evident from the great number of wells distributed over the country. At many of these, men, women, and camels were engaged in drawing water. A couple of tree-trunks form uprights to a beam laid across their tops, over which the rope that supports the skins in which the water is raised passes. At the other end of the rope, men, women, or some beast of burden is harnessed. Owing to the great depth of these wells, and the size of the skins used as buckets, the weight to be raised is very great, and the labour of raising it proportionately so. But the natives have discovered a means by which the work is lessened, while at the same time their irrigation is rendered more practicable—namely, by building the wells upon the summits of mounds. A long sloping path leads from the high mouth of the well to the level of the surrounding fields, so that the drawer, harnessed to the end of the rope, is assisted by the centre of gravity, instead of being dependent upon his, her, or its personal strength. This raising of the wells above the fields also renders easy the carrying of the water in little dikes to whatever spot it is needed. The skin, on reaching the well’s mouth, empties itself into a trough from which the water pours into the irrigating channels. The fact that these channels consist of only small ditches adds much to the toil and labour, as the thirsty soil sucks up a large quantity of the fluid before it reaches its destination. However, labour is cheap, and a man, so long as he possesses a donkey, a camel, or a wife to work his well, can sit and smoke and look on himself.

At length we drew up at the village khan of Maaber, our resting-place, and climbing a rough outside staircase, found ourselves in a clean whitewashed room, cool and airy, where our carpets were quickly spread and coffee on the boil. The people were very inquisitive, and at last I was obliged to give peremptory orders that no one was to be allowed to enter my room. But this did not seem to be of much avail, and eventually I posted a guard outside the door, armed with a long stick. The village is a poor enough place, built of mud-bricks, with a little stone masonry showing here and there. The people seemed poor and dirty, and there was little or nothing of interest to be seen. Very different are these villages of the plateau to the well-built and fortified towers of the country we had passed through to the south of Yerim, nor were the people of this part half so clean or genial or handsome as the wild mountaineers.

Early the next morning we were on our way again, the road continuing over the dusty plain. A mile or two from Maaber we witnessed some skirmishing between the Turkish troops and the hillmen of Jibel Anis, one of the last tribes to hold out, and one that probably will never surrender to the Turkish Government. The country inhabited by this tribe consists of wild inaccessible country, into which the Osmanli troops are powerless to penetrate. The battle we witnessed was not apparently a very bloody affair, for it consisted principally in a small field-battery of the Turks firing into a few hill villages, from which a desultory and ill-aimed fire was kept up by the Arabs. This was the first active sign we had as yet seen of the rebellion; for although Turkish garrisons were to be found in Dhamar and Yerim, their reconquest of these cities from the Arabs had been accomplished almost without bloodshed. For a time we stayed and watched the little battle, listening to the sharp cracking of the rifles and the louder tones of the field-guns, until, as it was apparent that the Turks had no idea of trying to climb to the villages or the Arabs of descending to the level, we continued our journey. The plain ends in an abrupt line of high rocky mountains, over which we could see our path twisting and turning in serpentine coils. Entering a narrow gorge, we passed close under the grandly situated village of Kariat en-Negil, its every rock crowned by stone towers—a striking and wild-looking place. Here it is that the old pilgrim-road from Aden and the Hadramaut probably joins the track I had travelled on. We had left the old road at Lahej, whence it continues _viâ_ Ibb, our route lying more to the east. I have mentioned elsewhere this great pilgrim-track, founded by Huseyn ibn Salaamah in the fifth century A.H., and there is no further need of description here. Suffice it to say that at every night’s _nzala_, or resting-place, was built a mosque, while tanks refreshed the weary with water by the way.

[Illustration: KHADAR.]

A tremendous climb takes one to the summit of the pass, where there is an old round tower, now used as a watch-house by the Turks. The path is extremely steep, and, though roughly paved, so slippery that all riding up was impossible, while the rarefied air made the climb by no means an easy or a pleasant one. The summit I found by observation to lie nine thousand one hundred feet above the sea-level, about eleven hundred feet above the city of Dhamar.

A steep descent and an hour’s ride along a broken valley brought us to the large village of Khadar, where we rested for an hour over pipes and coffee. The place is a picturesque one, though greatly lacking in vegetation. The upper portion of the village is situated on the summit of a precipitous hill, and is walled, while every available peak holds the usual tower-house. The few buildings that stand near the road are for the most part caravanserais and _cafés_. The inhabitants are almost entirely Jews, who, like certain tribes of their co-religionists that I have seen in the Atlas Mountains, are cultivators of the soil and agriculturists. A small mosque, the only whitewashed building in the place, shows, however, that there must be some Moslem inhabitants in Khadar.

A wild group were seated at the door of one of the _cafés_, Arabs and camels from Mareb, whence they were bringing salt. Our mutual curiosity in each other led to conversation, and I found them good fellows on the whole, though rougher in manners than the Yemenis I had as yet come in contact with.

Two hours after leaving Khadar we reached our night’s resting-place, Waalan, the best-built village we had as yet come across. The size and solidity of the houses was astonishing; and when, on being led up a staircase and along a wide passage into a beautifully clean room in a handsome khan, the change from the quarters we had as yet found on our journey in the other villages, almost took one’s breath away. Our chamber, which commanded a fine view of several surrounding villages through large windows opening down to the ground, was well whitewashed, the doors and window-shutters being handsomely carved of polished dark wood, and with a ceiling of the same material overhead. The change from what we had been accustomed to was a most pleasant one, and we soon made ourselves comfortable. A dear old lady, and a very tolerably clean one, waited upon us, and insisted on cooking our dinner, a task usually shared by Abdurrahman and Saïd—and very well she did it too.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM WAALAN.]

This appearance of cleanliness and civilisation was a sure sign that we were nearing the capital, and I turned in to rest that night with a feeling of satisfaction, for only a few hours’ ride lay between us and Sanaa.

Four hours of heat along the valley of the Beni Matar, and we reached the large village of Estaz, where we rested for an hour or two in a large but dirty _café_. There is certainly but little to see in the place, though Turkish soldiers were more common here than elsewhere, and the curiosity of their officers would not allow of my being left undisturbed even for the brief space of the hour or so we stayed there. They must needs come and call and ask all sorts of absurd questions. Estaz, however, boasts one superiority over much of the Yemen plateau, a river of running water that flows by many channels through gardens, the greenness of which was most pleasant after days of travelling over yellow plains.

Before mid-day we were off again, and turning a corner could see far away across the level ground, shimmering white and yellow in the steaming heat, the city of Sanaa.

With a thrill of satisfaction I urged my mule on to its quickest paces, and a couple of hours later found us entering the city by an old broken-down gateway, near which a company or two of troops were drilling. Signs of the fighting were common enough. Some of the little towers erected as forts by the Turks outside the walls were in ruins, and half an hour earlier we had passed all that remained of the village of Dar es-Salaam, the “house of peace”—ill-fitting name!—where the Arabs had made their last strong stand against their Turkish enemy, and which they only left when driven forth by the Turkish artillery playing upon the houses of the village. Little remains to-day but broken walls and tumble-down towers. In many places one could see exactly where the shot had hit, and one tower was drilled through, the torn-up flooring and rafters showing what havoc the ball had accomplished.

At length we were in Sanaa. The road had been a difficult and a dangerous one, but this was all forgotten now. In spite of warnings and repeated efforts to dissuade us from so rash an undertaking, we had been successful, and it was with the keenest satisfaction, though not without some doubts as to how I should be received, that I watched my little caravan enter the city.

Passing through a narrow street with high houses on either hand, we drew up at the door of a great caravanserai, a four-storeyed building of which the rooms all looked out on to balconies overhanging a large _patio_. The place was in wretched condition, and the ground-floor, which served as a stable for camels, horses, mules, and donkeys, looked as though it had never been cleaned out. Here I paid off my men, with the exception, of course, of Abdurrahman and Saïd. I had made a bargain with a caravan-man in Aden to send me through to Sanaa, and this bargain he had carried out in every particular, in spite of all manner of dangers and difficulties; and it was with much satisfaction that I paid the worthy fellows the remaining half of the sum agreed upon at Aden, and sent them on their way with more _bakshish_ than had probably ever been in their possession before. Our parting was almost a sad one: from the day they had joined me we had shared the same food and the same room at the khans, and though it was under three weeks that they had been with me, I felt as though I had known them ages, and shall always remember with pleasure the trustworthy way in which they saw me through the country, and how, weary as they must at times have been with the long marches, they maintained their tempers throughout, and were always ready to do me some little service, however far removed it might chance to be from the routine of their work.

A saunter through the bazaars brought us to the quarter in which the Government buildings are situated, and in a few minutes more I found myself in the residence of his Excellency Ahmed Feizi Pasha, Governor-General of the Yemen and Commander of the Seventh Army Corps. I was almost immediately ushered into the generals presence. He was seated on a divan at the end of a handsome room, surrounded by quite a number of his staff. His Excellency received me pleasantly, and after exchange of salaams, a chair being fetched for me, he began to ask me what had brought me there. I thereupon presented him with my passport, vizéd by the Turkish Consul-General in London, and made out for the “Ottoman Empire,” which had been issued to me by H.M. Foreign Office the day before I left London to visit the Yemen. Being unable to read English, Ahmed Feizi Pasha sent for an Armenian who spoke and read French, and the wording of my passport was explained to him. Suddenly his Excellency’s manner quite changed, and he became very red and irascible, asking all sorts of absurd questions, which he did not give me time to answer. First, I was not an Englishman at all; then I was an officer sent from Aden to map out the country, and assist the Arabs in the rebellion; until at last I almost became bewildered as to what I was, or rather what the Pasha imagined me to be. Abdurrahman, good Moslem that he is, was an Englishman in disguise. No Arab, the Pasha said, ever spoke Arabic with such a foreign accent; and as to Morocco there was no such country, and no such person as Mulai el-Hassan, its Sultan, for he knew well enough that all North Africa was under the French. At length he insisted on his saying the Mahammedan belief, to assure himself that he was in truth a co-religionist. Abdurrahman’s indignation was intense, especially as Saïd happened to be present; for with a true oriental love of exaggeration the Moor had been telling the Yemeni wonderful tales of the greatness and power of his country and its Sultan, and it pained him to find that the Turkish Pasha had never heard of either, and Saïd’s smile and look were anything but reassuring to his pride in his fatherland.

[Illustration: THE AUTHOR BEING EXAMINED AND HIS PASSPORT READ IN THE PRESENCE OF AHMED FEIZI PASHA, GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE YEMEN.]

At length, in a burst of anger, Ahmed Feizi called to a couple of officers, and his remarks being translated to me by the Armenian, I learned that I was to be kept in security for the present. A hand was laid on my shoulder, and I was gently led away, leaving the handsome old Pasha as scarlet as a tomato. In the large anteroom I was handed over to a guard of four soldiers, who conducted me through the streets to a guard-room, situated above the prison yard, where I was soon ensconced, the door banged and locked, and a sentry posted on the outside. My baggage, which I had left at the khan, was sent to me a little later. Meanwhile, Abdurrahman and Saïd were strictly cross-examined by the Governor-General, and as the account the first had to give of himself did not seem satisfactory, he quickly followed me to jail. That Saïd was a Yemeni there could be no doubt, but he suffered a like fate—I suppose for keeping such bad company.

I spent five days in prison at Sanaa. The room was clean, and I was decently treated, being only once roughly handled. Wishing to speak to an officer in the courtyard, I proceeded to leave my room, the door of which was kept open by day, when I was rudely pushed back by the sentry.

The first night I was allowed to sleep alone and in peace; but on the succeeding three, two non-commissioned officers shared the chamber, dirty things in uniforms, which wore the look of never having been taken off. However, they were good-hearted fellows, and both spoke Arabic well.

[Illustration: _The Author in prison at Sanaa._]

My meals I was sent out to get for the first day; but after that, all leaving the place was forbidden to me, except to take exercise in charge of a guard of soldiers. On the whole I had little to complain of, except that the water and sanitary arrangements were both very bad—so bad, in fact, that on the last night I was taken with violent fever, as also were Saïd and Abdurrahman, who by no means shared such good quarters as I did, being housed in a large dirty room, where chained prisoners were their companions. This, however, was changed on my representing that both were suffering from fever to the Governor-General on my second interview. On this occasion I found his Excellency more reasonable, and once or twice he even laughed, being apparently much amused when I told him how I had got over the frontier in the disguise of a Greek. But the Pasha’s merriment did not bring about any change in my condition, and I was taken back from his presence to the same prison as before. I told him at this interview that one of my reasons for visiting the country was to correspond for the ‘Times,’ and he thereupon entered into a long political statement as to the rebellion and its reasons. His Excellency asked me what we should do in India in a like circumstance, and I replied that I thought the matter could be best solved by a total disarmament of the Arabs. While agreeing with me, he acknowledged such a task an impossibility with the troops under his command, and said he was earnestly hoping for further reinforcements from Constantinople. From his manner, and what I could gather about Ahmed Feizi Pasha, he seems to be a man of great personal courage and perseverance, besides possessing an extraordinary amount of diplomacy and skill in dealing with the Arabs, learned, no doubt, during the time that he was Governor of Mecca; and in spite of the fact that he saw right to put me in prison, I cannot but admire the thorough character which the general seems to possess. His surroundings showed that here, at least, some regard was shown for the common soldiers, and all wore boots, not to say fezzes. Here, too, their uniforms were not in rags, nor did they seem to be on the eve of starvation. There seemed, too, in Sanaa, more organisation than I had seen elsewhere. I asked the Pasha why I was kept in prison, and he replied that my presence was not entirely satisfactory, and that he had ordered me to be lodged in the guard-room lest the Arab population might do me harm.

I can quite imagine that to the jealous Turk the unexpected arrival of an Englishman was by no means a pleasant surprise. Up to this time all truth concerning the rebellion had been withheld, and the sole matter that the press had been able to obtain was from official sources at Constantinople. Therefore any chance of the truth leaking out, and the general public being made aware how very nearly the Osmanli Government had lost the southernmost of its Arabian possessions, would prove far from acceptable to the authorities. On this account Ahmed Feizi’s bearing toward myself is explicable, nor do I complain very much of it. Not so, however, with the action of H.M. late Secretary of Foreign Affairs, who laid all the blame of my imprisonment upon myself, and entirely ignored the fact that my passport,—demanding that I should be allowed to pass without let or hindrance, and that I should be afforded every assistance and protection of which I might stand in need in the Ottoman Empire, and which had been vizéd by the Turkish Consul-General in London,—bore his own signature, which, if it were not lithographed, might have been worth the sum paid for the document that bore it, as an autograph, but was certainly entirely useless for the purpose for which it was supposed to be affixed. Although I made my journey through the Yemen with the knowledge and consent of the late Sir William White, then H.M. Ambassador at Constantinople, I was informed, in one of those elegant despatches of the Foreign Office, that I had entered the Yemen on entirely my own responsibility, and must bear the results of my actions myself! and that if the Turkish Government saw right to put me in prison and give me such bad water to drink that fever was the result, they really could not hold any one responsible for it beyond my own person. My question as to whether the wording of my passport was of any value, or merely a form that meant nothing, they entirely ignored, and to this day I have been unable to obtain a reply. Suffice it to say that with all its seals and titles and stamps, a British passport does not seem to be of much value in the Ottoman Empire; nor when it is absolutely disregarded is any one blamed by the Foreign Office except the unoffending bearer, who may have been so dazzled by its splendour as to believe that it might be of service to him. However, what with making treaties and doing their duty in society, it can be easily understood that the time of the officials is too much occupied to attend to such an unimportant question as the imprisonment of an Englishman, even though by such an occurrence every word and sentence of a paper to which H.M. Secretary of State appends his signature is disregarded and abused.