CHAPTER V.

THE REBELLION IN THE YEMEN.

It is seldom that the Sublime Porte is free from trouble regarding one at least of her possessions; and although the Turkish Government has taken, in the case of the rebellion in the Yemen, every means to throw dust in the eyes of Europe, yet sufficient has from time to time leaked out to show how seriously the affair was regarded by the Sultan and his Ministers. From such scraps of information it would be impossible to piece together a history of what has taken place; but the writer, by making a journey of over four hundred miles through the country at the very time of the rebellion, was, as the only European in the interior, with the exception of a few Greek shopkeepers, able to take advantage of his unique opportunity of seeing for himself, and gathering a considerable amount of information on the subject.

But before any account is given of the rebellion, it must be explained of how great a value to the Sultan of Turkey are his possessions in Arabia. It is on them, and on them alone, that he bases his claim to the title of Caliph—a title on which his prestige in the eyes of the Moslem mainly rests. Amongst Mahammedan potentates he is the greatest; for although many sects of Islam do not hold that one in whose veins the blood of the Prophet does not flow is able by divine right to succeed to the Caliphate, the possession of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina cannot but add to his fame. From all parts of the world the pilgrims flock yearly to Mecca, there to come in contact with the Turks as a governing power, to hear the name of Abdul Hamid blessed daily in the mosque; and in their eyes, by force of circumstance, the Sultan is inseparably connected with the Holy Places.

True it is that the Yemen is separated from the Hejaz, the province in which Mecca and Medina are situated, by a large tract of country, known as the Asir. But the tribes inhabiting this district are, and always have been, largely influenced by the Yemenite faction, and like them are in their belief of the Sheiya sect, holding that the claim of the Sultan of Turkey to the Caliphate is irregular and illegal. This alliance, not only by blood but by doctrine, which is perhaps the strongest tie of all amongst the Moslems, caused the rebellion in the Yemen to be a likely forerunner to a war in the Asir. The Turkish rule has never been more than nominal amongst the mountains of the latter, so that the repudiation by them of the Osmanli Government, which has taken place, is fraught with no great danger to Turkey, provided the discontent and consequent rebellion remains within bounds, and does not reach the Hejaz. Although largely subsidised by the Turkish Government, there can be little doubt that, did they clearly see their way to success, the members of the Shereefian family of Mecca, direct descendants of the Prophet Mahammed, would attempt to bring back the succession of the Caliphate into their own line, and thus into the strain of the descendants of the Prophet; and to a cause so nearly touching their doctrinal beliefs there is but little doubt the Bedouins of the Hejaz, as well as many of the inhabitants of the cities, would readily lend their aid and assistance.

Therefore it will be seen that to the Turks a successful rebellion in the Yemen meant not only the loss of the southernmost of their Arabian States, but also the probable ensuing loss of the Hejaz, and the fall of the Sultan of Turkey in the eyes of the larger portion of the world of Islam. How many thousands of Mahammedans daily in the mosques call for blessings on the head of Abdul Hamid the Caliph, who would never pray for Abdul Hamid the Sultan! The difference is enormous, though to us somewhat incomprehensible; and it is said, and no doubt rightly so, that his Majesty of Stamboul values far more than his temporal powers the title of “Commander of the faithful.” In the one case, as Caliph, he is in the eyes of all Sunnis[29] Sultan of the Moslem world, and as such successor to the Prophet himself. In the other, as a Sultan, he is merely a stranger, an Osmanli, not even of the great Arab race, whose ancestors have by force of arms conquered and left him a kingdom.

From these remarks it will be inferred how vastly important it is to the Sultan and the Porte to retain intact the Turkish possessions in Arabia.

Although it was not until the summer of 1891 that the rebellion in the Yemen took any outward form, the Turks must have been aware, for a long period previous to that time, that their relations with the Arabs were becoming day by day more strained. Yet such is the character of Turkish provincial officials, especially of those so far removed from the seat of the Government as in the Yemen, that they still continued their policy of oppression, trusting to fate that there would be no open hostilities until the jobbery that had put them into power would follow its inevitable course by removing them and reinstating others in their places, on whom would fall the brunt of a rebellion, which they saw might for a time be postponed but impossible to avert. “Make your hay while the sun shines,” is the motto of the Turkish official; and for him, as a rule, the sun shines but for a very short period. It is this extraordinary want of forethought and co-operation, this shifting of responsibilities upon successors in office, amongst those who help to rule the destinies of the Turkish provinces, that is the chief root and origin of all their troubles. “Let me enrich myself,” thinks the official. “In a month or two I may no longer have the opportunities. I must make enough in this short period of office to retire upon. What may follow, what may be the result of my policy, I care not; it interests me not at all.”

It was the perpetual practice of these theories that gradually drove the Arabs into resistance. The rebellion was no sudden affair; as long ago as several years back there had commenced on the part of the Arabs a series of outrages against Turkish officials that would have rendered apparent to any other nation but the Turks the danger that was threatening. Cruel and bloodthirsty as many of these outrages were, they were the only means in the power of the Arabs of protesting against the exorbitant taxation and the oppression that were ruining them. Their appeals to Sanaa, and even to Constantinople, had resulted in no amelioration of their condition.

It is necessary, I think, to give but one example of these outrages. At Dhamar, one of the largest cities of the Yemen, there lived a certain general, by name Mahammed Rushti Pasha, between whom and a neighbouring tribe there had arisen misunderstanding as to the amount of taxation to be levied upon them. The pasha insisted on the full sum, and a quarrel ensued between the Arab sheikh and himself, the former fleeing from the city swearing revenge. Shortly afterwards Mahammed Rushti being called away to another part of the country, the tribe in question took advantage of his absence to blow up his house and family with gunpowder. His wives, children, and servants died that night, in all some eleven persons. Returning with all speed to Dhamar, the general, with such forces as were at the time in the city, almost exterminated the little tribe who had accomplished so horrible a vengeance. Over the grave of those that died that night Mahammed Rushti raised a mosque and a domed tomb, the interior of which he hung with rich silks. Thither he would repair and sit alone. On the taking of Dhamar by the Arabs in November last, this tomb was looted, and when visited by the writer at the end of January, the city by that time having been reconquered by the Turks, he found the tomb and mosque in ruins, robbed of all its treasures.

That the feeling was so strong as to find vent in such outrages as these—and that mentioned is but one of many—would have made it apparent, one would have thought, that the existing state of affairs could not continue with impunity. But the lot of the Yemeni was to be squeezed to fill the coffers at Constantinople, and to pay for the harems and pleasures of unscrupulous officialdom. Such, then, apart from all religious differences, was the existing state of feeling in the Yemen when in the summer of the year before last the rebellion broke out. Before the conquest of the Yemen by the Turks in 1872—for although they possessed a firm footing on the coast previous to that period, their power had not made itself felt in the interior—the Yemen was governed by a ruler after their own hearts; for, being of the Sheiya sect—Zaidis they call themselves—it was necessary to the tenets of their belief that their Sultan should be of direct descent from the Prophet, through Ali ibn Abou Taleb, his nephew and son-in-law. This condition their Imam fulfilled; for although the Yemen had at different times fallen into foreign hands, still the direct family had never disappeared.

Sanaa, now the capital of Turkish Yemen, was his residence. It is a large city, situated roughly two hundred and forty miles north of Aden, and a hundred and sixty east of Hodaidah. Here the Imam lived the usual secluded and sensual life of an oriental despot, looked upon by the Arabs as a spiritual Sultan, but powerless to hold in check the depredations and robberies of the many tribes under his nominal sway, who, with true oriental zeal, were continually doing their best to exterminate one another. As long as money was forthcoming, the Imam was content to dwell at Sanaa without troubling himself about more external affairs than the management of his own household, and the receiving of gifts from the Arabs who performed pilgrimages to his presence. Apparently wanting in education, except such religious knowledge as is considered necessary for the welfare of an Oriental of high degree, he possessed no ability to govern, nor does he appear to have been even renowned as a soldier or organiser of troops.

Such became at length the state of the country, that trade almost ceased on account of the attacks upon the caravans; and the Sanaa merchants—quiet respectable Arabs—saw nothing but ruin before them, and considering solely the benefits that would accrue to themselves by such a step, and ignoring what the result would be upon the agricultural population, invited the Turks to take the place. This was accomplished in 1872 by a force from Hodaidah. The Imam was deposed; but on account of his spiritual influence over the Arab horde, was permitted to reside in Sanaa, receiving a pension on the condition that he would exert his powers in furthering the interests of the Osmanli Government. This until his death he fulfilled; on which event the _baraka_, or holy birthright, passed to his relative Ahmed ed-Din, who, like his predecessor, was by no means dissatisfied to receive the adoration of the Arabs and the regularly paid allowance of the Turks.

Such, briefly, was the history of the Turkish occupation of the Yemen and the state of affairs until last year. The tribes, in the time of the Imam, left undisturbed both in their labours in the fields and in their welfare, boasting an independence of centuries, found themselves, on the Turkish occupation, little better than slaves—oppressed, taxed, and retaxed by a people whose extortions ruined them, whose personality they hated, and with whom, although co-religionists, there was no unison in religious views.

But the smouldering discontent was destined to burst into flame, even though the flame might blaze forth but to flicker and die.

On an appeal from the governor of Lohaya, a body of four hundred Turkish troops were despatched last summer to assist in collecting by force the taxes due from the Beni Meruan, a branch of the Asir people, and their southernmost tribe, who inhabit the country lying to the east of Lohaya, a port on the Red Sea coast north of Hodaidah. In command of this force was the very Mahammed Rushti Pasha whose house had been destroyed at Dhamar. The expedition was destined to complete failure, and being surprised by a large body of Arabs, was nearly annihilated before the security of a fort was reached, amongst those who fell being the pasha himself.

In countries like the Yemen news travels with extraordinary rapidity, and the Arabs, hearing an exaggerated report of what had taken place, believed that at last their deliverance had come, for it was rumoured that the great district of the Asir, between the Yemen and the Hejaz, had risen, intent upon exterminating the Turks. Where the news travelled the people rose in arms. Tribal banners long hid away were unfurled, and the cry of “God give victory to the Imam” echoed and re-echoed throughout the mountains and valleys of the Yemen.

Meanwhile the hero of the rebellion, Ahmed ed-Din, was living quietly at Sanaa on the subsidy of the Turkish Government, unconscious of what was taking place, although, doubtless, there was ever present in his mind the possibility of some day regaining for himself and his descendants the throne. He clearly saw that affairs were not ripe for a great rebellion, and almost against his will he was obliged to fly from the capital, and become the head of the rebel movement. Premature as things were, he must in the enthusiasm of his partisans have almost believed in their future success.

It was a new _Jehad_, or holy war! The Turks were to be exterminated or driven away; the beloved Ahmed ed-Din—beloved on account of his birth and descent rather than from any knowledge of his personality—was to be reinstated on the throne. One by one the tribes rose, except only the Bedouin inhabitants of the Teháma and the southern deserts, who, possessing nothing but a few flocks and herds, and always wandering, were indifferent to Turkish or Arab rule, and awaited the result before promising allegiance to either side. The same plan was followed by many of the merchants and citizens, whose position and intimacy with the Turkish officials placed them outside the bounds of oppression and taxation, and who in many cases were only too ready to take advantage of their fellow-countrymen’s unenviable position, by buying from the Turks the right of collecting the taxes of certain districts; for the privilege of levying dues is a commercial article, sold from time to time by auction, a system that relieves the Government of much anxiety and trouble, but encourages to an almost incredible extent cruelty and oppression.

In what state were the Turks to repress a general rising of this sort? The force in the country was estimated at some sixteen thousand men, although in reality probably far short of that number; for during the two previous years cholera had wrought great havoc amongst the troops. These troops consisted of Turkish regulars, Bashi-bazouks, and a large number of Arab auxiliaries, drawn principally from the Mshareg and Hadramaut, the country to the east of the Yemen, who did not care whom they fought against, or for what reason they were fighting, so long as they were paid, and whose one stimulant to feats of bravery was promised reward. The Turkish troops already in Yemen were in a miserable state. Ill fed, ill clothed, thinned by disease, badly housed, and seldom, if ever, paid, it is no wonder that their spirit was broken in a land where during summer they were liable to a temperature that seldom falls below a hundred in such shade as their badly built barracks afforded, and in winter to frosts, and at times snow—to all the vagaries, in fact, of a tropical climate on the tops of mountains of from seven thousand to nine thousand feet in altitude. A more pitiful picture than the Turkish soldiers presented when the writer was in Yemen he never saw, and yet they fight like devils rather than men.

[Illustration: _Turkish troops on the march._]

A few days after the flight of the Imam, Sanaa, the capital, was besieged by an enormous force of Arabs, as was Amran, another walled city; while those which were not so protected fell, many without even a struggle, into the hands of the Arabs. Menakha, on the road from Hodaidah to Sanaa, offered a little resistance, but in vain. Those of the garrison who were not killed or wounded in the first onslaught of the Arabs were spared on surrender, and taken away prisoners, amongst their number being the Kaimakam or military governor. The same happened at Dhamar and Yerim, on the road from Sanaa to Aden; while in quick succession Ibb, Jiblah, and Taiz, all three large towns situated farther south, proclaimed for Ahmed ed-Din. All Turkish prisoners were spared. Many voluntarily went over to the side of the Arabs; some retired into private life on surrendering their arms. Those of importance were sent to the Imam, where report said they were housed and fed at his expense, doubtless in the hope of persuading them to throw in their lot with his own, and so obtain use of their superior knowledge of warfare. In very exceptional cases do we hear of the cruel treatment of Turks by the Arabs in their days of victory; and even when the tide of affairs was changed, the writer met amongst the Arabs, in districts where no Turkish troops could enter, deserters from the Osmanli forces being fed and clothed by the kindly Arabs; and in many cases money was supplied them by their _quondam_ enemies to assist them in reaching Aden, or in escaping by other means from the hard life of soldiering.

By this time telegrams were pouring into Constantinople from Hodaidah beseeching assistance; and the Porte, having at length realised how serious a turn affairs had taken, exerted all its activity in forwarding troops to the scene of war. By the time the new forces had embarked for Hodaidah, the whole country, with the exception of Sanaa and Amran and a small city in the Asir, by name Dhofir, had fallen into the hands of the rebels, the plains and seaboard towns holding aloof from any participation in the affair, though probably it was only the presence of better organised Turkish forces which kept in check the feeling which no doubt existed almost as strongly there as anywhere. The Beni Meruan, many of whose villages lie on the sea-coast, were pitilessly shelled by a couple of Turkish gunboats.

Ahmed ed-Din remained at Sadah,[30] whither he had fled from Sanaa; nor at any part of the revolt did he take active part in the fighting, a fact that in no small degree accounts for the subsequent failure of the rebellion. In all probability he never left Sadah, though in his religious character his movements were always spoken about with much mystery.

Sanaa at the end of October was still in a state of siege, the garrison and townspeople suffering greatly from hunger and disease, though in Amran the state of the inhabitants was still more pitiable.

Badly fed as they were at all times, worse now than ever, one cannot but admire the immense pluck of the handful of Turkish troops who kept at bay for several months an immense horde of Arabs. Not only was their courage exhibited in the dogged resistance within the town, but in their constant and often successful sorties against the enemy.

A short description of the city of Sanaa is necessary in order to explain the positions of besiegers and besieged during the whole of last autumn.

The city, which contains some fifty thousand inhabitants, lies in a wide level valley. It takes the form of a triangle, the eastern point consisting of a large fortress, dominating the town, and built upon the lowest spur of Jibel Negoum, a mountain which rises immediately outside the city walls. The town is divided into three distinct quarters, each walled, and the whole surrounded by one continuous wall. They are respectively the city proper, in which are the Government buildings, the huge bazaars, and the residence of the Arabs and Turks; the Jews’ quarter; and Bir el-Azab, where are gardens and villas belonging to the richer Turks and Arabs. The city was once of great wealth and prosperity, and to-day remains one of the most nourishing cities of Arabia. The shops are well supplied with European goods, and a large manufacture of silk, jewellery, and arms is carried on there. The quarter in which the Government buildings are situated presents almost a European appearance, with its large Turkish shops, its _cafés_, and its open places, on one of which, in front of the Governor-General’s official residence, a military band discourses anything but sweet music of an afternoon.

But the city, as the writer saw it after its recapture by the Turks, presented a very different spectacle from what it must have done when, surrounded on all sides by a horde of Arabs, a continual shower of bullets was being poured into its streets from the Arab position on Jibel Negoum, which completely dominated the place. Fortunately for those besieged, the rebels possessed no artillery, otherwise their efforts would no doubt have proved successful in gaining an entrance into the town. However, the fire poured into the city was sufficiently harassing to render it expedient to drive the Arabs from their position above the town, and several unsuccessful sorties were made. At length, mustering all the troops at his command, the pasha made a final sortie about the middle of November. Maintaining a steady fire from the fort upon the Arab position, the troops issued from the southern gate, and wheeling to the left after a gallant attack—for the Arabs were in overwhelming numbers—drove the rebels back. They retreated on Dar es-salaam, a small village a few miles outside the walls of Sanaa, consisting of perhaps a dozen or so stone houses surrounded by a wall. Bringing up some small field-guns, the artillery opened fire upon the rebels, completely destroying the place and rendering a precipitate retreat of the Arabs necessary, which they are said to have accomplished in the wildest disorder, leaving, as I was informed, several thousand dead upon the field. But the victory was not altogether a blessing, for there being no one to bury the Arab dead, the inhabitants of the city suffered from violent disease, while the stench of the decaying bodies is said to have been terrible. Retiring once more within the precincts of the city, the Arabs again took up their old position; but their defeat seems to have to a great degree crushed their spirits, and the remainder of the siege, severe though the sufferings of the townspeople were, is said to have been less acute than previously. At any rate, the alarm of a successful attack on the part of the rebels seems to have abated.

But relief was at hand. The Turkish reinforcements had landed in Hodaidah under the command of Ahmed Feizi Pasha, formerly Governor of Mecca, and commander of the Seventh Army Corps.

Learning on his arrival at Hodaidah how serious was the state of affairs, he at once took active measures, and without even waiting for commissariat arrangements to be carried out, marched his troops _viâ_ Bajil to Hojaila, a village at the foot of the mountains on which the town of Menakha is situated, and over which the road to Sanaa passes. Here three days later they were overtaken by the commissariat camels bringing flour and provisions for the soldiers. Having rested his men, he commenced the ascent of the steep road, and here met with the first show of resistance. But the Turkish soldiers were fresh and fought well, and the superiority of arms did its work. With but a short delay to force the road, Menakha was reached.

There is perhaps in the world no city situated in the way that Menakha is. At an altitude of seven thousand six hundred feet above the sea-level, it is perched on a narrow ridge joining two distinct mountain-ranges. On either side of the city are precipices, each of considerably over two thousand feet in depth. So narrow is the town that there are places in it where one can stand and gaze down both these precipices at the same time. To reach it from the west there is only one path in the steep mountain-side; while from the east it can only be approached by a narrow track cut in the face of a precipice and winding up it for an ascent of two thousand five hundred feet. In the hands of well-regulated forces it would be impregnable; but the Arab defenders, learning how easily the new Governor-General and his troops had forced the road at Hojaila, made no plucky resistance: and armed as they were almost entirely with matchlock and fuse guns—and many only with spears—they could have made no permanent stand against the field-guns of the Turks, who are said in one day to have brought their light artillery from Hojaila to Menakha, an ascent of nearly six thousand feet, by a break-neck path. But few shots had been fired when the Arabs fled, and the Turks once more took possession of the place. Leaving a sufficient garrison to protect the town, and to keep open a line of communication with the coast, Ahmed Feizi marched on towards Sanaa. About thirty miles from Menakha, on the road to the capital, is a spot called Hajarat el-Mehedi, where the track is so narrow and so bad that even without resistance it would offer no slight obstacle to the passage of troops. Here the rebel army under Seyed esh-Sheraï, a cousin to Ahmed ed-Din, took up a position, and a twelve days’ delay and fighting took place before the Turks could force their way through. But on the twelfth day it was accomplished, and the rebels dispersed. Halting but now and again to shell some village, the troops by hurried marches reached Sanaa, and on their being sighted by the Arab besiegers on Jibel Negoum, the Imam’s force retired into the mountains to the east, where no Turkish troops could follow them.

[Illustration: MENAKHA.]

The capital relieved, Ahmed Feizi was not idle. He arrived in time to save the garrison of Amran, where, as at Sanaa, the Arabs retired on the approach of the Turkish forces. Returning to Sanaa, he set to work to reorganise affairs, despatching Ismail Pasha with a considerable number of troops to recapture Dhamar and Yerim. Proclaiming military law, which in this case meant almost no law, throughout the country, the new Governor-General offered a reward for the head of every rebel brought to him, and turned loose upon the Arabs his Turkish troops to loot and plunder their villages. Marching to the south, Ismail Pasha halted at Maaber to shell the villages of Jibel Anis, retook Dhamar without any opposition being offered, and, leaving a garrison there, proceeded to Yerim, and thence by Seddah and Sobeh to Kátaba, where the writer found him encamped with four hundred troops toward the middle of last January. Ibb, Jiblah, and Taiz returned under Turkish rule without a struggle.

There is no nation in the world that can put down a rebellion as the Turks can, but they have a great objection to any one seeing the process; and the presence of the writer, turning up suddenly in Sanaa while Ahmed Feizi Pasha was engaged upon this task, caused such a shock, that he and his servants were securely confined in prison as spies in spite of passports, until, from the unsanitary conditions of the place and the bad water supplied, he was seized with a violent attack of fever; and no doubt thinking that it would be better to get rid of him alive than have an objectionable corpse on their hands, and probably a good many questions to answer, a guard of soldiers was prepared, and the writer was hurried away to Hodaidah with orders to quit. Yet, in spite of the fact that his relations with Ahmed Feizi Pasha were a little strained, he cannot but testify to his admirable activity and soldier-like bearing—an admiration dimmed only by the cruelty, perhaps almost necessary, of some of his commands. Thus it will be seen, from the day that Ahmed Feizi Pasha took over the governor-generalship of the Yemen, the tide of events had completely changed. A series of Arab victories had ended in a series of Arab defeats. Had Sanaa been taken, the result would doubtless have been different; but in their endeavours to take it they failed. Renowned in history, sacred to them as the former seat of government of their Imams, their want of success in capturing it, together with the action of Ahmed ed-Din, who held aloof from any active part in the warfare, broke their spirits. Had they succeeded in entering Sanaa, had they brought their Imam there in state, there is some possibility that the Turks might have lost the Yemen for ever. They themselves, and Ahmed Feizi Pasha the first of them, told the writer this.

Thus by the end of January the Turks had reconquered all the cities of Yemen with the exception of one, Dhofir, at that time still besieged by the Arabs. Yet in spite of the fact that Turkish rule was again reinstated in the country, in spite of the fact that what with the reinforcements there were altogether some forty thousand troops in the Yemen, the rebellion was by no means stamped out. This is easily understood when the nature of the country is described. Central Yemen consists of a great plateau, upon which are situated the three principal cities, Sanaa, Dhamar, and Yerim. This plateau is surrounded by a system of mountains broken and torn into valleys and cañons, peaks and pinnacles, amongst which it would be impossible for any Turkish force to operate. Many of these mountains reach an altitude of over twelve thousand and thirteen thousand feet, the summits often connected with the valleys beneath by precipices of thousands of feet in depth. The only roads—mere tracks they are—are cut in the face of these walls of rock, and often are not a yard in breadth. Amongst these enormous mountain-ranges—and to the north of Sanaa one can travel for days and weeks amongst them—the spirit of rebellion burns as fiercely to-day as ever. Certainly the towns are now in the possession of the Turks, yet the main roads that connect the towns are unsafe for Turks to pass over, except in considerable numbers together. It was to a large extent from these mountain districts that the revenues of the Government were previously drawn; for the Arabs of the Yemen, unlike those of the Hejaz and most other Arabian States, are tillers of the soil, living in well-built and permanent villages, one and all roughly fortified, from which they would be able to withstand any band of armed tax-collectors, such as were wont formerly to be sent to levy the dues, as often on behalf of those who had purchased the rights of collecting from the district as on the part of the Government direct. In many of these villages the writer sat, sharing with the Arabs their humble repast, sipping their coffee and smoking their hubble-bubbles, and listening to their strange songs and prayers for the return of the Imam, Ahmed ed-Din, to power.

The rebellion has been outwardly crushed, but the prestige of Turkey in the Yemen has received a severe blow. The exorbitant squeezing will have to be abandoned, with the results that the revenue will probably fall to a tenth of its former sum. Many tribes formerly taxed will maintain an armed independence. The garrisons in the towns must be doubled, and the Yemen as a means of filling the Turkish coffers will be finished. Over the rebellion the Porte has expended a vast sum of money, while any attempt to recoup itself from the scene of action will but bring on a second and probably more disastrous rising.

Little more remains to be told except to consider briefly in what manner a permanent Arab success would have influenced ourselves. It was generally believed amongst the Turks in all quarters that it was British intrigue that stirred up the rebellion in the Yemen, although even the Turks themselves were at a loss to understand what advantages we should reap through such an action. They called attention to the independent States that lie between Aden and the Turkish frontier at Kátaba, the states of Lahej, Dhala, and the lands of the Houshabi, Aloui, and other tribes. Yet Ahmed Feizi Pasha himself informed the writer that, equally with the English, the Turkish Government subsidise their Sultans, Amirs, and Sheikhs; but the object of our subsidising them is misunderstood by the officials of Sanaa and Constantinople. To them it is impossible to consider in the same light as we do the vast importance of trade; and it is merely that the roads which pass through these various States may be kept open and safe for caravans trading with Aden, that we pay large monthly sums to the native rulers. At the same time, it is doubtless an advantage to possess a more or less independent strip of country between our frontier at Aden and that of the Turkish Yemen.

What has been to England the result of the Turkish occupation of the Yemen? It has been a result enormously beneficial. Formerly, in the time of Arab rule, no caravans were able to pass and repass in safety from the interior to Aden. The inability of the Imam to hold the tribes in check rendered the looting of every caravan probable. But since the arrival of the Turks things have altered. By keeping the roads open the Turks have rendered a vast service to England, by, as far as their power went, ensuring safe-conduct to the passage of caravans, while unconsciously their greed in levying enormous export and import dues at Hodaidah and their ports has driven the greater part of the Yemen trade to Aden—a free port. Thus it will be seen how vastly beneficial to England has been the conquest of the Yemen by the Turks; and had the Osmanli Government lost possession of the country, the result could have brought about but one effect—a return to the state of affairs previous to Turkish annexation, and a consequent enormous diminution of the Aden trade both in coffee and exports, and in the European goods and tobaccos from the Persian Gulf, for which the returning caravans create a great demand. Yet the Turks assured the writer that the British Government was supplying arms and assistance to the rebels. In reality the rifles were being smuggled in by private traders from the French port at Obock.

As to what will be the future policy of Turkey in the Yemen it is difficult to surmise. No doubt Abdul Hamid will be guided much by the report of his aide-de-camp Yakoub Bey, who was despatched to Sanaa for the purpose of bringing a full report to the Sultan. Rather than risk a second rebellion, there is little doubt that a conciliatory policy will be attempted; but the Yemen is too far removed from Constantinople to be governed from there, and as soon as affairs have quieted down, the officials will take advantage of their positions to commence once more the oppression of the people and the filling of their pockets. Could they be persuaded that extortion is not the road by which to arrive at a satisfactory system of government, they would find the country daily growing richer, and their relations with the Arabs more peaceable and less strained than at present. But the leopard cannot change his spots; and it is only probable that as long as Osmanli supremacy exists in the Yemen, officialdom will continue to enrich itself and impoverish the country.

PART II.

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE YEMEN