562 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



entertaining me. Hosein is a man of five-and-fifty, with a 

 comfortable figure, a grey beard, an easy, good-humoured, 

 but somewhat selfish expression on his regular features, 

 and a sly look about the corners of his eyes. He was 

 dressed in a white caftan and orange brown jubbeh, 

 and under his white turban, which, as usual in Arabia, 

 was wound about a parti -coloured skull-cap, he wore, 

 as a protection from the cold, a handsome yellow semada. 

 His feet were bare, except for the sandals, with their 

 gold embroidered straps, which he left at the door before 

 entering the mejlis, and it struck one as curious that while 

 the head was so carefully swathed, and the trunk pro 

 tected by an under caftan of red flannel, the ankles were 

 left bare to the frost, and all chapped with cold. The 

 business of the Mohtesib is the charge of the market. 

 It is his work to regulate the prices of articles of food, 

 and, if necessary, to compel merchants to throw their 

 stores on the market. It is not a very important office, 

 and Hosein is not one of the great men of Taif in other 

 words, he is not very rich ; but his work requires a good 

 knowledge of the town and people and a certain local 

 standing which he possesses as the representative of a 

 good old Taif stock of the Beni Sufyan branch of the 

 tribe of Thageef . Hosein owns land in the neighbourhood 

 good wheat and orchard ground, with running water, 

 which he lets out to a farmer, receiving in return one-half 

 the produce in fruit and one -third of the grain crop. 

 The farmer finds all the capital, seed, and labour slave- 

 labour, of course, for there are very few free labourers 

 in Taif, except for garden work requiring special skill. 

 A skilled gardener is well paid ; he may receive as much 

 as i per month, with food, clothing, and perquisites 

 in kind. An ordinary labourer would have food, clothing, 

 and four or five shillings a month. Besides his land in 

 the Leeya, five or six miles out of town, Hosein inherits 

 a good house within the city. His wife has also a small 

 house which is her own property, and will descend to 



