144 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



and rape, with the sugar-cane, tobacco, and cotton. Rice seems unknown in Yemen, 

 and oats throughout Arabia : the horses being fed with barley, and the asses with 

 beans. They also cultivate '' uars," a plant which dyes yellow, and is exported in great 

 quantities from Mocha to Oman; and " fua," used in dyeing red; likewise indigo. 

 The wheat, in the environs of Maskat, yields little more than ten for one ; and in the best 

 cultivated districts of Yemen, fifty to one ; but the durra sometimes much exceeds this 

 ratio, yielding in the highlands 140, and in the Tehama, or plain, from 200 to 400. By 

 their mode of sowing, and watering this grain, the inhabitants of Tehama reap three suc- 

 cessive crops from the same field in the same year. The plough [Jig. 131. ) is simple, and 

 the pick is used instead of the spade. 



873. The indigenous, or partially cultivated jflants and trees of Arabia are numerous, 

 and several of them furnish important articles of commerce. The vegetables of the dry 

 barren districts, exposed to the vertical sun, and refreshed merely by nightly dews, belong 

 for th6 most part to the genera of aloe, mesembryanthemum, euphorbia, stapelia, and 

 salsola. On the western side of the Arabian desert, numerous rivulets, descending into 

 the Red Sea, diffuse verdure ; and on the mountains from which they run vegetation is 

 more abundant. Hither many Indian and Persian plants, distinguished for their beauty 

 or use, have been transported in former ages, and are now found in a truly indigenous 

 state : such is the case probably with the tamarind, the cotton tree (inferior to the Indian), 

 tiie pomegranate, the banyan tree, or Indian fig, the sugar-cane, and many species of 

 melons and gourds. Arabia Felix may peculiarly boast of two valuable trees, namely, 

 the coffee (Coffea Arabica), found both cultivated and wild ; and the amyris opobalsamum, 

 which yields the balm of Mecca. Of the palms, Arabia possesses the date, the cocoa-nut, 

 and the great fan-palm. It has also the sycamore fig, the plantain, the almond, apricot, 

 peach, the papaw, the bead tree, the mimosa nilotica, and sensitiva, and the orange. 

 Among its shrubs and herbaceous plants may be enumerated the ricinus, the liquorice, 

 and the senna, used in medicine ; and the balsam, globe, amaranth, the white lily, and the 

 greater pancratium, distinguished for their beauty and fragrance. 



874. The live stock of Arabia is what constitutes its principal riches, and the most 

 valuable are those species of animals that require only succulent herbs for their nourish- 

 ment. The cow here yields but little milk ; and the flesh of the ox is insipid and juice- 

 less. The wool and mutton of the sheep are coarse. The bezoar goat is found in the 

 mountains. The buffalo 132 

 is unknown ; but the 

 camel and dromedary 

 (Jig' 132.) are both in use 



as beasts of burden. The l^ 



civet cat, musk rat, and -- ^ ' 



other mountain animals, 

 are valuable in commerce. 

 Pheasants, partridges,and 

 common poultry, abound 

 in Yemen ; and there are 

 numerous ferocious animals, birds of prey, and pestiferous insects. 



875. But the horse is of all the animals of Arabia the most valuable. This animal is said 

 to be found wild in the extensive deserts on the north of Hadramant : this might have been 

 the case in ancient times, unless it should be thought more probable, that the wild horse 

 of Tatary has passed through Persia, and has been only perfected in Arabia. The horses 

 here are distributed into two classes, viz. the kadischi, or common kind, whose genealogy 

 has not been preserved, and the kochlani, or noble horses, whose breed has been ascertain- 

 ed for 2000 years, proceeding, as their fables assert, from the stud of Solomon. They 

 are reared by the Bedouins, in the northern deserts between Bassora, Merdin, and the 

 frontiers of Syria ; and though they are neither large nor beautiful, their race and here- 

 ditary qualities being the only objects of estimation, the preservation of their breed is 

 carefully and authentically witnessed ; and the offspring of a Kochlain stallion with an 



