126 CIVIL niSTORY AND 



derly, the multitude crossing and jostling each olher, 

 The firing of the military was awkward, as were 

 their evolutions and exercises in front of the palace. 



After their audience with the imam, the strangers 

 paid their respects to Fakih Achmed. The vizier's 

 house was not large, and on one side entirely open 

 on account of the heat. The garden was stocked 

 with fruit trees, and in the middle Avas a jet (Veau, 

 wrought by an odd sort of hydraulic machiner}'^ ; 

 the water being put in motion by means of an ass 

 and a man alternately mounting and descending an 

 inclined plane. This apparatus was less for orna- 

 ment than use in cooling the air, and was common 

 in the gardens of all the principal inhabitants of 

 Sanaa. 



The traveller and his companions, on the eve of 

 their departure, received from the imam each a 

 complete suit of clothes, with a letter to the Dowlah 

 of Mocha, desiring him to pay them 200 crowns as 

 a farewell present ; while the secretary had orders 

 to furnish camels and asses for the whole of their 

 journey, besides a quantity of provisions. The dress 

 Niebuhr describes as being exactly like that M'orn 

 by the Arabs of distinction throughout Yemen, con- 

 sisting of a shirt over wide drawers of cotton cloth, 

 and a vest with straight sleeves covered by a flow- 

 ing gown. The turban is very large, falling down 

 between the shoulders. The jamhea, a sort of 

 crooked cutlass or dagger, is inserted in a broad 

 girdle, and to the handle is sometimes attached a 

 kind of chaplet or rosary, which the ISIohammedans 

 use at praj^ers. 



Since the visit of the Danish travellers internal 

 wars and political revolutions have wrought many 

 changes in Yemen, and greatly eclipsed the splen- 

 dour of that ancient monarchy. About the com- 

 mencement of the present centurj'-, Mr. Pringle, the 

 British resident at Mocha, twice visited Sanaa, which 

 he describes as a handsome town surrounded with 



