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NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



part of Arabia agriculture may be said to be entirely un- 

 known. In Yemen, where there is a settled government, 

 husbandry is in a more prosperous condition than in Sy- 

 ria or Mesopotamia. Whole fields are cultivated like gar- 

 dens. Great pains are taken in watering them, though 

 the Arabs have not adopted the hydraulic machinery 

 which is used by their neighbours in Egypt and India. 

 Their plough is of a very rude construction. It is drag- 

 ged over the ground in every direction by oxen, until the 

 surface is sufficiently broken and loosened for the recep- 

 tion of the seed. On the banks of the Euphrates some- 

 times asses and mules are employed in this labour. Where 

 the ground is hilly and not accessible to the plough it is 

 dug by the hoe; and this implement is sometimes so 

 large as to require the management of two men, one of 

 whom presses it into the earth, while the other pulls it 

 forward with a cord. 



The crops most common in Arabia are wheat, barley, 

 rice, millet, maize, dhourra, dokoun, and safra. The two 

 latter yield small round yellow grains, which the Bedou- 

 ins grind to flour, and subsist on during winter. No oats 

 are sown in any part of Hejaz ; but they grow in other 

 districts of the country. There is great variation in the 

 season both of sowing and reaping. In Nejed wheat and 

 barley are sown in October and gathered in April. Rice 

 is sown in June, and comes to maturity in September. 

 The seedtime for dhourra, maize, dokoun, and safra, is 

 May ; and they are reaped in August. No rice is culti- 

 vated in Nejed owing to the aridity of the climate ; but it 

 grows abundantly in El Hassa, Oman, and Yemen, where 

 nature has supplied the means of irrigation. In the Hau- 

 ran, where there is plenty of water, the peasants sow winter 

 and summer seeds ; but where they have to depend en- 

 tirely upon the rainy season nothing can be cultivated in 

 summer. The first harvest is that of horse-beans at the 

 end of April, of which vast tracts are sown ; next comes 

 the barley harvest, and the wheat towards the end of May. 

 In abundant years this grain sells at fifty piastres the 

 gharara, or about 2, 10s. for fifteen cwt. In the 

 southern provinces there is a material change both as to 

 the time and the relative produce of the harvest. At 

 Muscat wheat and barley are sown in December, and 

 reaped about the end of March ; while dhourra is sown in 

 August, and ripens in November. This difference of 



