S. B. Miles —On the route between 
[No. 1, 
54 
course the date. They are not dependent on the annual rainfall which is 
small, but are able to irrigate with certainty by means of their valuable 
aqueducts drawn from the hill range as well as from wells, water 
being abundant and at no great depth. Each settlement has at least one 
of these canals, that of el-Bereymi Proper being brought from a peren¬ 
nial spring in the hills distant about twenty miles. The water in this 
canal was quite warm to the touch, but I forget what they told me about 
the source. The grains grown are wheat, jowari, maize, barley, and bajri, 
the spring crops being wheat, the autumn, jowari, and bajri. This is 
sometimes succeeded by a crop of beans or pulse, but the latter are never 
sown intermingled with cereals. The stubble is always ploughed in and 
never burnt, and the only other manure used is cattle dung. The vegetables 
grown are sweet potatoes, radishes, cucumbers, egg-plants, onions, and 
pumpkins. Tobacco, cotton, red and white, and lucerne are also grown, 
the last for the use of cattle. Eight or nine crops of this are obtained 
in the year, showing the quality of the soil, which is fertile but thin. 
Bnt more care and attention are bestowed on the fruits than on anything 
else, and they consequently arrive at considerable excellence. All the best 
kinds of dates are cultivated, fard , masei/bili, Jchalas, &c., though they are 
not considered equal to the same varieties in Bedieh (&j^) and Semail 
(JjU.**). The other fruits are peaches, mangoes, custard-apples, limes, sweet- 
limes, oranges, mulberries, pomegranates, melons, guavas, figs, and grapes. 
There are only a very few horses at el-Bereymi belonging to the Sheikhs ; 
cattle too are scarce ; camels are abundant and cheap ; and asses are used ex¬ 
tensively for burden and riding. The food of the people is chiefly dates and 
coarse bread or rice, varied by salt-fish, camels’ and goats’ flesh. Milk is 
abundant, and a hard sort of cream cheese is made, the juice of an euphorbia 
being sometimes used instead of rennet for coagulating the milk. On the 
sea-coast the intestines of fish are often used for this purpose. There being 
no banians or other regular traders, there is no general bazar at Berey- 
mi, but every afternoon a market is held where the Bedouins assemble with 
their produce and animals for sale or barter with those who can supply 
their wants. Money is little used on such occasions where cloth, articles of 
food, camels, donkeys, goats, and all the miscellaneous articles of an Arab 
household, are exchanged. The most trifling things change hands, and the 
scene is, as may be imagined, a lively and picturesque one. The ladies 
here, I observed, did not wear the tinselled mask seen in Muscat, but 
covered their heads with a black cloth veil, which is still more unbecoming. 
I must not omit that like their European sisters they wore high-heeled 
shoes. Their occupations, besides household affairs, are spinning, mat¬ 
weaving, felt-making, and tending goats and kine. 
El-Bereymi formerly possessed two forts, only one of which is now 
