Here the better class of people, such as merchants and native sheikhs, congregated. The buttresses supporting the roof divided the gallery into compartments, and it seemed to be the custom for a party to engage one for themselves, where they would spread their carpets and smoke their hubble-bubbles, calling to the khan servants below for their coffee and food, and charcoal for their pipes. One end of this gallery, on the left of the staircase, formed a little room, which I was able to procure for my use. The fact that it was built immediately above the kitchen, and that the thickest of wood fumes crept up between the ill-laid boards, did not add to my comfort. The ceiling and walls of the whole building were black with the smoke of ages, but the scene was a most picturesque one, and I sat at the doorway of my little chamber and sketched the place. However, I was not to be left very long in peace, for an impudent young Turk came and began to search my luggage, and to speak in such an impertinent manner that he had to be ejected. I knew that, whatever orders he might have had, he would have received none that would allow of his conducting himself in this way—for the Turk, be he what he may, seldom if ever fails to be polite. There is an innate manner in him that is always charming, in spite of the many other drawbacks to his character. I called on the Kaimakam a little later and told him what had happened, saying that I was quite prepared to have my luggage searched, but asking that I might be treated with a certain amount of decent respect. The Turk of whom I complained was sent for, and such wrath did the Kaimakam show with him that the young man, a junior clerk in one of the Government offices, had to ask me to beg the Governor to forgive him, which I readily did. I found my host as pleasant and gentlemanly as any Turk I met in the country, and he insisted on my spending an hour with him and his brother officers. I showed him my passport, for here there was no longer any need to pretend that I was a Greek trader, and he seemed much impressed with the number of seals and stamps with which it was covered. Of what value the wording and decoration of this British passport was at Sanaa will be told anon. But more astonished still was his Excellency at the fact that I had pushed through the Owd tribe and arrived from Kátaba—for, as he said, the road had been impassable for many months, and he laughed heartily at an Englishman having been the first to open it again. Yerim, he said, was the dullest of dull places, and he longed for the society and gaieties of his native town—some out-of-the-way spot in Asia Minor, the name of which I had never even heard. Returning from his residence to the khan, he followed me half an hour later and returned my call, accompanied by a couple of his officers. However, the fact that one could scarcely see across the room for smoke did not tend to detain him long, and I was soon left to my own devices.