Much as I wanted to push on to Sanaa, I had promised Saïd to stay three days at his house at Dhamar, and to tell the truth, I was by no means sorry of a pretext to rest in such comfortable quarters. Many a visit I received there. I think that there could not have been a single Turkish official in the town who did not at some time or another come and see me, and although they seemed always to be suspicious as to the objects of my travels, they were charmingly polite. Nor were the Turks my only visitors, for many an Arab merchant in long robes of silk came and spent an hour or so over coffee and tobacco, and on one occasion I was honoured by the visit of a local Shereef, first cousin to Ahmed ed-Din, leader of the late rebellion, but who, wisely, had not taken part on either side, preferring before entering into the affair to see who was going to win. Saïd’s people thought a great deal of the visit of this Shereef, and personally I found him charming. He was a man of perhaps some thirty years of age, extremely handsome and beautifully dressed. He seemed well educated, and had travelled a little, and the hour he spent with me I shall always remember with pleasure. But of all the insights that I obtained into Arab life during my time in the Yemen, the most interesting was the dinner-party given by Saïd in my honour. About seven o’clock our guests commenced to arrive—and what guests! The first to come were half-a-dozen Arab tribesmen, with long wavy black hair and a scarcity of clothing—in fact, their entire costume consisted of a turban and a dark loin-cloth, from the latter of which appeared the handles of their silver daggers. Strange lithe beautiful creatures they were, with limbs that would have been worth a mint of money to an artist to paint from. A couple of merchants followed a few minutes later, their servants carrying their silver hookahs. Natives of the same country, it is extraordinary what a difference is apparent between the townspeople and the tribesmen; and our merchant friends were fat and heavy, boasting little of the grace of their wilder countrymen, and in place of the scanty clothing, wrapped in long silk garments of gaudy hues, and wearing white turbans on their heads. More of the tribesmen followed, each as he entered placing his long spear against the walls in the corners of the room, till the place wore quite the appearance of an armoury. Then came the musicians, natives of the Hadramaut, wilder and longer-haired than the Yemenis present, and bearing, in place of spears, strange richly painted instruments. More and more guests, until our room, big as it was, was filled.