Four hours of heat along the valley of the Beni Matar, and we reached the large village of Estaz, where we rested for an hour or two in a large but dirty _café_. There is certainly but little to see in the place, though Turkish soldiers were more common here than elsewhere, and the curiosity of their officers would not allow of my being left undisturbed even for the brief space of the hour or so we stayed there. They must needs come and call and ask all sorts of absurd questions. Estaz, however, boasts one superiority over much of the Yemen plateau, a river of running water that flows by many channels through gardens, the greenness of which was most pleasant after days of travelling over yellow plains. Before mid-day we were off again, and turning a corner could see far away across the level ground, shimmering white and yellow in the steaming heat, the city of Sanaa. With a thrill of satisfaction I urged my mule on to its quickest paces, and a couple of hours later found us entering the city by an old broken-down gateway, near which a company or two of troops were drilling. Signs of the fighting were common enough. Some of the little towers erected as forts by the Turks outside the walls were in ruins, and half an hour earlier we had passed all that remained of the village of Dar es-Salaam, the “house of peace”—ill-fitting name!—where the Arabs had made their last strong stand against their Turkish enemy, and which they only left when driven forth by the Turkish artillery playing upon the houses of the village. Little remains to-day but broken walls and tumble-down towers. In many places one could see exactly where the shot had hit, and one tower was drilled through, the torn-up flooring and rafters showing what havoc the ball had accomplished. At length we were in Sanaa. The road had been a difficult and a dangerous one, but this was all forgotten now. In spite of warnings and repeated efforts to dissuade us from so rash an undertaking, we had been successful, and it was with the keenest satisfaction, though not without some doubts as to how I should be received, that I watched my little caravan enter the city.