A fort, but not nearly so large or strong, protects the city to the west, lying close to the gate by which the highroad to Hodaidah and the coast leaves the town. Both this edifice and that at the east end of Sanaa contain the remains of old palaces, but to-day they have fallen into disrepair. No longer the fountains splash their crystal waters into the clear air; no longer the pavements re-echo with the bells and anklets of dancers: now nothing is heard but the rough voice and rougher tread of the Turkish troops upon the marble floors. There is, in fact, but little to tell of the former grandeur of Sanaa. No doubt, within many of the houses there must be beautiful courts and gardens; but of these I saw little or nothing, for although I visited the Turkish Governor-General, Ahmed Feizi Pasha, in one of the old palaces of the Imams, the place has been so changed and decorated and spoiled that it resembles to-day a huge barrack rather than a palace. The walls have been whitewashed, the great staircases are dirty, and the steps worn away by the nails of the soldiers’ boots; and even in the great rooms in which Ahmed Feizi Pasha resides, or does his business, the simple old Arab taste has been changed for decoration of _Louis Quatorze_, by no means bad of its kind, some of the wall-painting being far above the average, but still sadly out of place. Of the remains of the old palace and temple of Ghumdan, reached by some sixteen hundred steps, nothing but a heap of ruins remains to-day. Yet what a strange great place it must have been, with its four walls painted different colours, and its centre tower seven storeys in height, each diminishing in size, until the highest of all was floored with a single piece of marble. At each corner of this little summer-house was a marble lion, the open mouth of which exposed to the wind seemed to emit roaring. Strange fancies they had, these old-world Yemen people; and it must be regretted that the old palace and the adjacent temple dedicated to Zuhrah, supposed to be the Venus of Arabia, should have incurred the fanatical wrath of Othman, the third Caliph, and by his orders have been destroyed; for had it been left to die a natural death, there is little doubt that, in the situation and climate it enjoyed, there would have been at least some of it left to-day to tell of its former splendour.