Particularly interesting amongst the shops are those of the jewellers and makers of arms. The walls of the former are hung with silver necklaces and bangles and anklets, many of which are of very beautiful design. Some of the necklets particularly are extremely lovely, resembling in workmanship the finest and best Greek and Etruscan work, with none of the roughness apparent in the jewellery of so many oriental countries. The favourite design seems to be single chains supporting pendants of various shapes and forms, from discs of fine filigree-work to solid pear-shaped globules of metal. The bracelets are generally bands of worked silver, though some, like the necklaces, are decorated with small chains and hanging pendants. But the greatest skill of the jewellers of Sanaa, who are rightly renowned for their workmanship, is exhibited in the dagger-sheaths, many of which are of rich silver-gilt, and even, at times, of gold. Perhaps the most lovely, however, are of plain polished silver inlaid with gold coins, principally of the Christian Byzantine emperors; others again, of delicate filigree, which the natives line with coloured leathers or silks. But more than even the sheaths of these _jambiyas_, as they call their daggers, the natives value the blades. Antique ones are generally considered the best, and the people declare that the old art of hardening the steel has been lost. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that the modern blades are of no mean workmanship, and great prices, for the Yemen, are paid for good specimens. The two parts of the dagger are nearly always sold separately, and a Yemeni, having found a blade to suit him, has a sheath made according to his taste and wealth. The early European visitors to Sanaa speak of the jewelled arms worn by the Imams and their companions; but I saw only one specimen of these in the bazaars, a silver-gilt sheath studded with rough pearls and turquoises, for which the shopkeeper was asking some forty pounds sterling, without the blade. Another art long lost, but of which examples are still to be procured, is the application of silver to copper and brass. This kind of work usually takes the form of boxes of one of the latter metals, covered with inscriptions in Kufic or other Arabic characters in silver. The later forms of this work are very inferior to the earlier, and the silver is apt to peel off.