It was the perpetual practice of these theories that gradually drove the Arabs into resistance. The rebellion was no sudden affair; as long ago as several years back there had commenced on the part of the Arabs a series of outrages against Turkish officials that would have rendered apparent to any other nation but the Turks the danger that was threatening. Cruel and bloodthirsty as many of these outrages were, they were the only means in the power of the Arabs of protesting against the exorbitant taxation and the oppression that were ruining them. Their appeals to Sanaa, and even to Constantinople, had resulted in no amelioration of their condition. It is necessary, I think, to give but one example of these outrages. At Dhamar, one of the largest cities of the Yemen, there lived a certain general, by name Mahammed Rushti Pasha, between whom and a neighbouring tribe there had arisen misunderstanding as to the amount of taxation to be levied upon them. The pasha insisted on the full sum, and a quarrel ensued between the Arab sheikh and himself, the former fleeing from the city swearing revenge. Shortly afterwards Mahammed Rushti being called away to another part of the country, the tribe in question took advantage of his absence to blow up his house and family with gunpowder. His wives, children, and servants died that night, in all some eleven persons. Returning with all speed to Dhamar, the general, with such forces as were at the time in the city, almost exterminated the little tribe who had accomplished so horrible a vengeance. Over the grave of those that died that night Mahammed Rushti raised a mosque and a domed tomb, the interior of which he hung with rich silks. Thither he would repair and sit alone. On the taking of Dhamar by the Arabs in November last, this tomb was looted, and when visited by the writer at the end of January, the city by that time having been reconquered by the Turks, he found the tomb and mosque in ruins, robbed of all its treasures.