The city, which contains some fifty thousand inhabitants, lies in a wide level valley. It takes the form of a triangle, the eastern point consisting of a large fortress, dominating the town, and built upon the lowest spur of Jibel Negoum, a mountain which rises immediately outside the city walls. The town is divided into three distinct quarters, each walled, and the whole surrounded by one continuous wall. They are respectively the city proper, in which are the Government buildings, the huge bazaars, and the residence of the Arabs and Turks; the Jews’ quarter; and Bir el-Azab, where are gardens and villas belonging to the richer Turks and Arabs. The city was once of great wealth and prosperity, and to-day remains one of the most nourishing cities of Arabia. The shops are well supplied with European goods, and a large manufacture of silk, jewellery, and arms is carried on there. The quarter in which the Government buildings are situated presents almost a European appearance, with its large Turkish shops, its _cafés_, and its open places, on one of which, in front of the Governor-General’s official residence, a military band discourses anything but sweet music of an afternoon. But the city, as the writer saw it after its recapture by the Turks, presented a very different spectacle from what it must have done when, surrounded on all sides by a horde of Arabs, a continual shower of bullets was being poured into its streets from the Arab position on Jibel Negoum, which completely dominated the place. Fortunately for those besieged, the rebels possessed no artillery, otherwise their efforts would no doubt have proved successful in gaining an entrance into the town. However, the fire poured into the city was sufficiently harassing to render it expedient to drive the Arabs from their position above the town, and several unsuccessful sorties were made. At length, mustering all the troops at his command, the pasha made a final sortie about the middle of November. Maintaining a steady fire from the fort upon the Arab position, the troops issued from the southern gate, and wheeling to the left after a gallant attack—for the Arabs were in overwhelming numbers—drove the rebels back. They retreated on Dar es-salaam, a small village a few miles outside the walls of Sanaa, consisting of perhaps a dozen or so stone houses surrounded by a wall. Bringing up some small field-guns, the artillery opened fire upon the rebels, completely destroying the place and rendering a precipitate retreat of the Arabs necessary, which they are said to have accomplished in the wildest disorder, leaving, as I was informed, several thousand dead upon the field. But the victory was not altogether a blessing, for there being no one to bury the Arab dead, the inhabitants of the city suffered from violent disease, while the stench of the decaying bodies is said to have been terrible. Retiring once more within the precincts of the city, the