Arabs again took up their old position; but their defeat seems to have to a great degree crushed their spirits, and the remainder of the siege, severe though the sufferings of the townspeople were, is said to have been less acute than previously. At any rate, the alarm of a successful attack on the part of the rebels seems to have abated. But relief was at hand. The Turkish reinforcements had landed in Hodaidah under the command of Ahmed Feizi Pasha, formerly Governor of Mecca, and commander of the Seventh Army Corps. Learning on his arrival at Hodaidah how serious was the state of affairs, he at once took active measures, and without even waiting for commissariat arrangements to be carried out, marched his troops _viâ_ Bajil to Hojaila, a village at the foot of the mountains on which the town of Menakha is situated, and over which the road to Sanaa passes. Here three days later they were overtaken by the commissariat camels bringing flour and provisions for the soldiers. Having rested his men, he commenced the ascent of the steep road, and here met with the first show of resistance. But the Turkish soldiers were fresh and fought well, and the superiority of arms did its work. With but a short delay to force the road, Menakha was reached. There is perhaps in the world no city situated in the way that Menakha is. At an altitude of seven thousand six hundred feet above the sea-level, it is perched on a narrow ridge joining two distinct mountain-ranges. On either side of the city are precipices, each of considerably over two thousand feet in depth. So narrow is the town that there are places in it where one can stand and gaze down both these precipices at the same time. To reach it from the west there is only one path in the steep mountain-side; while from the east it can only be approached by a narrow track cut in the face of a precipice and winding up it for an ascent of two thousand five hundred feet. In the hands of well-regulated forces it would be impregnable; but the Arab defenders, learning how easily the new Governor-General and his troops had forced the road at Hojaila, made no plucky resistance: and armed as they were almost entirely with matchlock and fuse guns—and many only with spears—they could have made no permanent stand against the field-guns of the Turks, who are said in one day to have brought their light artillery from Hojaila to Menakha, an ascent of nearly six thousand feet, by a break-neck path. But few shots had been fired when the Arabs fled, and the Turks once more took possession of the place. Leaving a sufficient garrison to protect the town, and to keep open a line of communication with the coast, Ahmed Feizi marched on towards Sanaa. About thirty miles from Menakha, on the road to the capital, is a spot called Hajarat el-Mehedi, where the track is so narrow and so bad that even without resistance it would offer no slight obstacle to the passage of troops.