Of the other objects to be seen in the house the most conspicuous is the master’s shield, with dagger belt and sword, and the most essential is a large water jar. To one of the upright sticks supporting the tent are hung various utensils containing the family larder, e.g., the bowls and skins of milk (which is generally sour and evil smelling). The milk bowls are curious, being either closely woven, water-tight baskets of palm-leaf, gourds[30], or bottles hollowed out of solid blocks of hard wood. Some of these latter are great works of art, being perfectly round and nearly as thin as porcelain vessels, though cut out of a dark red wood entirely by the unaided hand. The practical advantages of enamelled iron ware appeal to the natives; the brass cooking pots of antique design, such as shewn in Fig. 50 on Plate XXIII, and the fellows of which may be seen at Pompeii, are being replaced by this prosaic material. For cups, empty meat tins, cleaned and the edges straightened, are most commonly used if an European lives near. A stock of samin butter may be kept in a four-gallon paraffin tin. _Plate XV_ [Illustration: Fig. 28. Tents on the edge of Yemêna Oasis] Of all the kindly fruits of the earth the onion is the greatest boon to us desert dwellers. Its portability and keeping qualities enable it to arrive fresh and wholesome even at this end-of-the-world village, and after weeks of rice and dûra diet the value of a dish flavoured with onions is immense. It is the only vegetable ever used, water-melons being the only fruit, and those but rarely seen even in the winter. Smoking is rather rare, chewing universal. Pipes or “hubble-bubbles” I have not seen except in the hands of Egyptians or Arabians, the tobacco being burnt by natives in the end of a piece of sheep’s marrow-bone, or as cigarettes. All love to chew a kind of brown snuff which seems to be a great solace during work and in the intervals of pearl diving. Tea is taken after every meal and oftener. A half-pint teapot suffices for half a dozen men as it is sipped, saturated with sugar, from tiny glass tumblers. Its flavour, poor to begin with, is utterly spoiled by the brackish water and of course by the excess of sugar.