with chunam, the larger portion are small, dark, and filthy, made of palm-branches only, or at best covered with mats, or coated with mud, so that the periodical rains frequently demolish a considerable portion of the city, and they are then seen floating in fragments through the streets, which are converted into so many canals, by the torrents of water which descend from the circumjacent mountains. A mat laid on the bare earth, is the bed of the occupants, and their hands pillow their heads; an earthen pot is their only cooking utensil, and dried camel’s dung and palm-branches their fuel. Dates and fish, in scanty quantities, twice a day, form generally their meals; and when they are so fortunate as to obtain a few ounces of goat-meat, it is cut into small pieces, and roasted on wooden skewers. The inhabitants are indolent, and those who are neither sailors nor soldiers, mechanics nor merchants, are miserably poor. Beggars are every where, and it is even a more remarkable place for blind people than Mocha; they are seen in groups at the corners of the streets, crying out in the most piteous manner, for the love of Allah, the holy prophet, and all the santons, to give them something to relieve their wretched condition. The lanes, or rather slits, between the buildings, are very irregular, encumbered with filth and rubbish; and the houses are similar in construction to those of Mocha. The city, within the walls, is reported to contain about twelve thousand inhabitants, and as every foot of ground is covered with buildings, (there being neither gardens nor open squares,) I suppose this number not to be exaggerated, notwithstanding the circumference of the walls does not exceed a mile. The larger part of the inhabitants are Arabs; the remainder are from various parts of Hindostan, Persians, Scindians, Abyssinians, and negro slaves from the coast of Zanzibar; all reposing in safety under the mild and equitable government of a very worthy prince. The population of the suburbs is estimated at five thousand. Here may be seen weavers manufacturing fine check cloth, with red and yellow silk ends, which form the turbans, universally worn by all who are born within the kingdom of Aman, whether the sultan or the subject. The weavers dig a hole in the ground, for their feet, and form a seat a step higher, to sit on; they use a very primitive loom, and the web is extended but a few inches above the ground, a light date-leaf shed serving to protect them against the rays of the sun. A few blacksmiths, coppersmiths, ropemakers, carpenters, and sandal-makers, are almost the only trades that are carried on to any extent. The mechanic arts are conducted in the streets, under open sheds. The bellows of the smiths are of a very primitive construction; two skins are so arranged, that while one is filling with air, they blow with the other; with a hand placed on each, they are alternately depressed and filled. A hole in the ground