Palgrave gives the following picturesque description of the Wahabee capital: “We wrap our headgear, like true Arabs, round our chins, put on our grave-looking black cloaks, take each a long stick in hand, and thread the narrow streets intermediate between our house and the market-place at a funeral pace, and speaking in an undertone. Those whom we meet salute us, or we salute them; be it known that the lesser number should always be the first to salute the greater, he who rides him who walks, he who walks him who stands, the stander the sitter, and so forth; but never should a man salute a woman; difference of age or even of rank between men does not enter into the general rules touching the priority of salutation. If those whom we have accosted happen to be acquaintances or patients, or should they belong to the latitudinarian school, our salutation is duly returned. But if, by ill fortune, they appertain to the strict and high orthodox party, an under-look with a half scowl in silence is their only answer to our greeting. Whereat we smile, Malvolio-like, and pass on. “At last we reach the market-place; it is full of women and peasants, selling exactly what we want to buy, besides meat, firewood, milk, etc.; around are customers, come on errands like our own. We single out a tempting basket of dates, and begin haggling with the unbeautiful Phyllis, seated beside her rural store. We find the price too high. ‘By him who protects Feysul,’ answers she, ‘I am the loser at that price.’ We insist. ‘By Him who shall grant Feysul a long life, I cannot bate it,’ she replies. We have nothing to oppose to such tremendous asseverations, and accede or pass on, as the case may be. “Half of the shops, namely, those containing grocery, household articles of use, shoemakers’ stalls and smithies, are already open and busily thronged. For the capital of a strongly centralized empire is always full of strangers, come will they nill they on their several affairs. But around the butchers’ shops awaits the greatest human and canine crowd. My readers, I doubt not, know that the only licensed scavengers throughout the East are the dogs. Nedjeans are great flesh-eaters, and no wonder, considering the cheapness of meat (a fine fat sheep costs at most five shillings, often less) and the keenness of mountaineer appetites. I wish that the police regulations of the city would enforce a little more cleanliness about these numerous shambles; every refuse is left to cumber the ground at scarce two yards’ distance. But dogs and dry air much alleviate the nuisance—a remark I made before at Ha’yel and Bereydah; it holds true for all Central Arabia.