“But another and a very characteristic feature of domestic architecture is the frequent addition, throughout the Djowf, of a round tower, from thirty to forty feet in height and twelve or more in breadth, with a narrow entrance and loop-holes above. This construction is sometimes contiguous to the dwelling-place, and sometimes isolated in a neighboring garden belonging to the same master. These towers once answered exactly the same purposes as the ‘torri,’ well known to travellers in many cities of Italy, at Bologna, Siena, Rome, and elsewhere, and denoted a somewhat analogous state of society to what formerly prevailed there. Hither, in time of the ever-recurring feuds between rival chiefs and factions, the leaders and their partisans used to retire for refuge and defence, and hence they would make their sallies to burn and destroy. These towers, like all the modern edifices of the Djowf, are of unbaked bricks; their great thickness and solidity of make, along with the extreme tenacity of the soil, joined to a very dry climate, renders the material a rival almost of stone-work in strength and endurance. Since the final occupation of this region by the forces of Telal, all these towers have, without exception, been rendered unfit for defence, and some are even half-ruined. Here again the phenomena of Europe have repeated themselves in Arabia. “The houses are not unfrequently isolated each from the other by their gardens and plantations; and this is especially the case with the dwellings of chiefs and their families. What has just been said about the towers renders the reasons of this isolation sufficiently obvious. But the dwellings of the commoner sort are generally clustered together, though without symmetry or method.