Page 114 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 4,5

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152 YEMEN

several vessels of crude green-glazed earthenware complete the
domestic apparatus. One family one hut is the rule, with no
attempt to separate the sexes.
Food rarely includes meat, and the staple dietary consists
of round, flat, unleavened cakes eaten with liquid butter or
sesame oil, and dates. Corn is not ground by querns of the
ordinary type, which would be heavy to carry : it is moistened
and then crushed on a concave stone with a stone pestle grasped
with both hands and rubbed to and fro—a process requiring much
effort and patience and usually performed by the young girls when
they are not engaged in bringing water from the often distant well.
The favourite beverage is a liquor made of coffee-husks, ginger,
and cardamon. A stew of meat, made in an earthen jar, with a
plentiful addition of howaig, a mixture' of condiments—pepper­
corns, cinnamon, and nutmeg—is a favourite dish. The Yemen
Arabs drink £ coffee ’ made of the husk rather than of the bean.
The husks locally fetch a higher price than the berry, and in taste
the beverage, known as qishr, is said to remind one of hot barley-
water. ■

Clothes are unusually scanty in this torrid climate. The charac- j
teristic dress of the men is a coloured cotton kilt, belted round the
waist, and the sole garment of the boys is a piece of cotton fabric.
Females of all classes wear a long slip of navy-blue cotton, which j
they also sleep in, merely removing their necklaces of beads, and
covering their feet with the shawl which serves as a hood during t
the day.
Along the inner edge of the Tihamah and among the foot-hills,
where more settled agricultural pursuits are followed, little, stone,
tower-like huts, gathered in scattered groups, take the place of
mat huts ; but food, clothing, and habits are not dissimilar to
those of the plain. The Yemen is much plagued with mosquitoes i
in the lowlands, and with fleas and scorpions in the highlands.

In the highlands native life contrasts very sharply with that
prevailing in the lowlands : cultivable spots are much more exten­
sive and frequent, and fixed settlements become the rule. All vil­
lages are fortresses in themselves ; they are often perched, eyi ie like,
on hills at the very edge of awesome abysses, and many well away j
from any recognized route. All the towns and villages have certain |
features in common : they stand usually on a difficult crest of bare !
rock, from which rises a lofty rampart of towers, the gaps between •
being joined by curtains of stone masonry, and the keep of the j
chieftain rears its battlements above all. Even villages have their ?
massive main gates ; the streets, usually steep, are of fen of slippery |