Page 50 - Arabian Studies (I)

36 Arabian Studies /

found a small piece of celadon in the former, as also a rectangular
structure, forming a field, that might have been the pool now full of
earth. A large circular wall was being bull-dozed away at our visit in
1972.
In the Wadi ZabTd the Rasulid sultans also had properties
Bustan al-Rahah50 seems to have been at ZabTd itself, and al-Bustan
al-Sharqi51 as its name indicates probably lay to the east. The
histories5 2 often simply mention al-Bustan at ZabTd, perhaps the
former. KhazrajT53 also refers to a district at al-Tuhaita of the WadT
ZabTd called Saryaqiis al-Asfal which the Rasulid al-Malik al-Ashraf
had purchased in 798 H./1395-6 A.D. and started to work, but
there may have been Rasulid holdings here before that. There is also
a passing reference54 to Bustan MansurTyah between al-Qurtub and
ZabTd.
The Tahirid monarch who died in 882 H./1477 8 A.D., like his
Rasulid predecessors, ‘planted palms in numerous parts of WadT
ZabTd, al-S hari and Mawshah [?].55 He planted sugarcane in
numerous districts and rice [uruzz], etc.’

Some Notes on Millet
It need scarcely be said that experience in growing a cereal so basic
to the economy of the Yemen as millet has brought the farmers an
accumulated store of practical wisdom and knowledge on every
aspect of its cultivation, varieties, qualities and uses, accompanied
with a large technical vocabulary with numerous local variations, just
as methods of treatment also differ from district to district. For this
reason it has seemed worth reproducing some few scattered entries
from my diaries.
On 23 May 1972 we saw SaifT millet being sown at Hizyiz, a little
to the south of San‘a\ There are three processes in preparing the
ground for the Saif crop, and only for the Saif crop. One harrows
(shabbar, verbal noun, tashbur) with a harrow consisting of a wooden
bar in which iron teeth are set, a week or so after rain, so that there is

Fig. 2. Harrow,
wood with iron
teeth.
no mud (khulb). After that a man runs (yadbut) the plough (JialT)
through it — then he runs a wooden beam over it (yakamtn-ah, vb.
noun, kumum) to flatten it. Now comes the time for sowing (waqt
al-madhra). They split the ground with a plough, and two men go