'Handbook of Yemen' [‎24r] (52/190)

are a hoe, a mattock, a reed basket (the latter for tran
sporting soil), and an empty kerosene tin for watering
purposes.
Farther eastward the country becomes less and less fertile,
and cultivation gives way almost entirely to pastoral
occupations.
The farmers in Yemen in general time their operations
by the stars. They watch, for example, the movement
of Pleiades, which they call Thariyah (from a word meaning
wealth) ; and when the cluster swings low in the west
they know the spring rains are at hand. Produce has to
be transported locally from the farms, by hand or in
absurdly small loads on donkeys, because of the extreme
difficulty of some of the mountain ravine paths. When
the produce reaches a main caravan route, the husband
man is faced by exorbitant transport costs, often greatly
enhanced by the difficulty of obtaining fodder. The
caravan routes, too, are beset by marauders, most often
near the coast, where the best, though remotest, markets
are. Faced by all these obstacles, production is often
restricted to local requirements. Yemen is fertile enough
and will produce most generous harvests ; but that it is
not self-supporting seems to be shown by the fact that the
country imports more than £100,000 worth of foodstuffs
even in years of plenty.
Most industries are either moribund or languishing from
various causes ; but in former days they were not unimpor
tant. The following surviving local industries are the only
ones worth mentioning :—
(1) Dyeing. —The indigo plant is still cultivated round
Zebid and Beit el-Faqih ; but the dyeing which was formerly
carried on at these places has been dislocated by tribal
• disturbances (by the Zaraniq in particular), and has been
transferred to Hodeidah, where there was already a small
similar industry. There it continues to maintain itself
in spite of an increasing tendency to use synthetic dyes.