'Handbook of Yemen' [‎10r] (24/190)

allowed to have schools or synagogues, but assemble for
worship at private houses and their children are taught
at home. Nor may they build their houses more than
two storeys high. They are outwardly distinguished from
the Arabs by their dress—an ungirded tunic of print or
cotton reaching only to the knees and a close-fitting skull
ca p— anc l by the absence of weapons. They dress their
hair after a peculiar fashion, with plaits hanging down on
each cheek. They are not allowed to ride in the towns,
and even outside them they must dismount when passing
a Moslem. Nevertheless, it would not be correct (at least
for the present) to describe them as a persecuted community.
The law has been administered fairly with regard to them,
and, being remarkably industrious, they are on the whole
prosperous and contented. But, of late years, there has
been a tendency among them to emigrate, largely, it
appears, to Jerusalem. Every male adult pays a capita
tion tax of one riydl. Other aliens include about 1,000
British Indians, and a few Greeks and other Levantines
mainly resident in the coast towns.
' Arabs. —This population varies a good deal in type in
different districts, thanks partly to differences of origin,
partly to climate influences.
(1) The Tihdmah. —Along this belt the natives are
slightly built and dark, and betray a strong negroid taint
' due to mixture with the negro slave element. Once this
strain was established, intermarriage with the pure Arabs
became regular within certain limits. Quadroon girls
are frequently married by Arabs, but no girls of pure Arab
stock would "be given in marriage to a mulatto, still less
to a negro. The countrymen are almost exclusively
agricultural. The Arab merchant class in the towns of
this belt (or for that matter in all parts of Yemen) is chiefly
of the tall Ishmaelite type.