'Handbook of Yemen' [‎13v] (31/190)

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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 plentiful addition of hovaij —a mixture of pepper
corns, cinnamon, and nutmeg—is a favourite dish.
Clothes are unusually scanty in this torrid climate. The
characteristic 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 they also sleep in,
merely removing their necklaces of beads, and covering
their feet with the shawl which serves as a hood during
the day.
Along the inner edge of the Tihamah and among the
foothills, where more settled agricultural pursuits are
followed, little stone tower-like huts, gathered in scattered
groups, take the place of mat huts; but the food, clothing,
and habits are not dissimilar to the foreo-oin»
O O
(ii) On the highlands, native life contrasts very sharply
with that prevailing in the lowlands; arable spots are much
more extensive and frequent, and fixed settlements become
the rule. All villages are fortresses, often perched eyrie
like on hills at the very edge of awesome abysses, and many
well away 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 filled
by curtains of stone masonry ; the keep of the chieftain
rears its battlements above all.. Even villages have mas
sive mam gates ; the streets, usually steep, are often of
slippery rock and bordered by loop-holed houses and
towers. The only civilians are the artizan, mechanical,
and servile classes.
The houses in general are either entirely stone-built or
have at least their lower storeys of well-hewn dark basalt,
e oge er without mortar, and the superstructures of