ABSTRACT

AFTER unfavourable first impressions of San'a, it is pleasant to recall with what affection we came to regard the capital and

with how much regret we left after more than two months. When, on that cold January evening, the gates were at length opened, we were driven in darkness across an open space. On the right a lofty pile of buildings loomed up, with traceried windows brilliantly illuminated, which we later knew weII as the Imam's Palace. Through an inner archway we were taken into the walled western division of the city, to a guest-house in a street of the quarter called Bir al 'Azab. After the splendour of our rooms. in the 'Amil's guest-house at Ta'izz, our lodgings had progressively declined. This first abode in San'a was a low unormimented Turkish house with plain windows. The rooms, medium-sized, bare and whitewashed, were carpeted but none too clean. Flies swarmed so badly that windows had to be kept shut all day. Later, apologies were received from the Imam's ministers that this 'was the only guest-house available. We could hardly have expected the Government to house us in the great stone building with an arcaded courtyard and fountain, in the spacious upper rooms of which the visiting official missions representing foreign Governments are lodged.