ABSTRACT
T HE long deferment of our reception by the Imam made it impossible directly to ask his consent to visit the places we had at
heart. But we were, meanwhile, fully occupied. We were free to wander, attended only by one of the Somalis and possibly Hassan, the soldier, and collect specimens in the gardens and open ground within, and immediately outside, the city walls. Nor was special permission necessary for whole-day excursions to recognised "beauty-spots". These outgoings took place in company with the Petrie family, and sometimes other Europeans, on the official weekly' holiday, Friday. Moreover the King, even before our audience, prescribed two more remote districts to which we might go. Each of these, Bilad Hamdan and Bilad Senhan, involved an absence from San'a of several days.
