A Journey through the Yemen and some General Remarks Upon that Country by Walter Harris

SANAA, THE CAPITAL OF THE YEMEN.

The city of Sanaa is situated in a wide valley, at an elevation of seven thousand two hundred and fifty feet above the sea-level. Although the town lies almost altogether on the flat bottom of the valley, a mountain, Jibel Negoum, rises abruptly on the east-so abruptly, in fact, that the old fortress and castle which form the citadel of Sanaa are perched on one of its spurs, from which the main peak rises in rocky bareness to a very considerable height.

The town is in form a triangle, the apex being formed by the _kasr_ above-mentioned, and the base by the wall of the garden suburb Bir el-Azab. There are three distinct quarters within the outer walls: the first or east quarter that of the Turks and Arabs, where are situated the bazaars, the Government buildings, and the principal native houses; the second the Jews' quarter, separated from the last by a wide strip of barren ground, part of which shows signs of once having been a cemetery; and thirdly, this suburb of Bir el-Azab, where many a villa stands within luxurious gardens of fruit and other trees, enclosed with high walls. In spite of the fact that Sanaa is situated only between the 15th and 16th degree of north latitude, and so well within the tropics, there are very few signs to be seen of anything approaching tropical vegetation, and one is surprised at first, until the great altitude of the place is taken into consideration, to find that nearly all our English fruits flourish there. Although, of course, by day the sun is intensely hot, it is quite a common occurrence to experience frosts on winter nights. Yet in spite of lying at so great an elevation above the sea, Sanaa is subject at times to serious droughts; and although in the rainy season a torrent of water pours down the river-bed which runs through the centre of the town, in the dry periods of the year water is procurable only from wells sunk to a great depth in the solid rock. The water drawn from these wells is said to be very fresh and good. As is the custom in so many parts of the East, it is a marketable produce, and is carried about in skins by water-bearers, and sold at so much per skin, or even per cup. Yet in spite of water being a thing of money value, it is extraordinary how clean the general population of Sanaa seem to be, with the exception of the lower-class Turks, who, to judge from their appearance, one could believe never to have even heard of its existence. However, happily they are in the minority.

The whole town of Sanaa is surrounded by a wall built for the most part of mud-bricks dried in the sun, though in many cases the towers, which at regular intervals protect the walls, and on most of which the Turks have mounted small guns, are of stone. The city is entered by four principal gates, one lying to each point of the compass. Although extremely badly built, and capable apparently of withstanding no armed force, the walls of Sanaa formed a sufficient protection to the city against the wild Arab hordes by whom the place was infested in the autumn and winter of 1891. Had the Arabs been possessed of any artillery, instead of being armed with only a few matchlock-guns and rifles and their spears, no doubt the city would have fallen. Yet it has been found by proof, especially in the several bombardments of Mokha, that walls and fortifications of sun-dried bricks are by no means as easy to form a breach in as it might be supposed. However, in these days of shells they would offer but poor resistance, although when fired at with shot the missile merely buries itself in the clay, without doing any appreciable damage. To further fortify the place, the Turks have at regular intervals built, some few hundred yards outside the walls, towers, somewhat resembling our martello towers of the south coast. Here, as they have done upon the main wall, they have erected small guns which proved of great use in the Arab attacks upon Sanaa. These towers, by being built within easy range of one another, and being exposed to no more serious fire than that of matchlock-guns, are said to have played terrible havoc amongst the natives, as a handful of Turks in each, with one piece of artillery and a dozen or so rifles, were able to pour a telling fire into the flanks of the Arabs as they approached the city walls.

But the strongest point in the fortifications of Sanaa is the old fort on the spur of Jibel Negoum, the walls of which are solidly built of stone. Where necessary, the Turks have repaired and strengthened it. It was opposite to the gate of this fort, which serves as the Turkish arsenal, that I was lodged during my stay in Sanaa; and I was not a little amused to notice that the guns by which the walls are protected point ominously into the city. It is no doubt by the constant view of these cannon, whose gaping mouths point direct at the Arab quarter, that revolt and revolution against the Osmanli forces was held in check within the city, when all the rest of the Arab population, with but few exceptions, had risen up in arms.