in general shy of entering the town, where, truly, they were not in the
best repute. Well-dressed, grave-looking townsmen abound, their yellow
wand of lotus-wood in their hands, and their kerchiefs loosely thrown
over their heads.

The whole town has an aspect of old but declining prosperity. There are
few new houses, but many falling into ruin. The faces, too, of most we
meet are serious, and their voices in an undertone. Silk dresses are
prohibited by the dominant faction, and tobacco can only be smoked
within doors, and by stealth.

Enough of the town: the streets are narrow, hot, and dusty; the day,
too, advances; but the gardens are yet cool. So we dash at a venture
through a labyrinth of byways and crossways till we find ourselves in
the wide street that runs immediately along but inside the walls.

Here is a side gate, but half ruined, with great folding doors, and no
one to open them. The wall of one of the flanking towers has, however,
been broken in, and from thence we hope to find outlet on the gardens
outside. We clamber in, and after mounting a heap of rubbish, once the
foot of a winding staircase, have before us a window looking right on
the gardens. Fortunately we are not the first to try this short cut, and
the truant boys of the town have sufficiently enlarged the aperture and
piled up stones on the ground outside to render the passage tolerably
easy; we follow the indication, and in another minute stand in the open
air without the walls. The breeze is fresh, and will continue so till
noon. Before us are high palm-trees and dark shadows; the ground is
velvet-green with the autumn crop of maize and vetches, and intersected
by a labyrinth of watercourses, some dry, others flowing, for the wells
are at work.

These wells are much the same throughout Arabia; their only diversity is
in size and depth, but their hydraulic machinery is everywhere alike.
Over the well's month is fixed a crossbeam, supported high in air on
pillars of wood or stone on either side, and on this beam are from three
to six small wheels, over which pass the ropes of as many large leather
buckets, each containing nearly twice the ordinary English measure.
These are let down into the depth, and then drawn up again by camels
or asses, who pace slowly backwards or forwards on an inclined plane
leading from the edge of the well itself to a pit prolonged for some
distance. When the buckets rise to the verge, they tilt over and pour
ou