again visited Taiz in June
1763, where after some delay permission was obtained to visit Sana, the
capital of the province and the residence of the ruling sovereign or
imam. The route lay by Jibla, passing the foot of the lofty Jebel Sorak,
where, in spite of illness, Forskal, the botanist of the party, was able
to make a last excursion; a few days later he died at Yarim. The mission
continued its march, passing Dhamar, the seat of a university of the
Zedi sect, then frequented by 500 students. Thence four marches,
generally over a stony plateau dominated by bare, sterile mountains,
brought them to Sana, where they received a cordial welcome from the
imam, el Mahdi Abbas.

The aspect of the city must have been nearly the same as at present;
Niebuhr describes the _enceinte_ flanked by towers, the citadel at the
foot of J. Nukum which rises 1000 ft. above the valley, the fortress and
palace of the imams, now replaced by the Turkish military hospital, the
suburb of Bir el Azab with its scattered houses and gardens, the Jews'
quarter and the village of Rauda, a few miles to the north in a fertile,
irrigated plain which Niebuhr compares to that of Damascus. After a stay
of ten days at Sana the mission set out again for Mokha, travelling by
what is now the main route from the capital to Hodeda, through the rich
coffee-bearing district of J. Haraz, and thence southward to Mokha,
where they embarked for India. During the next year three other members
of the party died, leaving Niebuhr the sole survivor. Returning to
Arabia a year later, he visited Oman and the shores of the Persian Gulf,
and travelling from Basra through Syria and Palestine he reached Denmark
in 1764 after four years' absence.

The period was perhaps specially favourable for a scientific mission of
the sort. The outburst of fanaticism which convulsed Arabia twenty years
later had not then reached Yemen, and Europeans, as such, were not
exposed to any special danger. The travellers were thus able to move
freely and to pursue their scientific enquiries without hindrance from
either people or ruler. The results published in 1772 gave for the first
time a comprehensive description not only of Yemen but of all Arabia;
while the parts actually visited by Niebuhr were described with a
fulness and accuracy of detail which left little or nothing for his
successors to discover.

Asir.

Jauf and Marib.

C.G. Ehrenberg and W.F. Hemprich in 1825 visited the Teha