ts dependencies.

Turkish rule.

The provinces of Hejaz and Yemen are each administered by a Turkish
governor-general, with headquarters at Taif and Sana respectively; the
country is nominally divided up into divisions and districts under minor
officials, but Turkish rule has never been acquiesced in by the
inhabitants, and beyond the larger towns, all of which are held by
strong garrisons, Turkish authority hardly exists. The powerful Bedouin
tribes of Hejaz have always asserted their independence, and are only
kept quiet by the large money payments made them by the sultan on the
occasion of the annual pilgrimage to the holy cities. A large part of
Asir and northern Yemen has never been visited by Turkish troops, and
such revenues as are collected, mainly from vexatious customs and
transit duties, are quite insufficient to meet the salaries of the
officials, while the troops, ill-fed and their pay indefinitely in
arrears, live on the country as best they can.

Yemen revolt.

A serious revolt broke out in Yemen in 1892. A Turkish detachment
collecting taxes in the Bani Merwan lands north of Hodeda was destroyed
by a body of Arabs. This reverse set all Yemen aflame; under the
leadership of the imam, who had, since the Turkish occupation, lived in
retirement at Sada, 120 m. north of the capital, the powerful tribes
between Asir and Sana advanced southwards, occupied the principal towns
and besieged the few Turkish fortified posts that still held out. In
many cases the garrisons, Arab troops from Syria, went over to the
insurgents. Meanwhile, reinforcements under General Ahmad Feizi Pasha
reached Hodeda, Manakha was retaken, Sana relieved, and by the end of
January 1893 the country with the exception of the northern mountainous
districts was reconquered.

A state of intermittent rebellion, however, continued, and in 1904 a
general revolt took place with which the normal garrison of Yemen, the
7th army corps, was quite unable to cope. The military posts were
everywhere besieged, and Sana, the capital, was cut off from all
communication with the coast. During February 1905 reinforcements were
sent up which raised the garrison of Sana to a strength of eight
battalions, and in March a further reinforcement of about the same
strength arrived, and fought its way into the capital with the loss of
almost all its guns and train. The position was then desperate,
wholesale desertion and starvation had decimated the garr