hough at the same time turbulent and unsteady.
Anything approaching to a game is rare in Nejd, and in the Hejaz
religion and the yearly occurrence of the pilgrim ceremonies almost
exclude all public diversions; but in Yemen the well-known game of the
"jerid," or palm-stick, with dances and music is not rare. In Oman such
amusements are still more frequent. Again in Yemen and Oman,
coffee-houses, where people resort for conversation, and where public
recitals, songs and other amusements are indulged in, stand open all
day; while nothing of the sort is tolerated in Nejd. So too the
ceremonies of circumcision or marriage are occasions of gaiety and
pastime on the coast, but not in the central provinces.

Manners and customs.

An Arab town, or even village, except it be the merest hamlet, is
invariably walled round; but seldom is a stronger material than dried
earth used; the walls are occasionally flanked by towers of like
construction. A dry ditch often surrounds the whole. The streets are
irregular and seldom parallel. The Arab, indeed, lacks an eye for the
straight. The Arab carpenter cannot form a right angle; an Arab servant
cannot place a cloth square on a table. The Ka'ba at Mecca has none of
its sides or angles equal. The houses are of one or two storeys, rarely
of three, with flat mud roofs, little windows and no external ornament.
If the town be large, the expansion of one or two streets becomes a
market-place, where are ranged a few shops of eatables, drugs, coffee,
cottons or other goods. Many of these shops are kept by women. The chief
mosque is always near the market-place; so is also the governor's
residence, which, except in size and in being more or less fortified
Arab fashion, does not differ from a private house. Drainage is
unthought of; but the extreme dryness of the air obviates the
inconvenience and disease that under other skies could not fail to
ensue, and which in the damper climates of the coast make themselves
seriously felt. But the streets are roughly swept every day, each
householder taking care of the roadway that lies before his own door.
Whitewash and colour are occasionally used in Yemen, Hejaz and Oman;
elsewhere a light ochre tint, the colour of the sun-dried bricks,
predominates, and gives an Arab town the appearance at a distance of a
large dust-heap in the centre of the bright green ring of gardens and
palm-groves. Baked bricks are unknown in Arabia, and stone buildings are
rar