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Then remounting, we urged over hill and dale, where Galla peasants were threshing and storing their grain with loud songs of joy; they were easily distinguished by their African features, mere caricatures of the Somal, whose type has been Arabized by repeated immigrations from Yemen and Hadramaut.
The only race of Arabians whom I have found more industrious than the others, are the people of Hadramaut, or, as they are called, El Hadareme. Many of them act as servants in the merchants' houses, as door-keepers, messengers, and porters, in which latter character they are preferred to all others for their honesty and industry.
The greatest drawback to this city is its want of fresh water, which is brought from small wells two miles distant. The population is the reverse of autochthonous; it is composed of natives of Hadramaut and Yemen, Indians from Surat and Bombay, and Malays who come as pilgrims and settle in the town.
The slope outside of them reaching to the waters of the Arabian Gulf, or the Gulf of Aden as it is now called, has several strings of hills in that direction, with valleys between them, radiating from the group to the shore. Aden is a peninsula connected with Hadramaut, the southern section of Arabia, by a narrow isthmus, covered at the spring tides by the surrounding waters.
There the road passes, by which, in winter, the Arabs of Nedjed travel to Hadramaut: it is a low ground with date-trees and wells; but the pestilential climate deters people from residing there. The dates are gathered by the passing travellers. No. Stations of the Hadj or Pilgrim Caravan from Cairo to Mekka.
The schools in which boys are taught to read and write, are, as I have already mentioned, held in the mosque, where, after prayers, chiefly in the afternoon, some learned olemas explain a few religious books to a very thin audience, consisting principally of Indians, Malays, Negroes, and a few natives of Hadramaut and Yemen, who, attracted by the great name of Mekka, remain here a few years, until they think themselves sufficiently instructed to pass at home for learned men.
The most numerous are those whose fathers came from Yemen and Hadramaut; next to them in numbers are the descendants of Indians, Egyptians, Syrians, Mogrebyns, and Turks. There are also Mekkawys of Persian origin; Tatars, Bokhars, Kurds, Afghans; in short, of almost every Mohammedan country in the world. The Mekkawy is careful in preserving, by tradition, the knowledge of his original country.
That same intoxicating scent, sweeter than the musk of Hadramaut, enveloped her; her fingers were jeweled with nails which flashed in rivalry with their burden of precious stones as she toyed with the whispering strings. For a time she regarded the monk silently. "I am Zahra," she said at length, and Joseph thrilled at the tones of her voice. "To me, all things are music." "Zahra!
No one has yet been to tell the children of Hadramaut, who gather the incense-gum, the story of Jesus' birth and of His death on the cross. There is not a single missionary in all that country; no one has been to tell the news that the Babe of Bethlehem is the King of Glory.
The descendants of the ancient Arabs who once peopled the town, have perished by the hands of the governors, or have retired to other countries. Of the latter, those from Hadramaut and Yemen are the most numerous: colonies from every town and province of those countries are settled in Djidda, and keep up an active commerce with their native places.
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