During the two days we encamped at Khaila we were gazed upon uninterruptedly by a relentless crowd of men, women, and children. It amused us at first to see the women, here for the most part unmasked, with their exceedingly heavy girdles of brass, their anklets of brass half a foot deep, their bracelets of brass, their iron nose rings, and their massive and numerous earrings which tore down the lobe of the ear with their weight. Every Bedou, male or female, has a ring or charm of cornelian set in base silver, and agates and small tusks also set in silver.
The root with which the women paint themselves yellow is called shubab. It is dried and powdered. It only grows when there is rain. The whole of the poultry at Khaila was carried about in the arms of the women and children who owned them, all the time of our sojourn, in the hopes of selling them. They, at least, were glad of our departure.
Not far from Khaila, we saw a fine village which we were told was inhabited by Arabs of pure blood, so we sent a polite message to the seyyid, or head-man of the place, to ask if we might pay him our respects. His reply was to the effect that if we paid thirty dollars we might come and pass four hours in the town. Needless to say we declined the invitation with thanks, and on the morrow when we marched down the Wadi Al Aisa we gave the abode of this hospitable seyyid a wide berth, particularly as the soldiers told us it was not safe, for the Arabs meant to kill us.
Leaving Khaila, where we remained two nights and saw the New Year in, we passed a good many towered villages: Larsmeh was one, Hadouf another, also Subak and others. We passed the mouth of the Wadi Doan, which runs parallel to Wadi Al Aisa, and has two branches, only the largest having the name Doan. The mouth is about three miles below Khaila; five miles more brought us to Sief, where we halted for a night. It is also inhabited by pure Arabs, who treated us with excessive rudeness. It is a very picturesque spot, perched on a rock, with towers and turrets constructed of sun-dried brick; only here, as elsewhere in these valleys, the houses being so exactly the same colour as the rocks behind them, they lose their effect. The rich have evidently recognised this difficulty and whitewash their houses, but in the poorer villages there is no whitewash, and consequently nothing to make them stand out from their surroundings.
One can pretty well judge of the wealth of the owners of the various towers and castles by the amount of whitewash. Some have only the pinnacles white, and some can afford to trim up the windows and put bands round the building.
At Sief several men came once or twice and begged my husband to let me go out that the women might see me, but when I went out they would not allow me to approach or hold any intercourse with the Arab women, using opprobrious epithets when I tried to make friendly overtures, with the quaint result that whenever I advanced towards a group of gazing females they fled precipitately like a flock of sheep before a collie dog, so we discovered that it was the men themselves who wished to see me. These women wear their dresses high in front (showing their yellow-painted legs above the knee) and long behind; they are of deep blue cotton, decorated with fine embroidery, and patches of yellow and red sewn on in patterns. It is the universal female dress in the Hadhramout, and looks as if the fashion had not changed since the days when Hazarmaveth the Patriarch settled in this valley and gave it his name.[10] The tall tapering straw hat worn by these women when in the fields contributes with the mask to make the Hadhrami females as externally repulsive as the most jealous of husbands could desire.
I am pretty sure that this must be the very same dress which made such an unfavourable impression upon Sir John Maundeville, when he saw 'the foul women who live near Babylon the great.' He says: 'They are vilely arrayed. They go barefoot and clothed in evil garments, large and wide, but short to the knees, long sleeves down to the feet like a monk's frock, and their sleeves are hanging about their shoulders.'
The dress is certainly wide, for the two pieces of which it is composed, exactly like the Greek peplos, when the arms are extended, stretch from finger-tip to finger-tip, so when this dress is caught into the loose girdle far below the waist, it hangs out under the arms and gives a very round-backed look, as is the case with the peplos.
There are a great many Arabs at Sief, a most unhealthy, diseased-looking lot. They are of the yellow kind of Arab, with Jewish-looking faces.
Saleh retired into Sief on our arrival, and we saw him no more till we started next day. He was a very useless interpreter. He used to like to live in the villages, saying he could not bear to live in the camp of such unbelievers as we were, and used to bring his friends to our kitchen and show them some little tins of Lazenby's potted meat, adorned with a picture of a sheep, a cow, and a pig, as a proof that we lived on pork, whereas we had none with us. He always tried to persuade the people that he was far superior to any of us, and when places had to be made amongst the baggage on the camels for my husband and the servants to ride, he used to have his camel prepared and ride on, leaving some of the servants with no seat kept on the camels for them. My husband cured him of this, for one morning, seeing Saleh's bedding nicely arranged, he jumped on to the camel himself and rode off, leaving Saleh an object of great derision.