At what time they had been expelled, or had voluntarily exiled themselves, from their native Yemen, they knew not; but tradition taught them that they had been located in the African deserts from ages immemorial.

Chundel departed accordingly, and travelled through many countries in fruitless search, till he came to the King of Yemen, whose name was Sarú, and found that he had three daughters of the character and qualifications required.

Then Feridún sent his three sons to Yemen, and they married the three daughters of the king, who gave them splendid dowries in treasure and jewels.

The governor of Yemen, Badzan, nominally under the sway of Persia, had separated himself almost entirely from his overlord during the unstable rule of Siroes, son of the warrior Chosroes.

Now Badzan embraced Islam, and with his conversion the Yemen population became officially followers of the Prophet.

He was now master of Hedaz, overlord of Yemen and the Bedouin tribes of the interior as far as the dim Syrian border.

Hadramaut and Yemen sent tokens of alliance and promises of conversion, even the far-off tribes upon the borders of Syria were not all equally hostile and were content to send deputations.

The first important conversion after his return from Taif was that of Jeyfar, King of Oman, followed closely by the districts of Mahra and Yemen, which localities had been hovering for some time between Islam and idolatry.

The only threatenings came from the Beni Harith of the country bordering Najran, and the Beni Nakhla, with a few minor tribes near Yemen.

Aswad, "the veiled Prophet of Yemen," might have proved the most formidable of the three, had not rashness of conduct and lack of governance caused his undoing.

Najran rose in his favour, and he marched confidently upon Sana, the great capital city of Yemen, slew the puppet king Shehr and took command of the surrounding country.

Around it was wrapped white linen and an outer covering of striped Yemen stuff.

The caravan routes from Southern Arabia, famous in Biblical story, had made the importance of such cities as Mecca and Sana, but with the maritime enterprise of Rome their well-being declined, and the consequent distress in Yemen induced its tribes to emigrate northwards to Mecca, to Syria, and the Central Desert.

Southern Arabia never recovered from the blow to its trade, and in the sixth century Yemen became merely a dependency of Persia.

Before his death he had secured the subjection of Yemen and Hadramaut, had penetrated far into the Syrian borderland, and had made his rule felt among the nomad tribes of the interior as far as the confines of Persia.

At the inception of his mission Mecca and Central Arabia, though confirmed in idolatry, still mingled with their rites some distorted Jewish traditions and ceremonies, while Yemen had embraced the Christian faith for a short time as a dependency of Abyssinia, but had relapsed into idolatry with the interference of Persia.

Coffee is a true child of the East, and its original home was among the hills of Yemen, the Arabia Felix of the ancients.

The discovery of the properties of coffee is attributed to a dervish, who, for some misdemeanor, was carried into the mountains of Yemen by his brethren and there left to perish by starvation.

"It is only by a naval power," says Gibbon, "that the reduction of Yemen can be successfully attempted"a remark, by the way, which more than one of the ancients had made before him.

The harbour of Aden, then, lies on the south coast of Yemen, as nearly as possible in 12º 45' N. latitude, and 45º 10' E. longitude; somewhat more than 100 miles east of Cape Bab-el-Mandeb, at the entrance of the Red Sea; and about 150 miles by sea, or 120 by land, from Mokha, the nearest port within the Straits.

Selim I. The new masters of Egypt, however, speedily adopted the policy of the rulers whom they had supplanted; and not contented with the limited suzerainté over the Arab chiefs of Yemen, exercised by the Circassian monarchs, determined on bringing that country under the direct control of the Porte, as a point d'appui for the operations to be undertaken in the Indian Ocean.

It was not, however, till 1568, that the final reduction of Yemen was accomplished, when Aden and other towns, which had fallen into the hands of an Arab chief named Moutaher, were recaptured by a powerful army sent from Egypt; the whole province was formally divided into sandjaks or districts, and the seat of the beglerbeg, or supreme pasha, fixed at Sana.

The domination of the Turks in Yemen did not continue much more than sixty years after this latter epoch; the constant revolts of the Arab tribes, and the feuds of the Turkish military chiefs, whose distance from the seat of government placed them beyond the control of the Porte, combined in rendering it an unprofitable possession.

The Land of Sheba: tales of the Jews of Yemen.

" And the slave replied, "Mohammed Is my name; my home is Yemen;