"Writing with an intimacy and a depth of knowledge gained through thirteen years among the Yemenis, Mackintosh-Smith proves himself a traveling companion of the best sort - erudite, witty, and eccentric. Crossing mountain, desert, ocean, and three millennia of history, he portrays a land that, in the words of a contemporary poet, has become the dictionary of its people.

In Yemen: The Unknown Arabia, we witness the extraordinary in the ordinary: men who chew leaves and camels that live on fish; a city that seems to have been baked, not built, of iced gingerbread; not to speak of shepherdesses who tend their flocks in gold sequinned dresses. Yemen is a part of Arabia, but it is like no place else on earth."--BOOK JACKET.