SENAA, a town in the mountains in the S.W. part of Arabia. After the expulsion of the Turks in A.D 1630, the whole of Yemen ctune under the government of the imams of Senna ; but at the time of Carsten Niebuhr's visit to Senaa in 1763, the native Arab tribes of the provinces of Aden, Abu Areesh, Taez, and others had thrown off allegiance to the Imams. In 1799, when the British Government took measures to oppose the expected invasion of India by the French, and to revive the lost trade of the Red Sea, Dr. Pringle obtained facilities for trade, but Sir Home Pop ham subsequently lost these. At the beginning of the 19th century, Imam Ali Mansur suffered severely at the hands of the Wahabee sect, who overran and wrested from him some of the best districts of his dontinions. In 1816, Muhammad Ali Pasha, after he destroyed the Wahabee power, restored the districts to Imam Ali. In 1817, in consequence of a dispute in which an Arab had been temporarily detained at the factory at Mocha, the Residency was attacked and plun dered, and a British officer was dragged before the Governor, by whom he was subjected to the most brutal insults. In 1840, a commercial treaty was
concluded with the Governor of Mocha by Captain Moresby, similar to that concluded in the same year with the chief of Zaila. For some years the country of Senaa fell into absolute anarchy. in 1832, Mocha and all the sea-coast fell under the suzerainty of the Turks. It was afterwards re covered for a time, but again finally lost in 1848. Ali Mansur, wbo succeeded his father as Imam of Senaa in 1834, was deposed three years after. During the internal revolutions in Senaa and the desultory warfare with the Turks, the Itnams repeatedly endeavoured to enlist the aid and advice of the British Governinent in their cause. A rigid abstinence, however, was main tained from all interference in their affairs.— Playfair's Yemen ; Papers in the Foreign Office ; Treaties, Engagements, and Sunnuds.