To My Instances
They Replied That, Although They Were Most Anxious To Oblige, The Arrival
Of Mudeh The Eldest Son Rendered A Consultation Necessary; And Retiring To
The Woods, Sat In Palaver From 8 A.M. To Past Noon.
At last they came to a
resolution which could not be shaken.
They would not trust one of their
number in the Gerad's country; a horseman, however, should carry a letter
inviting the Girhi chief to visit his brothers-in-law. I was assured that
Adan would not drink water before mounting to meet us: but, fear is
reciprocal, there was evidently bad blood between them, and already a
knowledge of Somali customs caused me to suspect the result of our
mission. However, a letter was written reminding the Gerad of "the word
spoken under the tree," and containing, in case of recusance, a threat to
cut off the salt well at which his cows are periodically driven to drink.
Then came the bargain for safe conduct. After much haggling, especially on
the part of the handsome Igah, they agreed to receive twenty Tobes, three
bundles of tobacco, and fourteen cubits of indigo-dyed cotton. In addition
to this I offered as a bribe one of my handsome Abyssinian shirts with a
fine silk fringe made at Aden, to be received by the man Beuh on the day
of entering the Gerad's village.
I arose early in the next morning, having been promised by the Abbans
grand sport in the Harawwah Valley. The Somal had already divided the
elephants' spoils: they were to claim the hero's feather, I was to receive
two thirds of the ivory--nothing remained to be done but the killing.
After sundry pretences and prayers for delay, Beuh saddled his hack, the
Hammal mounted one mule, a stout-hearted Bedouin called Fahi took a
second, and we started to find the herds. The End of Time lagged in the
rear: the reflection that a mule cannot outrun an elephant, made him look
so ineffably miserable, that I sent him back to the kraal. "Dost thou
believe me to be a coward, 0 Pilgrim?" thereupon exclaimed the Mullah,
waxing bold in the very joy of his heart. "Of a truth I do!" was my reply.
Nothing abashed, he hammered his mule with heel, and departed ejaculating,
"What hath man but a single life? and he who throweth it away, what is he
but a fool?" Then we advanced with cocked guns, Beuh singing, Boanerges-
like, the Song of the Elephant.
In the Somali country, as amongst the Kafirs, after murdering a man or
boy, the death of an elephant is considered _the_ act of heroism: most
tribes wear for it the hair-feather and the ivory bracelet. Some hunters,
like the Bushmen of the Cape [30], kill the Titan of the forests with
barbed darts carrying Waba-poison. The general way of hunting resembles
that of the Abyssinian Agageers described by Bruce. One man mounts a white
pony, and galloping before the elephant, induces him, as he readily does,
--firearms being unknown,--to charge and "chivy." The rider directs his
course along, and close to, some bush, where a comrade is concealed; and
the latter, as the animal passes at speed, cuts the back sinew of the hind
leg, where in the human subject the tendon Achilles would be, with a
sharp, broad and heavy knife.
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