When He Rides Forth In
Public, He Is Escorted By A Party Of Fifty Men:
The running footmen crack
their whips and shout "Let!
Let!" (Go! Go!) and the citizens avoid stripes
by retreating into the nearest house, or running into another street.
The army of Harar is not imposing. There are between forty and fifty
matchlockmen of Arab origin, long settled in the place, and commanded by a
veteran Maghrebi. They receive for pay one dollar's worth of holcus per
annum, a quantity sufficient to afford five or six loaves a day: the
luxuries of life must be provided by the exercise of some peaceful craft.
Including slaves, the total of armed men may be two hundred: of these one
carries a Somali or Galla spear, another a dagger, and a third a sword,
which is generally the old German cavalry blade. Cannon of small calibre
is supposed to be concealed in the palace, but none probably knows their
use. The city may contain thirty horses, of which a dozen are royal
property: they are miserable ponies, but well trained to the rocks and
hills. The Galla Bedouins would oppose an invader with a strong force of
spearmen, the approaches to the city are difficult and dangerous, but it
is commanded from the north and west, and the walls would crumble at the
touch of a six-pounder. Three hundred Arabs and two gallopper guns would
take Harar in an hour.
Harar is essentially a commercial town: its citizens live, like those of
Zayla, by systematically defrauding the Galla Bedouins, and the Amir has
made it a penal offence to buy by weight and scale. He receives, as
octroi, from eight to fifteen cubits of Cutch canvass for every donkey-
load passing the gates, consequently the beast is so burdened that it must
be supported by the drivers. Cultivators are taxed ten per cent., the
general and easy rate of this part of Africa, but they pay in kind, which
considerably increases the Government share. The greatest merchant may
bring to Harar 50_l._ worth of goods, and he who has 20_l._ of capital is
considered a wealthy man. The citizens seem to have a more than Asiatic
apathy, even in pursuit of gain. When we entered, a caravan was to set out
for Zayla on the morrow; after ten days, hardly one half of its number had
mustered. The four marches from the city eastward are rarely made under a
fortnight, and the average rate of their Kafilahs is not so high even as
that of the Somal.
The principal exports from Harar are slaves, ivory, coffee, tobacco, Wars
(safflower or bastard saffron), Tobes and woven cottons, mules, holcus,
wheat, "Karanji," a kind of bread used by travellers, ghee, honey, gums
(principally mastic and myrrh), and finally sheep's fat and tallows of all
sorts. The imports are American sheeting, and other cottons, white and
dyed, muslins, red shawls, silks, brass, sheet copper, cutlery (generally
the cheap German), Birmingham trinkets, beads and coral, dates, rice, and
loaf sugar, gunpowder, paper, and the various other wants of a city in the
wild.
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