He Cannot Read Or
Write, But He Has All The Knowledge To Be Acquired By Fifteen Or Twenty
Years, Hard
"Knocking about:" he can make a long speech, and, although he
never prays, a longer prayer; he is an excellent
Mimic, and delights his
auditors by imitations and descriptions of Indian ceremony, Egyptian
dancing, Arab vehemence, Persian abuse, European vivacity, and Turkish
insolence. With prodigious inventiveness, and a habit of perpetual
intrigue, acquired in his travels, he might be called a "knowing" man, but
for the truly Somali weakness of showing in his countenance all that
passes through his mind. This people can hide nothing: the blank eye, the
contracting brow, the opening nostril and the tremulous lip, betray,
despite themselves, their innermost thoughts.
The second servant, whom I bring before you is Guled, another policeman at
Aden. He is a youth of good family, belonging to the Ismail Arrah, the
royal clan of the great Habr Gerhajis tribe. His father was a man of
property, and his brethren near Berberah, are wealthy Bedouins: yet he ran
away from his native country when seven or eight years old, and became a
servant in the house of a butter merchant at Mocha. Thence he went to
Aden, where he began with private service, and ended his career in the
police. He is one of those long, live skeletons, common amongst the Somal:
his shoulders are parallel with his ears, his ribs are straight as a
mummy's, his face has not an ounce of flesh upon it, and his features
suggest the idea of some lank bird: we call him Long Guled, to which he
replies with the Yemen saying "Length is Honor, even in Wood." He is brave
enough, because he rushes into danger without reflection; his great
defects are weakness of body and nervousness of temperament, leading in
times of peril to the trembling of hands, the dropping of caps, and the
mismanagement of bullets: besides which, he cannot bear hunger, thirst, or
cold.
The third is one Abdy Abokr, also of the Habr Gerhajis, a personage whom,
from, his smattering of learning and his prodigious rascality, we call the
Mulla "End of Time." [10] He is a man about forty, very old-looking for
his age, with small, deep-set cunning eyes, placed close together, a hook
nose, a thin beard, a bulging brow, scattered teeth, [11] and a short
scant figure, remarkable only for length of back. His gait is stealthy,
like a cat's, and he has a villanous grin. This worthy never prays, and
can neither read nor write; but he knows a chapter or two of the Koran,
recites audibly a long Ratib or task, morning and evening [12], whence,
together with his store of hashed Hadis (tradition), he derives the title
of Widad or hedge-priest. His tongue, primed with the satirical sayings of
Abn Zayd el Helali, and Humayd ibn Mansur [13], is the terror of men upon
whom repartee imposes. His father was a wealthy shipowner in his day; but,
cursed with Abdy and another son, the old man has lost all his property,
his children have deserted him, and he now depends entirely upon the
charity of the Zayla chief.
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