For The Minor Form, The
Afflicted Drink The Melted Fat Of A Sheep's Tail.
Consumption is a family
complaint, and therefore considered incurable; to use the Somali
expression, they address the patient with "Allah, have mercy upon thee!"
not with "Allah cure thee!"
There are leeches who have secret simples for curing wounds. Generally the
blood is squeezed out, the place is washed with water, the lips are sewn
up and a dressing of astringent leaves is applied. They have splints for
fractures, and they can reduce dislocations. A medical friend at Aden
partially dislocated his knee, which half-a-dozen of the faculty insisted
upon treating as a sprain. Of all his tortures none was more severe than
that inflicted by my Somali visitors. They would look at him, distinguish
the complaint, ask him how long he had been invalided, and hearing the
reply--four months--would break into exclamations of wonder. "In our
country," they cried, "when a man falls, two pull his body and two his
legs, then they tie sticks round it, give him plenty of camel's milk, and
he is well in a month;" a speech which made friend S. groan in spirit.
Firing and clarified butter are the farrier's panaceas. Camels are cured
by sheep's head broth, asses by chopping one ear, mules by cutting off the
tail, and horses by ghee or a drench of melted fat.
CHAP. VI.
FROM THE ZAYLA HILLS TO THE MARAR PRAIRIE.
I have now, dear L., quitted the maritime plain or first zone, to enter
the Ghauts, that threshold of the Ethiopian highlands which, beginning at
Tajurrah, sweeps in semicircle round the bay of Zayla, and falls about
Berberah into the range of mountains which fringes the bold Somali coast.
This chain has been inhabited, within History's memory, by three distinct
races,--the Gallas, the ancient Moslems of Adel, and by the modern Somal.
As usual, however, in the East, it has no general vernacular name.
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