I Asked The End Of Time What They Expected To
Hear:
He replied with the proverb "News liveth!" The Somali Bedouins have
a passion for knowing how the world wags.
In some of the more desert
regions the whole population of a village will follow the wanderer. No
traveller ever passes a kraal without planting spear in the ground, and
demanding answers to a lengthened string of queries: rather than miss
intelligence he will inquire of a woman. Thus it is that news flies
through the country. Among the wild Gudabirsi the Russian war was a topic
of interest, and at Harar I heard of a violent storm, which had damaged
the shipping in Bombay Harbour, but a few weeks after the event.
The Bedouin returned with an empty skin but a full budget. I will offer
you, dear L., a specimen of the "palaver" [6] which is supposed to prove
the aphorism that all barbarians are orators. Demosthenes leisurely
dismounts, advances, stands for a moment cross-legged--the favourite
posture in this region--supporting each hand with a spear planted in the
ground: thence he slips to squat, looks around, ejects saliva, shifts his
quid to behind his ear, places his weapons before him, takes up a bit of
stick, and traces lines which he carefully smooths away--it being ill-
omened to mark the earth. The listeners sit gravely in a semicircle upon
their heels, with their spears, from whose bright heads flashes a ring of
troubled light, planted upright, and look stedfastly on his countenance
over the upper edges of their shields with eyes apparently planted, like
those of the Blemmyes, in their breasts.
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