Others Declare Their Tribe To Be An
Offshoot From The Bahgoba Clan Of The Habr Awal, Originally Settled Near
Jebel Almis, And Bulhar, On The Sea-Shore.
The Somal unhesitatingly
stigmatize them as a bastard and ignoble race:
A noted genealogist once
informed me, that they were little better than Midgans or serviles. Their
ancestors' mother, it is said, could not name the father of her child:
some proposed to slay it, others advocated its preservation, saying,
"Perhaps we shall increase by it!" Hence the name of the tribe. [40]
The Gudabirsi are such inveterate liars that I could fix for them no
number between 3000 and 10,000. They own the rough and rolling ground
diversified with thorny hill and grassy vale, above the first or seaward
range of mountains; and they have extended their lands by conquest towards
Harar, being now bounded in that direction by the Marar Prairie. As usual,
they are subdivided into a multitude of clans. [41]
In appearance the Gudabirsi are decidedly superior to their limitrophes
the Eesa. I have seen handsome faces amongst the men as well as the women.
Some approach closely to the Caucasian type: one old man, with olive-
coloured skin, bald brow, and white hair curling round his temples, and
occiput, exactly resembled an Anglo-Indian veteran. Generally, however,
the prognathous mouth betrays an African origin, and chewing tobacco mixed
with ashes stains the teeth, blackens the gums, and mottles the lips. The
complexion is the Abyssinian _cafe au lait_, contrasting strongly with the
sooty skins of the coast; and the hair, plentifully anointed with rancid
butter, hangs from the head in lank corkscrews the colour of a Russian
pointer's coat.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 221 of 479
Words from 59126 to 59407
of 128411
