In
The Northern Part Of The Somali Country I Never Heard Of Cannibalism,
Although The Servile Tribes Will Eat Birds And Other Articles Of Food
Disdained By Somal Of Gentle Blood.
Lieutenant Speke complains of the
scarcity and the quality of the water, "which resembles the mixture
commonly known as black draught." Yet it appears not to injure health; and
the only disease found endemic is an ophthalmia, said to return
periodically every three years.
The animals have learned to use sparingly
what elsewhere is a daily necessary; camels are watered twice a month,
sheep thrice, and horses every two or three days. No wild beasts or birds,
except the rock pigeon and duck, ever drink except when rain falls.
The pickaxe and spade belonging to the traveller were greatly desired; in
one place water was found, but more generally the people preferred digging
for honey in the rocks. Of the inhabitants we find it recorded that, like
all Nomads, they are idle to the last degree, contenting themselves with
tanned skins for dress and miserable huts for lodging. Changing ground for
the flocks and herds is a work of little trouble; one camel and a donkey
carry all the goods and chattels, including water, wife, and baby. Milk in
all stages (but never polluted by fire), wild honey, and flesh, are their
only diet; some old men have never tasted grain. Armed with spear and
shield, they are in perpetual dread of an attack. It is not strange that
under such circumstances the population should be thin and scattered; they
talk of thousands going to war, but the wary traveller suspects gross
exaggeration. They preserve the abominable Galla practice of murdering
pregnant women in hopes of mutilating a male foetus.
On the 20th December Lieutenant Speke was informed by the Sultan's son
that the Dulbahantas would not permit him to enter their country. As a
favour, however, they would allow him to pass towards the home of the
Abban, who, having married a Dulbahanta girl was naturalised amongst them.
_21st December_.--Early in the morning Lieutenant Speke, accompanied by
the interpreter, the Sultan's son, one servant, and two or three men to
lead a pair of camels, started eastward. The rest of the animals (nine in
number) were left behind in charge of Imam, a Hindostani boy, and six or
seven men under him, The reason for this step was that Husayn Haji, an
Agil of the Dulbahantas and a connection of the Abban, demanded, as sole
condition for permitting Lieutenant Speke to visit "Jid Ali," that the
traveller should give up all his property. Before leaving the valley, he
observed a hillock glistening white: it appears from its salt, bitter
taste, to have been some kind of nitrate efflorescing from the ground. The
caravan marched about a mile across the deep valley of Yubbay Tug, and
ascended its right side by a beaten track: they then emerged from a thin
jungle in the lower grounds to the stony hills which compose the country.
Here the line pursued was apparently parallel to the mountains bordering
upon the sea:
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