In The Centre, Fringed With Bright Banks A Shallow
Rill, Called Doghlah, Now Brawls In Tiny Cascades, Then Whirls Through
Huge Boulders Towards The Erar River.
Presently, descending by a ladder of
rock scarcely safe even for mules, we followed the course of the burn, and
emerging into the valley beneath, we pricked forwards rapidly, for day was
wearing on, and we did not wish the Habr Awal to precede us.
About noon we crossed the Erar River. The bed is about one hundred yards
broad, and a thin sheet of clear, cool, and sweet water, covered with
crystal the greater part of the sand. According to my guides, its course,
like that of the hills, is southerly towards the Webbe of Ogadayn [32]:
none, however, could satisfy my curiosity concerning the course of the
only perennial stream which exists between Harar and the coast.
In the lower valley, a mass of waving holcus, we met a multitude of Galla
peasants coming from the city market with new potlids and the empty gourds
which had contained their butter, ghee, and milk: all wondered aloud at
the Turk, concerning whom they had heard many horrors. As we commenced
another ascent appeared a Harar Grandee mounted upon a handsomely
caparisoned mule and attended by seven servants who carried gourds and
skins of grain. He was a pale-faced senior with a white beard, dressed in
a fine Tobe and a snowy turban with scarlet edges: he carried no shield,
but an Abyssinian broadsword was slung over his left shoulder.
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