I
Repeatedly Heard At Zayla And At Harar That Traders Had Visited The Far
West, Traversing For Seven Months A Country Of Pagans Wearing Golden
Bracelets [27], Till They Reached The Salt Sea, Upon Which Franks Sail In
Ships.
[28] At Wilensi, one Mohammed, a Shaykhash, gave me his itinerary
of fifteen stages to the sources of the Abbay or Blue Nile:
He confirmed
the vulgar Somali report that the Hawash and the Webbe Shebayli both take
rise in the same range of well wooded mountains which gives birth to the
river of Egypt.
The government of Harar is the Amir. These petty princes have a habit of
killing and imprisoning all those who are suspected of aspiring to the
throne. [29] Ahmed's greatgrandfather died in jail, and his father
narrowly escaped the same fate. When the present Amir ascended the throne
he was ordered, it is said, by the Makad or chief of the Nole Gallas, to
release his prisoners, or to mount his horse and leave the city. Three of
his cousins, however, were, when I visited Harar, in confinement: one of
them since that time died, and has been buried in his fetters. The Somal
declare that the state-dungeon of Harar is beneath the palace, and that he
who once enters it, lives with unkempt beard and untrimmed nails until the
day when death sets him free.
The Amir Ahmed's health is infirm. Some attribute his weakness to a fall
from a horse, others declare him to have been poisoned by one of his
wives.
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