His Father Was A Man Of
Property, And His Brethren Near Berberah, Are Wealthy Bedouins:
Yet he ran
away from his native country when seven or eight years old, and became a
servant in the house of a butter merchant at Mocha.
Thence he went to
Aden, where he began with private service, and ended his career in the
police. He is one of those long, live skeletons, common amongst the Somal:
his shoulders are parallel with his ears, his ribs are straight as a
mummy's, his face has not an ounce of flesh upon it, and his features
suggest the idea of some lank bird: we call him Long Guled, to which he
replies with the Yemen saying "Length is Honor, even in Wood." He is brave
enough, because he rushes into danger without reflection; his great
defects are weakness of body and nervousness of temperament, leading in
times of peril to the trembling of hands, the dropping of caps, and the
mismanagement of bullets: besides which, he cannot bear hunger, thirst, or
cold.
The third is one Abdy Abokr, also of the Habr Gerhajis, a personage whom,
from, his smattering of learning and his prodigious rascality, we call the
Mulla "End of Time." [10] He is a man about forty, very old-looking for
his age, with small, deep-set cunning eyes, placed close together, a hook
nose, a thin beard, a bulging brow, scattered teeth, [11] and a short
scant figure, remarkable only for length of back.
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