The Greatest Merchant May
Bring To Harar 50_L._ Worth Of Goods, And He Who Has 20_L._ Of Capital Is
Considered A Wealthy Man.
The citizens seem to have a more than Asiatic
apathy, even in pursuit of gain.
When we entered, a caravan was to set out
for Zayla on the morrow; after ten days, hardly one half of its number had
mustered. The four marches from the city eastward are rarely made under a
fortnight, and the average rate of their Kafilahs is not so high even as
that of the Somal.
The principal exports from Harar are slaves, ivory, coffee, tobacco, Wars
(safflower or bastard saffron), Tobes and woven cottons, mules, holcus,
wheat, "Karanji," a kind of bread used by travellers, ghee, honey, gums
(principally mastic and myrrh), and finally sheep's fat and tallows of all
sorts. The imports are American sheeting, and other cottons, white and
dyed, muslins, red shawls, silks, brass, sheet copper, cutlery (generally
the cheap German), Birmingham trinkets, beads and coral, dates, rice, and
loaf sugar, gunpowder, paper, and the various other wants of a city in the
wild.
Harar is still, as of old [33], the great "half way house" for slaves from
Zangaro, Gurague, and the Galla tribes, Alo and others [34]: Abyssinians
and Amharas, the most valued [35], have become rare since the King of Shoa
prohibited the exportation. Women vary in value from 100 to 400 Ashrafis,
boys from 9 to 150: the worst are kept for domestic purposes, the best are
driven and exported by the Western Arabs [36] or by the subjects of H. H.
the Imam of Muscat, in exchange for rice and dates.
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