We Usually Find An Encampment Of Bedouins Outside The Gate.
Their tents
are worse than any gipsy's, low, smoky, and of the rudest construction.
These people are a spectacle of savageness.
Their huge heads of shock
hair, dyed red and dripping with butter, are garnished with a Firin, or
long three-pronged comb, a stick, which acts as scratcher when the owner
does not wish to grease his fingers, and sometimes with the ominous
ostrich feather, showing that the wearer has "killed his man:" a soiled
and ragged cotton cloth covers their shoulders, and a similar article is
wrapped round their loins.[18] All wear coarse sandals, and appear in the
bravery of targe, spear, and dagger. Some of the women would be pretty did
they not resemble the men in their scowling, Satanic expression of
countenance: they are decidedly _en deshabille,_ but a black skin always
appears a garb. The cantonment is surrounded by asses, camels, and a troop
of naked Flibertigibbets, who dance and jump in astonishment whenever they
see me: "The white man! the white man!" they shriek; "run away, run away,
or we shall be eaten!" [19] On one occasion, however, my _amour propre_
was decidedly flattered by the attentions of a small black girl,
apparently four or five years old, who followed me through the streets
ejaculating "Wa Wanaksan!"--"0 fine!" The Bedouins, despite their fierce
scowls, appear good-natured; the women flock out of the huts to stare and
laugh, the men to look and wonder. I happened once to remark, "Lo, we come
forth to look at them and they look at us; we gaze at their complexion and
they gaze at ours!" A Bedouin who understood Arabic translated this speech
to the others, and it excited great merriment. In the mining counties of
civilised England, where the "genial brickbat" is thrown at the passing
stranger, or in enlightened Scotland, where hair a few inches too long or
a pair of mustachios justifies "mobbing," it would have been impossible
for me to have mingled as I did with these wild people.
We must return before sunset, when the gates are locked and the keys are
carried to the Hajj, a vain precaution, when a donkey could clear half a
dozen places in the town wall. The call to evening prayer sounds as we
enter: none of my companions pray [20], but all when asked reply in the
phrase which an Englishman hates, "Inshallah Bukra"--"if Allah please, to-
morrow!"--and they have the decency not to appear in public at the hours
of devotion. The Somal, like most Africans, are of a somewhat irreverent
turn of mind. [21] When reproached with gambling, and asked why they
persist in the forbidden pleasure, they simply answer "Because we like."
One night, encamped amongst the Eesa, I was disturbed by a female voice
indulging in the loudest lamentations: an elderly lady, it appears, was
suffering from tooth-ache, and the refrain of her groans was, "O Allah,
may thy teeth ache like mine!
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