Any
Delay Or Accident To Our Mules Would Starve Us; In The First Place, We
Were About To Traverse A Desert, And Secondly Where Habr Awal Were, They
Would Not Sell Meat Or Milk To Habr Gerhajis.
My attendants provided
themselves with a small provision of sun-dried beef, grain, and
sweetmeats:
Only one water-bottle, however, was found amongst the whole
party. We arose at dawn after a wet night on the 26th January, but we did
not start till 7 A.M., the reason being that all the party, the Kalendar,
Shehrazade and Deenarzade, claimed and would have his and her several and
distinct palaver.
Having taken leave of our friends and property [6], we spurred our mules,
and guided by Beuh, rode through cloud and mist towards Koralay the
Saddle-back hill. After an hour's trot over rugged ground falling into the
Harawwah valley, we came to a Gudabirsi village, where my companions
halted to inquire the news, also to distend their stomachs with milk.
Thence we advanced slowly, as the broken path required, through thickets
of wild henna to the kraal occupied by Beuh's family. At a distance we
were descried by an old acquaintance, Fahi, who straightways began to
dance like a little Polyphemus, his shock-wig waving in the air: plentiful
potations of milk again delayed my companions, who were now laying in a
four days' stock.
Remounting, we resumed our journey over a mass of rock and thicket,
watered our mules at holes in a Fiumara, and made our way to a village
belonging to the Ugaz or chief of the Gudabirsi tribe.
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