A
Traveller, Even A Layman, Is Bound To Put Up Peaceably With Such Trifles;
And To Threaten "Combustion" Without Being Prepared To Carry Out The
Threat Is The Readiest Way To Secure Contempt.
[20] The Kharif in most parts of the Oriental world corresponds with our
autumn.
In Eastern Africa it invariably signifies the hot season preceding
the monsoon rains.
[21] The circumstances of Masud's murder were truly African. The slave
caravans from Abyssinia to Tajurrah were usually escorted by the Rer
Guleni, a clan of the great Eesa tribe, and they monopolised the profits
of the road. Summoned to share their gains with their kinsmen generally,
they refused upon which the other clans rose about August, 1854, and cut
off the road. A large caravan was travelling down in two bodies, each of
nearly 300 slaves; the Eesa attacked the first division, carried off the
wives and female slaves, whom they sold for ten dollars a head, and
savagely mutilated upwards of 100 wretched boys. This event caused the
Tajurrah line to be permanently closed. The Rer Guleni in wrath, at once
murdered Masud, a peaceful traveller, because Inna Handun, his Abban or
protector, was of the party who had attacked their proteges: they came
upon him suddenly as he was purchasing some article, and stabbed him in
the back, before he could defend himself.
[22] In Zayla there is not a single coffee-house. The settled Somal care
little for the Arab beverage, and the Bedouins' reasons for avoiding it
are not bad.
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