The Sultan's Son Taught
Them To Win The Day By Emptying And Hiding The Water-Skins, By Threatening
To Kill
The servants if they fetched water, and by refusing to do work.
During the discussion, which appears to have been
Lively, the eldest of
the Sultan's four sons, Mohammed Aul, appeared from Las Kuray. He seems to
have taken a friendly part, stopped the discussion, and sent away the
young prince as a nuisance. Unfortunately, however, the latter reappeared
immediately that the date bags were opened, and Mohammed Aul stayed only
two days in Lieutenant Speke's neighbourhood. On the 28th November the
Abban appeared. The Sultan then forced upon Lieutenant Speke his brother
Hasan as a second Abban, although this proceeding is contrary to the
custom of the country. The new burden, however, after vain attempts at
extortion, soon disappeared, carrying away with him a gun.
For tanning water-skins the Somal here always use, when they can procure
it, a rugged bark with a smooth epidermis of a reddish tinge, a pleasant
aromatic odour, and a strong astringent flavour. They call it Mohur:
powdered and sprinkled dry on a wound, it acts as a styptic. Here was
observed an aloe-formed plant, with a strong and woody thorn on the top.
It is called Haskul or Hig; the fibres are beaten out with sticks or
stones, rotted in water, and then made into cord. In other parts the young
bark of the acacia is used; it is first charred on one side, then reduced
to fibre by mastication, and lastly twisted into the semblance of a rope.
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