Yet in the Jid Ali valley of the
Dulbahantas Lieutenant Speke found similar remains, which the natives
declared to be one of their forefathers' mosques; the plan and the
direction were the same as those now described. Nothing, however, is
easier than to convert St. Sophia into the Aya Sufiyyah mosque. Moreover,
at Jid Ali, the traveller found it still the custom of the people to erect
a Mala, or cross of stone or wood covered with plaster, at the head and
foot of every tomb.
[Illustration]
The Dulbahantas, when asked about these crosses, said it was their custom,
derived from sire and grandsire. This again would argue that a Christian
people once inhabited these now benighted lands.
North of the building now described is a cemetery, in which the Somal
still bury their dead. Here Lieutenant Speke also observed crosses, but he
was prevented by the superstition of the people from examining them.
On an eminence S.W. of, and about seventy yards from the main building,
are the isolated remains of another erection, said by the people to be a
fort. The foundation is level with the ground, and shows two compartments
opening into each other.
[Illustration]
Rhat was the most southerly point reached by Lieutenant Speke.
