On The 10th December We Halted:

The bad water, the noon-day sun of 107°, and the cold mornings--51° being the average--had seriously affected my health.

All the population flocked to see me, darkening the hut with nodding wigs and staring faces: and,--the Gudabirsi are polite knaves,-- apologised for the intrusion. Men, women, and children appeared in crowds, bringing milk and ghee, meat and water, several of the elders remembered having seen me at Berberah [24], and the blear-eyed maidens, who were in no wise shy, insisted upon admiring the white stranger.

Feeling somewhat restored by repose, I started the next day, "with a tail on" to inspect the ruins of Aububah. After a rough ride over stony ground we arrived at a grassy hollow, near a line of hills, and dismounted to visit the Shaykh Aububah's remains. He rests under a little conical dome of brick, clay and wood, similar in construction to that of Zayla: it is falling to pieces, and the adjoining mosque, long roofless, is overgrown with trees, that rustle melancholy sounds in the light joyous breeze. Creeping in by a dwarf door or rather hole, my Gudabirsi guides showed me a bright object forming the key of the arch: as it shone they suspected silver, and the End of Time whispered a sacrilegious plan for purloining it. Inside the vault were three graves apparently empty, and upon the dark sunken floor lay several rounded stones, resembling cannon balls, and used as weights by the more civilised Somal. Thence we proceeded to the battle- field, a broad sheet of sandstone, apparently dinted by the hoofs of mules and horses: on this ground, which, according to my guides, was in olden days soft and yielding, took place the great action between Aububah and Darbiyah Kola. A second mosque was found with walls in tolerable repair, but, like the rest of the place, roofless. Long Guled ascended the broken staircase of a small square minaret, and delivered a most ignorant and Bedouin-like Azan or call to prayer. Passing by the shells of houses, we concluded our morning's work with a visit to the large graveyard. Apparently it did not contain the bones of Moslems: long lines of stones pointed westward, and one tomb was covered with a coating of hard mortar, in whose sculptured edge my benighted friends detected magical inscriptions. I heard of another city called Ahammed in the neighbouring hills, but did not visit it. These are all remains of Galla settlements, which the ignorance and exaggeration of the Somal fill with "writings" and splendid edifices.

Returning home we found that our Gudabirsi Bedouins had at length obeyed the summons. The six sons of a noted chief, Ali Addah or White Ali, by three different mothers, Beuh, Igah, Khayri, Nur, Ismail and Yunis, all advanced towards me as I dismounted, gave the hand of friendship, and welcomed me to their homes. With the exception of the first-named, a hard- featured man at least forty years old, the brothers were good-looking youths, with clear brown skins, regular features, and graceful figures. They entered the Gurgi when invited, but refused to eat, saying, that they came for honor not for food. The Hajj Sharmarkay's introductory letter was read aloud to their extreme delight, and at their solicitation, I perused it a second and a third time; then having dismissed with sundry small presents, the two Abbans Raghe and Rirash, I wrote a flattering account of them to the Hajj, and entrusted it to certain citizens who were returning in caravan Zayla-wards, after a commercial tour in the interior.

Before they departed, there was a feast after the Homeric fashion. A sheep was "cut," disembowelled, dismembered, tossed into one of our huge caldrons, and devoured within the hour: the almost live food [25] was washed down with huge draughts of milk. The feasters resembled Wordsworth's cows, "forty feeding like one:" in the left hand they held the meat to their teeth, and cut off the slice in possession with long daggers perilously close, were their noses longer and their mouths less obtrusive. During the dinner I escaped from the place of flies, and retired to a favourite tree. Here the End of Time, seeing me still in pain, insisted upon trying a Somali medicine. He cut two pieces of dry wood, scooped a hole in the shorter, and sharpened the longer, applied point to socket, which he sprinkled with a little sand, placed his foot upon the "female stick," and rubbed the other between his palms till smoke and char appeared. He then cauterized my stomach vigorously in six different places, quoting a tradition, "the End of Physic is Fire."

On Tuesday the 12th December, I vainly requested the two sons of White Ali, who had constituted themselves our guides, to mount their horses: they feared to fatigue the valuable animals at a season when grass is rare and dry. I was disappointed by seeing the boasted "Faras" [26] of the Somal, in the shape of ponies hardly thirteen hands high. The head is pretty, the eyes are well opened, and the ears are small; the form also is good, but the original Arab breed has degenerated in the new climate. They are soft, docile, and--like all other animals in this part of the world-- timid: the habit of climbing rocks makes them sure-footed, and they show the remains of blood when forced to fatigue. The Gudabirsi will seldom sell these horses, the great safeguard against their conterminous tribes, the Eesa and Girhi, who are all infantry: a village seldom contains more than six or eight, and the lowest value would be ten cows or twenty Tobes. [27] Careful of his beast when at rest, the Somali Bedouin in the saddle is rough and cruel: whatever beauty the animal may possess in youth, completely disappears before the fifth year, and few are without spavin, or sprained back-sinews. In some parts of the country [28], "to ride violently to your hut two or three times before finally dismounting, is considered a great compliment, and the same ceremony is observed on leaving.

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