Entering The Village We Discharged Our Fire-
Arms:
The women received us with the Masharrad or joy-cry, and as I passed
the enclosure the Geradah Khayrah performed the "Fola" by throwing over me
some handfuls of toasted grain.
[1] The men gave cordial _poignees de
mains_, some danced with joy to see us return alive; they had heard of our
being imprisoned, bastinadoed, slaughtered; they swore that the Gerad was
raising an army to rescue or revenge us--in fact, had we been their
kinsmen more excitement could not have been displayed. Lastly, in true
humility, crept forward the End of Time, who, as he kissed my hand, was
upon the point of tears: he had been half-starved, despite his dignity as
Sharmarkay's Mercury, and had spent his weary nights and days reciting the
chapter Y.S. and fumbling the rosary for omens. The Gerad, he declared,
would have given him a sheep and one of his daughters to wife,
temporarily, but Sherwa had interfered, he had hindered the course of his
sire's generosity: "Cursed be he," exclaimed the End of Time, "who with
dirty feet defiles the pure water of the stream!"
We entered the smoky cottage. The Gerad and his sons were at Wilensi
settling the weighty matter of a caravan which had been plundered by the
Usbayhan tribe--in their absence the good Khayrah and her daughters did
the duties of hospitality by cooking rice and a couple of fowls. A
pleasant evening was spent in recounting our perils as travellers will do,
and complimenting one another upon the power of our star.
At eight the next morning we rode to Wilensi. As we approached it all the
wayfarers and villagers inquired Hibernically if we were the party that
had been put to death by the Amir of Harar. Loud congratulations and
shouts of joy awaited our arrival. The Kalendar was in a paroxysm of
delight: both Shehrazade and Deenarzade were affected with giggling and
what might be blushing. We reviewed our property and found that the One-
eyed had been a faithful steward, so faithful indeed, that he had well
nigh starved the two women. Presently appeared the Gerad and his sons
bringing with them my books; the former was at once invested with a gaudy
Abyssinian Tobe of many colours, in which he sallied forth from the
cottage the admired of all admirers. The pretty wife Sudiyah and the good
Khayrah were made happy by sundry gifts of huge Birmingham ear-rings,
brooches and bracelets, scissors, needles, and thread. The evening as
usual ended in a feast.
"We halted a week at Wilensi to feed,--in truth my companions had been
faring lentenly at Harar,--and to lay in stock and strength for the long
desert march before us. A Somali was despatched to the city under orders
to load an ass with onions, tobacco, spices, wooden platters, and Karanji
[2], which our penniless condition had prevented our purchasing. I spent
the time collecting a vocabulary of the Harari tongue under the auspices
of Mad Said and All the poet, a Somali educated at the Alma Mater. He was
a small black man, long-headed and long-backed, with remarkably prominent
eyes, a bulging brow, nose pertly turned up, and lean jaws almost
unconscious of beard. He knew the Arabic, Somali, Galla, and Harari
languages, and his acuteness was such, that I found no difficulty in what
usually proves the hardest task,--extracting the grammatical forms. "A
poet, the son of a Poet," to use his own phrase, he evinced a Horatian
respect for the beverage which bards love, and his discourse, whenever it
strayed from the line of grammar, savoured of over reverence for the
goddess whom Pagans associated with Bacchus and Ceres. He was also a
patriot and a Tyrtaeus. No clan ever attacked his Girhis without smarting
under terrible sarcasms, and his sneers at the young warriors for want of
ardour in resisting Gudabirsi encroachments, were quoted as models of the
"withering." Stimulated by the present of a Tobe, he composed a song in
honor of the pilgrim: I will offer a literal translation of the exordium,
though sentient of the fact that modesty shrinks from such quotations.
"Formerly, my sire and self held ourselves songsters:
Only to day, however, I really begin to sing.
At the order of Abdullah, Allah sent, my tongue is loosed,
The son of the Kuraysh by a thousand generations,
He hath visited Audal, and Sahil and Adari [3];
A hundred of his ships float on the sea;
His intellect," &c. &c. &c.
When not engaged with Ali the Poet I amused myself by consoling Mad Said,
who was deeply afflicted, his son having received an ugly stab in the
shoulder. Thinking, perhaps, that the Senior anticipated some evil results
from the wound, I attempted to remove the impression. "Alas, 0 Hajj!"
groaned the old man, "it is not that!--how can the boy be _my boy_, I who
have ever given instead of receiving stabs?" nor would he be comforted, on
account of the youth's progeniture. At other times we summoned the heads
of the clans and proceeded to write down their genealogies. This always
led to a scene beginning with piano, but rapidly rising to the strepitoso.
Each tribe and clan wished to rank first, none would be even second,--what
was to be done? When excitement was at its height, the paper and pencil
were torn out of my hand, stubby beards were pitilessly pulled, and
daggers half started from their sheaths. These quarrels were, however,
easily composed, and always passed off in storms of abuse, laughter, and
derision.
With the end of the week's repose came Shaykh Jami, the Berteri, equipped
as a traveller with sword, praying-skin, and water-bottle. This bustling
little divine, whose hobby it was to make every man's business his own,
was accompanied by his brother, in nowise so prayerful a person, and by
four burly, black-looking Widads, of whose birth, learning, piety, and
virtues he spoke in terms eloquent.
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