It Was Not Without Apprehension That I Pocketed All My Remaining
Provisions, Five Biscuits, A Few Limes, And Sundry Lumps Of Sugar.
Any
delay or accident to our mules would starve us; in the first place, we
were about to traverse a desert, and secondly where Habr Awal were, they
would not sell meat or milk to Habr Gerhajis.
My attendants provided
themselves with a small provision of sun-dried beef, grain, and
sweetmeats: only one water-bottle, however, was found amongst the whole
party. We arose at dawn after a wet night on the 26th January, but we did
not start till 7 A.M., the reason being that all the party, the Kalendar,
Shehrazade and Deenarzade, claimed and would have his and her several and
distinct palaver.
Having taken leave of our friends and property [6], we spurred our mules,
and guided by Beuh, rode through cloud and mist towards Koralay the
Saddle-back hill. After an hour's trot over rugged ground falling into the
Harawwah valley, we came to a Gudabirsi village, where my companions
halted to inquire the news, also to distend their stomachs with milk.
Thence we advanced slowly, as the broken path required, through thickets
of wild henna to the kraal occupied by Beuh's family. At a distance we
were descried by an old acquaintance, Fahi, who straightways began to
dance like a little Polyphemus, his shock-wig waving in the air: plentiful
potations of milk again delayed my companions, who were now laying in a
four days' stock.
Remounting, we resumed our journey over a mass of rock and thicket,
watered our mules at holes in a Fiumara, and made our way to a village
belonging to the Ugaz or chief of the Gudabirsi tribe. He was a middle-
aged man of ordinary presence, and he did not neglect to hold out his hand
for a gift which we could not but refuse. Halting for about an hour, we
persuaded a guide, by the offer of five dollars and a pair of cloths, to
accompany us. "Dubayr"--the Donkey--who belonged to the Bahgobo clan of
the Habr Awal, was a "long Lankin," unable, like all these Bedouins, to
endure fatigue. He could not ride, the saddle cut him, and he found his
mule restive; lately married, he was incapacitated for walking, and he
suffered sadly from thirst. The Donkey little knew, when he promised to
show Berberah on the third day, what he had bound himself to perform:
after the second march he was induced, only by the promise of a large
present, and one continual talk of food, to proceed, and often he threw
his lengthy form upon the ground, groaning that his supreme hour was at
hand. In the land which we were to traverse every man's spear would be
against us. By way of precaution, we ordered our protector to choose
desert roads and carefully to avoid all kraals. At first, not
understanding our reasons, and ever hankering after milk, he could not
pass a thorn fence without eyeing it wistfully. On the next day, however,
he became more tractable, and before reaching Berberah he showed himself,
in consequence of some old blood feud, more anxious even than ourselves to
avoid villages.
Remounting, under the guidance of the Donkey, we resumed our east-ward
course. He was communicative even for a Somali, and began by pointing out,
on the right of the road, the ruins of a stone-building, called, as
customary in these countries, a fort. Beyond it we came to a kraal, whence
all the inhabitants issued with shouts and cries for tobacco. Three
o'clock P.M. brought us to a broad Fiumara choked with the thickest and
most tangled vegetation: we were shown some curious old Galla wells, deep
holes about twenty feet in diameter, excavated in the rock; some were dry,
others overgrown with huge creepers, and one only supplied us with
tolerable water. The Gudabirsi tribe received them from the Girhi in lieu
of blood-money: beyond this watercourse, the ground belongs to the Rer
Yunis Jibril, a powerful clan of the Habr Awal, and the hills are thickly
studded with thorn-fence and kraal.
Without returning the salutations of the Bedouins, who loudly summoned us
to stop and give them the news, we trotted forwards in search of a
deserted sheep-fold. At sunset we passed, upon an eminence on our left,
the ruins of an ancient settlement, called after its patron Saint, Ao
Barhe: and both sides of the mountain road were flanked by tracts of
prairie-land, beautifully purpling in the evening air. After a ride of
thirty-five miles, we arrived at a large fold, where, by removing the
inner thorn-fences, we found fresh grass for our starving beasts. The
night was raw and windy, and thick mists deepened into a drizzle, which
did not quench our thirst, but easily drenched the saddle cloths, our only
bedding. In one sense, however, the foul weather was propitious to us. Our
track might easily have been followed by some enterprising son of Yunis
Jibril; these tracts of thorny bush are favourite places for cattle
lifting; moreover the fire was kept blazing all night, yet our mules were
not stolen.
We shook off our slumbers before dawn on the 27th. I remarked near our
resting-place, one of those detached heaps of rock, common enough in the
Somali country: at one extremity a huge block projects upwards, and
suggests the idea of a gigantic canine tooth. The Donkey declared that the
summit still bears traces of building, and related the legend connected
with Moga Medir. [7] There, in times of old, dwelt a Galla maiden whose
eye could distinguish a plundering party at the distance of five days'
march. The enemies of her tribe, after sustaining heavy losses, hit upon
the expedient of an attack, not _en chemise_, but with their heads muffled
in bundles of hay. When Moga, the maiden, informed her sire and clan that
a prairie was on its way towards the hill, they deemed her mad; the
manoeuvre succeeded, and the unhappy seer lost her life.
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