First Footsteps in East Africa quotes

George. Thus the various travellers who appeared in beaver and black coats became persuaded that the city was inaccessible, and Europeans ceased to trouble themselves about Harar.

It is, therefore, a point of honor with me, dear L., to utilise my title of Haji by entering the city, visiting the ruler, and returning in safety, after breaking the guardian spell.

The most auspicious day in the Moslem year for beginning a journey is, doubtless, the 6th of the month Safar [2], on which, quoth the Prophet, El Islam emerged from obscurity. Yet even at Aden we could not avail ourselves of this lucky time:

With prodigious inventiveness, and a habit of perpetual intrigue, acquired in his travels, he might be called a "knowing" man, but for the truly Somali weakness of showing in his countenance all that passes through his mind.

This people can hide nothing: the blank eye, the contracting brow, the opening nostril and the tremulous lip, betray, despite themselves, their innermost thoughts.

The second servant, whom I bring before you is Guled, another policeman at Aden. He is a youth of good family, belonging to the Ismail Arrah, the royal clan of the great Habr Gerhajis tribe.

we call him Long Guled, to which he replies with the Yemen saying

"Length is Honor, even in Wood."

He is brave enough, because he rushes into danger without reflection; his great defects are weakness of body and nervousness of temperament, leading in times of peril to the trembling of hands, the dropping of caps, and the mismanagement of bullets:

He is a pleasant companion, and piques himself upon that power of quotation which in the East makes a polite man. If we be disposed to hurry, he insinuates that

"Patience is of Heaven, Haste of Hell."

When roughly addressed, he remarks,—

He is a pleasant companion, and piques himself upon that power of quotation which in the East makes a polite man. If we be disposed to hurry, he insinuates that "Patience is of Heaven, Haste of Hell." When roughly addressed, he remarks,—

"There are cures for the hurts of lead and steel, But the wounds of the tongue—they never heal!"

If a grain of rice adhere to our beards, he says, smilingly, "the gazelle is in the garden;" to which we reply "we will hunt her with the five."

He shows none of his father's "softness:" he advocates the bastinado, and, to keep his people at a distance, he has married an Arab wife, who allows no adult to enter the doors.

The Somal, Spaniard-like, remark, "He is one of ourselves, though a little richer;"

but when times change and luck returns, they are not unlikely to find themselves mistaken.

they are the Swiss of the East, a people equally brave and hardy, frugal and faithful, as long as pay is regular. Feared by the soft Indians and Africans for their hardness and determination, the common proverb concerning them is,

"If you meet a viper and a Hazrami, spare the viper."

Natives of a poor and rugged region, they wander far and wide, preferring every country to their own; and it is generally said that the sun rises not upon a land that does not contain a man from Hazramaut.

He dismissed them with liberal presents, and not a few jibes about their trustfulness. The wilder Bedouins will inquire where Allah is to be found: when asked the object of the question, they reply,

"If the Eesa could but catch him they would spear him upon the spot,—who but he lays waste their homes and kills their cattle and wives?"

Yet, conjoined to this truly savage incapability of conceiving the idea of a Supreme Being, they believe in the most ridiculous exaggerations: many will not affront a common pilgrim, for fear of being killed by a glance or a word.

One night, encamped amongst the Eesa, I was disturbed by a female voice indulging in the loudest lamentations: an elderly lady, it appears, was suffering from tooth-ache, and the refrain of her groans was,

"O Allah, may thy teeth ache like mine! O Allah, may thy gums be sore as mine are!"

A well-known and characteristic tale is told of the Gerad Hirsi, now chief of the Berteri tribe. Once meeting a party of unarmed pilgrims, he asked them why they had left their weapons at home:

here, as elsewhere, those who degrade it are the first to abuse it for degradation. At Zayla almost all quarrels are connected with women; the old bewitch in one way, the young in another, and both are equally maligned.

"Wit in a woman," exclaims one man, "is a habit of running away in a dromedary."

"Allah," declares another, "made woman of a crooked bone; he who would straighten her, breaketh her." Perhaps, however, by these generalisms of abuse the sex gains: they prevent personal and individual details;

At Zayla almost all quarrels are connected with women; the old bewitch in one way, the young in another, and both are equally maligned. "Wit in a woman," exclaims one man, "is a habit of running away in a dromedary."

"Allah," declares another, "made woman of a crooked bone; he who would straighten her, breaketh her."

Perhaps, however, by these generalisms of abuse the sex gains: they prevent personal and individual details; and no society of French gentlemen avoids mentioning in public the name of a woman more scrupulously than do the misogynist Moslems.

The cold had driven the Nomads from the hills to the warm maritime Plains [34], we should therefore traverse a populous region; and, as the End of Time aptly observed,

"Man eats you up, the Desert does not."

Moreover this year the Ayyal Nuh Ismail, a clan of the Habr Awal tribe, is "out," and has been successful against the Eesa, who generally are the better men.

It is the difference between fancy and reality, between anxiety and certainty: to men gifted with any imaginative powers the anticipation must ever be worse than the event.

Thus it happens, that he who feels a thrill of fear before engaging in a peril, exchanges it for a throb of exultation when he finds himself hand to hand with the danger.

The "End of Time" volunteered to keep watch that night. When the early dawn glimmered he aroused us, and blew up the smouldering fire, whilst our women proceeded to load the camels.

Then loading with swan-shot, which these Bedouins had never seen, I knocked over a second vulture flying. Fresh screams followed the marvellous feat; the women exclaimed

"Lo! he bringeth down the birds from heaven;"

and one old man, putting his forefinger in his mouth, praised Allah and prayed to be defended from such a calamity.

yet, Abyssinian like, they are squeamish and fastidious as regards food. They despise the excellent fish with which Nature has so plentifully stocked their seas. [32]

"Speak not to me with that mouth which eateth fish!" is a favourite insult amongst the Bedouins.

If you touch a bird or a fowl of any description, you will be despised even by the starving beggar. You must not eat marrow or the flesh about the sheep's thigh-bone, especially when travelling, and the kidneys are called a woman's dish.

"

Man is but a handful of dust, And life is a violent storm.

"

A crone seeing me smoke, inquired if the fire did not burn: I handed my pipe, which nearly choked her, and she ran away from a steaming kettle, thinking it a weapon.

As my companions observed, there was not a "Miskal of sense in a Maund of heads:"

yet the people looked upon my sun-burnt skin with a favour they denied to the "lime-white face."

We closed the hut whenever a valuable was produced, but eager eyes peeped through every cranny, till the End of Time ejaculated "Praised be Allah!" [43] and quoted the Arab saying,

"Show not the Somal thy door, and if he find it, block it up!"

The women and children were clad in chocolate- coloured hides, fringed at the tops: to gratify them I shot a few hawks, and was rewarded with loud exclamations,—"Allah preserve thy hand!"—"May thy skill never fail thee before the foe!"

Even the protector will slay his protege, and citizens married to Eesa girls send their wives to buy goats and sheep from, but will not trust themselves amongst, their connexions.

"Traitorous as an Eesa," is a proverb at Zayla, where the people tell you that these Bedouins with the left hand offer a bowl of milk, and stab with the right.

"Conscience," I may observe, does not exist in Eastern Africa, and "Repentance" expresses regret for missed opportunities of mortal crime. Robbery constitutes an honorable man: murder—the more atrocious the midnight crime the better—makes the hero. Honor consists in taking human life:

But the voice of the Muezzin is hushed for ever, and creepers now twine around the ruined fane.

The scene was still and dreary as the grave; for a mile and a half in length all was ruins—ruins—ruins.

Leaving this dead city, we rode towards the south-west between two rugged hills of which the loftiest summit is called Wanauli. As usual they are rich in thorns:

… 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.

The End of Time lagged in the rear: the reflection that a mule cannot outrun an elephant, made him look so ineffably miserable, that I sent him back to the kraal.

"Dost thou believe me to be a coward, 0 Pilgrim?" thereupon exclaimed the Mullah, waxing bold in the very joy of his heart. "Of a truth I do!" was my reply.

Nothing abashed, he hammered his mule with heel, and departed ejaculating, "What hath man but a single life? and he who throweth it away, what is he but a fool?" Then we advanced with cocked guns, Beuh singing, Boanerges- like, the Song of the Elephant.

the quantity of lead which it carried off surprised me. A number of Widads assembled to greet us, and some Habr Awal, who were returning with a caravan, gave us the salam, and called my people cousins.

"Verily," remarked the Hammal, "amongst friends we cut one another's throats; amongst enemies we become sons of uncles!"

At 3 P.M. we pursued our way over rising ground, dotted with granite blocks fantastically piled, and everywhere in sight of fields and villages and flowing water.

Nothing, indeed, would have been easier than such operation: all required was the turning face to the wall, for four or five days.

But to expire of an ignoble colic!—the thing was not to be thought of, and a firm resolution to live on sometimes, methinks, effects its object.

On the 1st January, 1855, feeling stronger, I clothed myself in my Arab best, and asked a palaver with the Gerad. We retired to a safe place behind the village, where I read with pomposity the Hajj Sharmarkay's letter.

I contrived to make upon the higher ledge a bed with the cushions which my companions used as shabracques, and, after seeing the mules fed and tethered, lay down to rest worn out by fatigue and profoundly impressed with the poesie of our position.

I was under the roof of a bigoted prince whose least word was death; amongst a people who detest foreigners; the only European that had ever passed over their inhospitable threshold, and the fated instrument of their future downfall.

* * * * *

Harar has not only its own tongue, unintelligible to any save the citizens; even its little population of about 8000 souls is a distinct race.

The Somal say of the city that it is a Paradise inhabited by asses

: certainly the exterior of the people is highly unprepossessing. Amongst the men, I did not see a handsome face: their features are coarse and debauched;

Any or all of these kafilahs might be stopped by spending four or five hundred dollars amongst the Jibril Abokr tribe, or even by a sloop of war at the emporium.

"He who commands at Berberah, holds the beard of Harar in his hand," is a saying which I heard even within the city walls.

The furniture of a house at Harar is simple,—a few skins, and in rare cases a Persian rug, stools, coarse mats, and Somali pillows, wooden spoons, and porringers shaped with a hatchet, finished with a knife, stained red, and brightly polished.

Yet, dear L., I had time, on the top of my mule for musing upon how melancholy a thing is success.

Whilst failure inspirits a man, attainment reads the sad prosy lesson that all our glories

"Are shadows, not substantial things."

"Are shadows, not substantial things."

Truly said the sayer, "disappointment is the salt of life"—a salutary bitter which strengthens the mind for fresh exertion, and gives a double value to the prize.

This shade of melancholy soon passed away. The morning was beautiful.

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.

This is the pest of the inner parts of Somali-land; the people declare it to arise from flies and fleas: the European would derive it from the deficiency, or rather the impossibility, of ablutions.

"Allah help the Goer, but the Return is Rolling:" this adage was ever upon the End of Time's tongue, yet my fate was apparently an exception to the general rule.

On the 25th January, we were delayed by the weakness of the camels, which had been half starved in the Girhi mountains.

At 7 A.M. we started through the mist, and trotted eastwards in search of a well. The guide had deceived us: the day before he had promised water at every half mile; he afterwards owned with groans that we should not drink before nightfall.

These people seem to lie involuntarily: the habit of untruth with them becomes a second nature.

They deceive without object for deceit, and the only way of obtaining from them correct information is to inquire, receive the answer, and determine it to be diametrically opposed to fact.

presently hearing clubs rattling upon his tent, and feet shuffling around, he ran to my Rowtie, which we prepared to defend as long as possible.

The enemy swarmed like hornets with shouts and screams intending to terrify, and proving that overwhelming odds were against us

: it was by no means easy to avoid in the shades of night the jobbing of javelins, and the long heavy daggers thrown at our legs from under and through the opening of the tent. We three remained together: Lieut.

Then, pursuing his way, he fell in with the party sent to seek him, and by their aid reached the craft, having walked and run at least three miles, after receiving eleven wounds, two of which had pierced his thighs.

A touching lesson how difficult it is to kill a man in sound health!

[12]

Some declare he was driven from Arabia for theft. Of course each tribe exaggerates its own nobility with as reckless a defiance of truth as their neighbours depreciate it. But I have made a rule always to doubt what semi-barbarians write.

Writing is the great source of historical confusion, because falsehoods accumulate in books, persons are confounded, and fictions assume, as in the mythologic genealogies of India, Persia, Greece, and Rome, a regular and systematic form.

On the other hand, oral tradition is more trustworthy; witness the annals and genealogies preserved in verse by the Bhats of Cutch, the Arab Nassab, and the Bards of Belochistan.

Their ancestors turned Christians out of the country. They despise guns. They consider the Frank formidable only behind walls: they are ready to fight it out in the plain, and they would gallop around cannon so that not a shot would tell.

Vain words to conceal the hearts of hares!

Lieutenant Speke justly remarks that, on account of the rough way in which they are brought up, the Somal would become excellent policemen; they should, however, be separated from their own people, and doubtless the second generation might be trained into courage.

In case of murder, theft, or dispute between different tribes, the aggrieved consult the Sultan, who, assembling the elders, deputes them to feel the inclinations of the "public." The people prefer revenging themselves by violence, as every man thereby hopes to gain something.

The war ends when the enemy has more spears than cattle left—most frequently, however, by mutual consent, when both are tired of riding the country.

Expeditions seldom meet one another, this retiring as that advances, and he is deemed a brave who can lift a few head of cattle and return home in safety. The commissariat department is rudely organised:

The former I not only understand to be deprecated by our rulers, but I also hold it to be imprudent.

Nothing is more dangerous than to influence in any way the savage balance of power between these tribes: by throwing our weight on one side we may do them incalculable mischief.

The Somal, like the Arab Bedouins, live in a highly artificial though an apparently artless state of political relations;

We shall see! Now I will tell you!—you Feringis have treated me very ill!—you loaded Essakh and others with presents, but never gave me anything.

I have, as it were, a knife in my stomach which is continually cutting me—this knife you have placed there!

But, inshallah! it is now my turn! I will be equal with you!—you think of going to Hurrur—we shall see!' I replied, 'You know me not! It is true I was ignorant that you were Ras el Caffilah on our way to Shoa.