Before vessels have cast
anchor, or indeed have rounded the Spit, a crowd of Somal, eager as hotel-
touters, may be seen running along the strand. They swim off, and the
first who arrives on board inquires the name of the Abban; if there be
none he touches the captain or one of the crew and constitutes himself
protector. For merchandise sent forward, the man who conveys it becomes
answerable.
The system of dues has become complicated. Formerly, the standard of value
at Berberah was two cubits of the blue cotton-stuff called Sauda; this is
now converted into four pice of specie. Dollars form the principal
currency; rupees are taken at a discount. Traders pay according to degree,
the lowest being one per cent., taken from Muscat and Suri merchants. The
shopkeeper provides food for his Abban, and presents him at the close of
the season with a Tobe, a pair of sandals, and half-a-dozen dollars.
Wealthy Banyans and Mehmans give food and raiment, and before departure
from 50 to 200 dollars. This class, however, derives large profits; they
will lend a few dollars to the Bedouin at the end of the Fair, on
condition of receiving cent. per cent., at the opening of the next season.
Travellers not transacting business must feed the protector, but cannot
properly be forced to pay him. Of course the Somal take every advantage of
Europeans. Mr. Angelo, a merchant from Zanzibar, resided two months at
Bulhar; his broker of the Ayyal Gedid tribe, and an Arab who accompanied
him, extracted, it is said, 3000 dollars. As a rule the Abban claims one
per cent. on sales and purchases, and two dollars per head of slaves. For
each bale of cloth, half-a-dollar in coin is taken; on gums and coffee the
duty is one pound in twenty-seven. Cowhides pay half-a-dollar each, sheep
and goat's skins four pice, and ghee about one per cent.
Lieut. Herne calculates that the total money dues during the Fair-season
amount to 2000 dollars, and that, in the present reduced state of
Berberah, not more than 10,000_l._ worth of merchandize is sold. This
estimate the natives of the place declare to be considerably under the
mark.
[18] The similarity between the Persian "Gach" and this cement, which is
found in many ruins about Berberah, has been remarked by other travellers.
[19] The following note by Dr. Carter of Bombay will be interesting to
Indian geologists.
"Of the collection of geological specimens and fossils from Berberah above
mentioned, Lieut. Burton states that the latter are found on the plain of
Berberah, and the former in the following order between the sea and the
summits of mountains (600 feet high), above it--that is, the ridge
immediate behind Berberah.
"1. Country along the coast consists of a coralline limestone, (tertiary
formation,) with drifts of sand, &c. 2. Sub-Ghauts and lower ranges (say
2000 feet high), of sandstone capped with limestone, the former
preponderating. 3. Above the Ghauts a plateau of primitive rocks mixed
with sandstone, granite, syenite, mica schiste, quartz rock, micaceous
grit, &c.
"The fawn-coloured fossils from his coralline limestone are evidently the
same as those of the tertiary formation along the south-east coast of
Arabia, and therefore the same as those of Cutch; and it is exceedingly
interesting to find that among the blue-coloured fossils which are
accompanied by specimens of the blue shale, composing the beds from which
they have been weathered out, are species of Terebratula Belemnites,
identical with those figured in Grant's Geology of Cutch; thus enabling us
to extend those beds of the Jurassic formation which exist in Cutch, and
along the south-eastern coast of Arabia, across to Africa."
[20] These animals are tolerably tame in the morning, as day advances
their apprehension of man increases.
[21] Lieut. Cruttenden in considering what nation could have constructed,
and at what period the commerce of Berberah warranted, so costly an
undertaking, is disposed to attribute it to the Persian conquerors of Aden
in the days of Anushirwan. He remarks that the trade carried on in the Red
Sea was then great, the ancient emporia of Hisn Ghorab and Aden prosperous
and wealthy, and Berberah doubtless exported, as it does now, ivory, gums,
and ostrich feathers. But though all the maritime Somali country abounds
in traditions of the Furs or ancient Persians, none of the buildings near
Berberah justify our assigning to them, in a country of monsoon rain and
high winds, an antiquity of 1300 years.
The Somal assert that ten generations ago their ancestors drove out the
Gallas from Berberah, and attribute these works to the ancient Pagans.
That nation of savages, however, was never capable of constructing a
scientific aqueduct. I therefore prefer attributing these remains at
Berberah to the Ottomans, who, after the conquest of Aden by Sulayman
Pacha in A.D. 1538, held Yemen for about 100 years, and as auxiliaries of
the King of Adel, penetrated as far as Abyssinia. Traces of their
architecture are found at Zayla and Harar, and according to tradition,
they possessed at Berberah a settlement called, after its founder, Bunder
Abbas.
[22] Here, as elsewhere in Somali land, the leech is of the horse-variety.
It might be worth while to attempt breeding a more useful species after
the manner recommended by Capt. R. Johnston, the Sub-Assistant Commissary
General in Sindh (10th April, 1845). In these streams leeches must always
be suspected; inadvertently swallowed, they fix upon the inner coat of the
stomach, and in Northern Africa have caused, it is said, some deaths among
the French soldiers.
[23] Yet we observed frogs and a small species of fish.
[24] Either this or the sulphate of magnesia, formed by the decomposition
of limestone, may account for the bitterness of the water.
