Early On The 23rd December Assembled The Caravan, Which We Were Destined To Escort Across The Marar Prairie.

Upon this neutral ground the Eesa, Berteri, and Habr Awal meet to rob and plunder unhappy travellers.

The Somal shuddered at the sight of a wayfarer, who rushed into our encampment _in cuerpo_, having barely run away with his life. Not that our caravan carried much to lose,--a few hides and pots of clarified butter, to be exchanged for the Holcus grain of the Girhi cultivators,--still the smallest contributions are thankfully received by these plunderers. Our material consisted of four or five half-starved camels, about fifty donkeys with ears cropped as a mark, and their eternal accompaniments in Somali land, old women. The latter seemed to be selected for age, hideousness, and strength: all day they bore their babes smothered in hides upon their backs, and they carried heavy burdens apparently without fatigue. Amongst them was a Bedouin widow, known by her "Wer," a strip of the inner bark of a tree tied round the greasy fillet. [1] We were accompanied by three Widads, provided with all the instruments of their craft, and uncommonly tiresome companions. They recited Koran _a tort et a travers_: at every moment they proposed Fatihahs, the name of Allah was perpetually upon their lips, and they discussed questions of divinity, like Gil Blas and his friends, with a violence bordering upon frenzy. One of them was celebrated for his skill in the "Fal," or Omens: he was constantly consulted by my companions, and informed them that we had nought to fear except from wild beasts. The prediction was a good hit: I must own, however, that it was not communicated to me before fulfilment.

At half past six A.M. we began our march over rough and rising ground, a network of thorns and water-courses, and presently entered a stony gap between two ranges of hills. On our right was a conical peak, bearing the remains of buildings upon its summit. Here, said Abtidon, a wild Gudabirsi hired to look after our mules, rests the venerable Shaykh Samawai. Of old, a number of wells existed in the gaps between the hills: these have disappeared with those who drank of them.

Presently we entered the Barr or Prairie of Marar, one of the long strips of plain which diversify the Somali country. Its breadth, bounded on the east by the rolling ground over which we had passed, on the west by Gurays, a range of cones offshooting from the highlands of Harar, is about twenty-seven miles. The general course is north and south: in the former direction, it belongs to the Eesa: in the latter may be seen the peaks of Kadau and Madir, the property of the Habr Awal tribes; and along these ranges it extends, I was told, towards Ogadayn. The surface of the plain is gently rolling ground; the black earth, filled with the holes of small beasts, would be most productive, and the outer coat is an expanse of tall, waving, sunburnt grass, so unbroken, that from a distance it resembles the nap of yellow velvet.

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