The Issue, However, Two Infant Sons, Were Murdered By The Eesa Bedouins.

Whenever he meets his father in the morning, he kisses his hand, and receives a salute upon the forehead.

He aspires to the government of Zayla, and looks forward more reasonably than the Hajj to the day when the possession of Berberah will pour gold into his coffers. 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.

Amongst other visitors, we have the Amir el Bahr, or Port Captain, and the Nakib el Askar (_Commandant de place_), Mohammed Umar el Hamumi. This is one of those Hazramaut adventurers so common in all the countries bordering upon Arabia: 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. [8] This commander of an army of forty men [9] often read out to us from the Kitab el Anwar (the Book of Lights) the tale of Abu Jahl, that Judas of El Islam made ridiculous. Sometimes comes the Sayyid Mohammed el Barr, a stout personage, formerly governor of Zayla, and still highly respected by the people on acount of his pure pedigree. With him is the Fakih Adan, a savan of ignoble origin. [10] When they appear the conversation becomes intensely intellectual; sometimes we dispute religion, sometimes politics, at others history and other humanities. Yet it is not easy to talk history with a people who confound Miriam and Mary, or politics to those whose only idea of a king is a robber on a large scale, or religion to men who measure excellence by forbidden meats, or geography to those who represent the earth in this guise. Yet, though few of our ideas are in common, there are many words; the verbosity of these anti-Laconic oriental dialects [11] renders at least half the subject intelligible to the most opposite thinkers. When the society is wholly Somal, I write Arabic, copy some useful book, or extract from it, as Bentley advised, what is fit to quote. When Arabs are present, I usually read out a tale from "The Thousand and One Nights," that wonderful work, so often translated, so much turned over, and so little understood at home. The most familiar of books in England, next to the Bible, it is one of the least known, the reason being that about one fifth is utterly unfit for translation; and the most sanguine orientalist would not dare to render literally more than three quarters of the remainder. Consequently, the reader loses the contrast,-- the very essence of the book,--between its brilliancy and dulness, its moral putrefaction, and such pearls as

"Cast the seed of good works on the least fit soil. Good is never wasted, however it may be laid out."

And in a page or two after such divine sentiment, the ladies of Bagdad sit in the porter's lap, and indulge in a facetiousness which would have killed Pietro Aretino before his time.

[Illustration]

Often I am visited by the Topchi-Bashi, or master of the ordnance,--half a dozen honeycombed guns,--a wild fellow, Bashi Buzuk in the Hejaz and commandant of artillery at Zayla. He shaves my head on Fridays, and on other days tells me wild stories about his service in the Holy Land; how Kurdi Usman slew his son-in-law, Ibn Rumi, and how Turkcheh Bilmez would have murdered Mohammed Ali in his bed. [12] Sometimes the room is filled with Arabs, Sayyids, merchants, and others settled in the place: I saw nothing amongst them to justify the oft-quoted saw, "Koraysh pride and Zayla's boastfulness." More generally the assembly is one of the Somal, who talk in their own tongue, laugh, yell, stretch their legs, and lie like cattle upon the floor, smoking the common Hukkah, which stands in the centre, industriously cleaning their teeth with sticks, and eating snuff like Swedes. Meanwhile, I occupy the Kursi or couch, sometimes muttering from a book to excite respect, or reading aloud for general information, or telling fortunes by palmistry, or drawing out a horoscope.

It argues "peculiarity," I own, to enjoy such a life. In the first place, there is no woman's society: El Islam seems purposely to have loosened the ties between the sexes in order to strengthen the bonds which connect man and man. [13] Secondly, your house is by no means your castle. You must open your doors to your friend at all hours; if when inside it suit him to sing, sing he will; and until you learn solitude in a crowd, or the art of concentration, you are apt to become _ennuye_ and irritable. You must abandon your prejudices, and for a time cast off all European prepossessions in favour of Indian politeness, Persian polish, Arab courtesy, or Turkish dignity.

"They are as free as Nature e'er made man;"

and he who objects to having his head shaved in public, to seeing his friends combing their locks in his sitting-room, to having his property unceremoniously handled, or to being addressed familiarly by a perfect stranger, had better avoid Somaliland.

You will doubtless, dear L., convict me, by my own sentiments, of being an "amateur barbarian." You must, however, remember that I visited Africa fresh from Aden, with its dull routine of meaningless parades and tiresome courts martial, where society is broken by ridiculous distinctions of staff-men and regimental-men, Madras-men and Bombay-men, "European" officers, and "black" officers; where literature is confined to acquiring the art of explaining yourself in the jargons of half-naked savages; where the business of life is comprised in ignoble official squabbles, dislikes, disapprobations, and "references to superior authority;" where social intercourse is crushed by "gup," gossip, and the scandal of small colonial circles; where--pleasant predicament for those who really love women's society!--it is scarcely possible to address fair dame, preserving at the same time her reputation and your own, and if seen with her twice, all "camp" will swear it is an "affair;" where, briefly, the march of mind is at a dead halt, and the march of matter is in double quick time to the hospital or sick-quarters.

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