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.
[25] They had been in some danger: a treacherous murder perpetrated a few
days before our arrival had caused all the Habr Gerbajis to fly from the
town and assemble 5000 men at Bulhar for battle and murder.
