The principal wants of the country which we have traversed are coarse
cotton cloth, Surat tobacco, beads, and indigo-dyed stuffs for women's
coifs. The people would also be grateful for any improvement in their
breed of horses, and when at Aden I thought of taking with me some old
Arab stallions as presents to chiefs. Fortunately the project fell to the
ground: a strange horse of unusual size or beauty, in these regions, would
be stolen at the end of the first march.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Every hill and peak, ravine and valley, will be known by some striking
epithet: as Borad, the White Hill; Libahlay, the Lions' Mountain; and so
forth.
[2] The Arabs call it Kakatua, and consider it a species of parrot. The
name Cacatoes, is given by the Cape Boers, according to Delegorgue, to the
Coliphymus Concolor. The Gobiyan resembles in shape and flight our magpie,
it has a crest and a brown coat with patches of white, and a noisy note
like a frog. It is very cunning and seldom affords a second shot.
[3] The berries of the Armo are eaten by children, and its leaves, which
never dry up, by the people in times of famine; they must be boiled or the
acrid juice would excoriate the mouth.
