They Rebuked The Interpreter For Not Praying
Regularly, For Eating From A Christian's Cooking Pot, And For Cutting
Deer's Throats Low Down (To Serve As Specimens); They Also Did Not Approve
Of The Traveller's Throwing Date Stones Into The Fire.
As usual, they are
fearful boasters.
Their ancestors turned Christians out of the country.
They despise guns. They consider the Frank formidable only behind walls:
they are ready to fight it out in the plain, and they would gallop around
cannon so that not a shot would tell. Vain words to conceal the hearts of
hares! Lieutenant Speke justly remarks that, on account of the rough way
in which they are brought up, the Somal would become excellent policemen;
they should, however, be separated from their own people, and doubtless
the second generation might be trained into courage.
At Biyu Hablay Lieutenant Speke, finding time as well as means deficient,
dropped all idea of marching to Berberah. He wished to attempt a north-
western route to Hais, but the Rer Hamaturwa (a clan of the Habr Gerhajis
who occupy the mountain) positively refused passage. Permission was
accorded by that clan to march due north upon Bunder Jedid, where,
however, the traveller feared that no vessel might be found. As a last
resource he determined to turn to the north-east, and, by a new road
through the Habr Gerhajis, to make Las Kuray.
_18th January_.--The Abban again returned from his home, and accompanied
Lieutenant Speke on his first march to the north-east. Early in the
morning the caravan started over the ground before described: on this
occasion, however, it traversed the belt of jungle at the foot of the
mountains. After a march of six miles they halted at "Mirhiddo," under a
tree on elevated ground, in a mere desert, no water being nearer than the
spring of Jid Ali. The Abban took the opportunity of Lieutenant Speke
going out specimen-hunting to return home, contrary to orders, and he did
not reappear till the traveller walked back and induced him to march. Here
a second camel, being "in articulo," was cut up and greedily devoured.
_21st January_.--The Abban appeared in the morning, and the caravan
started about noon, over the stony ground at the foot of the hills. After
a mile's march, the "Protector" again disappeared, in open defiance of
orders. That day's work was about ten miles. The caravan halted, late at
night, in the bed of a watercourse, called Hanfallal. Lieutenant Speke
visited the spring, which is of extraordinary sweetness for the Warsingali
country: it flows from a cleft in the rock broad enough to admit a man's
body, and about 60 feet deep.
_23rd January_.--Lieutenant Speke was about to set out under the guidance
of Awado, the Abban's mother, when her graceless son reappeared. At noon
the caravan travelled along a rough road, over the lower spurs of the
mountains: they went five miles, and it was evening when they unloaded in
a watercourse a little distance up the hills, at a place called Dallmalay.
The bed was about 150 yards broad, full of jungle, and showed signs of a
strong deep stream during the monsoon.
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