We Fired Our Guns As A Salute, He
However Hurried On To Receive Us With Due Ceremony In His Cottage.
Dismounting at the door we shook hands with him, were led through the idle
mob into a smoky closet contrived
Against the inside wall, and were
regaled with wheaten bread steeped in honey and rancid butter. The host
left us to eat, and soon afterwards returned:--I looked with attention at
a man upon whom so much then depended.
Adan bin Kaushan was in appearance a strong wiry Bedouin,--before
obtaining from me a turban he wore his bushy hair dyed dun,--about forty-
five years old, at least six feet high, with decided features, a tricky
smile, and an uncertain eye. In character he proved to be one of those
cunning idiots so peculiarly difficult to deal with. Ambitious and wild
with greed of gain, he was withal so fickle that his head appeared ever
changing its contents; he could not sit quiet for half an hour, and this
physical restlessness was an outward sign of the uneasy inner man. Though
reputed brave, his treachery has won him a permanent ill fame. Some years
ago he betrothed a daughter to the eldest son of Gerad Hirsi of the
Berteri tribe, and then, contrary to Somali laws of honor, married her to
Mahommed Waiz of the Jibril Abokr. This led to a feud, in which the
disappointed suitor was slain. Adan was celebrated for polygamy even in
Eastern Africa: by means of his five sons and dozen daughters, he has
succeeded in making extensive connexions [23], and his sister, the Gisti
[24] Fatimah, was married to Abubakr, father of the present Amir.
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