Our Protectors, Jami And Burhale, Receiving Permission To
Accompany Their Families And Flocks, Left Us In Charge Of Their Sons And
Relations.
On the 15th April the last vessel sailed out of the creek, and
our little party remained in undisputed possession of the place.
Three days afterwards, about noon, an Aynterad craft _en route_ from Aden
entered the solitary harbour freighted with about a dozen Somal desirous
of accompanying us towards Ogadayn, the southern region. She would have
sailed that evening; fortunately, however, I had ordered our people to
feast her commander and crew with rice and the irresistible dates.
At sunset on the same day we were startled by a discharge of musketry
behind the tents: the cause proved to be three horsemen, over whose heads
our guard had fired in case they might be a foraging party. I reprimanded
our people sharply for this act of folly, ordering them in future to
reserve their fire, and when necessary to shoot into, not above, a crowd.
After this we proceeded to catechise the strangers, suspecting them to be
scouts, the usual forerunners of a Somali raid: the reply was so plausible
that even the Balyuz, with all his acuteness, was deceived. The Bedouins
had forged a report that their ancient enemy the Hajj Sharmarkay was
awaiting with four ships at the neighbouring port, Siyaro, the opportunity
of seizing Berberah whilst deserted, and of re-erecting his forts there
for the third time. Our visitors swore by the divorce-oath,--the most
solemn which the religious know,--that a vessel entering the creek at such
unusual season, they had been sent to ascertain whether it had been
freighted with materials for building, and concluded by laughingly asking
if we feared danger from the tribe of our own protectors.
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