A Kraal Was Found
Here, And The Traveller Passed A Comfortable Night.
_12th December_.--About 9 A.M. the caravan started, and threaded a valley,
which, if blessed with a fair supply of water, would be very fertile.
Whilst everything else is burned up by the sun on the high ground, a
nutritious weed, called Buskallay, fattens the sheep and goats.
Wherever,
therefore, a spring is found, men flock to the place and fence themselves
in a Kraal. About half-way the travellers reached Darud bin Ismail's tomb,
a parallelogram of loose stones about one foot high, of a battered and
ignoble appearance; at one extremity stood a large sloping stone, with a
little mortar still clinging to it. No outer fence surrounded the tomb,
which might easily be passed by unnoticed: no honors were paid to the
memory of the first founder of the tribe, and the Somal did not even
recite a Fatihah over his dust. After marching about twelve miles, the
caravan encamped at Labbahdilay, in the bed of a little watercourse which
runs into the Yubbay Tug. Here they found a small pool of bad rain water.
They made a rude fence to keep out the wild beasts, and in it passed the
night.
_13th December_.--The Somal showed superior activity in marching three
successive days; the reason appears to be that the Abban was progressing
towards his home. At sunrise the camels were loaded, and at 8 A.M. the
caravan started up a valley along the left bank of a watercourse called
the Yubbay Tug.
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