Moreover All Except The Hammal And Long Guled Would
Infallibly Have Fled At The First Charge.
Presently we sighted the trails of sheep and goats, showing the proximity
of a village:
Their freshness was ascertained by my companions after an
eager scrutiny in the moon's bright beams. About half an hour afterwards,
rough ravines with sharp and thorny descents warned us that we had
exchanged the dangerous plain for a place of safety where horsemen rarely
venture. Raghe, not admiring the "open," hurried us onward, in hope of
reaching some kraal. At 8 P.M., however, seeing the poor women lamed with
thorns, and the camels casting themselves upon the ground, I resolved to
halt. Despite all objections, we lighted a fire, finished our store of bad
milk--the water had long ago been exhausted--and lay down in the cold,
clear air, covering ourselves with hides and holding our weapons.
At 6 A.M. we resumed our ride over rough stony ground, the thorns tearing
our feet and naked legs, and the camels slipping over the rounded waste of
drift pebbles. The Bedouins, with ears applied to the earth, listened for
a village, but heard none. Suddenly we saw two strangers, and presently we
came upon an Eesa kraal. It was situated in a deep ravine, called Damal,
backed by a broad and hollow Fiumara at the foot of the hills, running
from west to east, and surrounded by lofty trees, upon which brown kites,
black vultures, and percnopters like flakes of snow were mewing. We had
marched over a winding path about eleven miles from, and in a south-west
direction (205°) of, Adad. Painful thoughts suggested themselves: in
consequence of wandering southwards, only six had been taken off thirty
stages by the labours of seven days.
As usual in Eastern Africa, we did not enter the kraal uninvited, but
unloosed and pitched the wigwam under a tree outside. Presently the elders
appeared bringing, with soft speeches, sweet water, new milk, fat sheep
and goats, for which they demanded a Tobe of Cutch canvass. We passed with
them a quiet luxurious day of coffee and pipes, fresh cream and roasted
mutton: after the plain-heats we enjoyed the cool breeze of the hills, the
cloudy sky, and the verdure of the glades, made doubly green by comparison
with the parched stubbles below.
The Eesa, here mixed with the Gudabirsi, have little power: we found them
poor and proportionally importunate. The men, wild-looking as open mouths,
staring eyes, and tangled hair could make them, gazed with extreme
eagerness upon my scarlet blanket: for very shame they did not beg it, but
the inviting texture was pulled and fingered by the greasy multitude. We
closed the hut whenever a valuable was produced, but eager eyes peeped
through every cranny, till the End of Time ejaculated "Praised be Allah!"
[43] and quoted the Arab saying, "Show not the Somal thy door, and if he
find it, block it up!" The women and children were clad in chocolate-
coloured hides, fringed at the tops: to gratify them I shot a few hawks,
and was rewarded with loud exclamations,--"Allah preserve thy hand!"--"May
thy skill never fail thee before the foe!" A crone seeing me smoke,
inquired if the fire did not burn: I handed my pipe, which nearly choked
her, and she ran away from a steaming kettle, thinking it a weapon. As my
companions observed, there was not a "Miskal of sense in a Maund of
heads:" yet the people looked upon my sun-burnt skin with a favour they
denied to the "lime-white face."
I was anxious to proceed in the afternoon, but Raghe had arrived at the
frontier of his tribe: he had blood to settle amongst the Gudabirsi, and
without a protector he could not enter their lands. At night we slept
armed on account of the lions that infest the hills, and our huts were
surrounded with a thorn fence--a precaution here first adopted, and never
afterwards neglected. Early on the morning of the 4th of December heavy
clouds rolled down from the mountains, and a Scotch mist deepened into a
shower: our new Abban had not arrived, and the hut-mats, saturated with
rain, had become too heavy for the camels to carry.
In the forenoon the Eesa kraal, loading their Asses [44], set out towards
the plain. This migration presented no new features, except that several
sick and decrepid were barbarously left behind, for lions and hyaenas to
devour. [45] To deceive "warhawks" who might be on the lookout, the
migrators set fire to logs of wood and masses of sheep's earth, which,
even in rain, will smoke and smoulder for weeks.
About midday arrived the two Gudabirsi who intended escorting us to the
village of our Abbans. The elder, Rirash, was a black-skinned, wild-
looking fellow, with a shock head of hair and a deep scowl which belied
his good temper and warm heart: the other was a dun-faced youth betrothed
to Raghe's daughter. They both belonged to the Mahadasan clan, and
commenced operations by an obstinate attempt to lead us far out of our way
eastwards. The pretext was the defenceless state of their flocks and
herds, the real reason an itching for cloth and tobacco. We resisted
manfully this time, nerved by the memory of wasted days, and, despite
their declarations of Absi [46], we determined upon making westward for
the hills.
At 2 P.M. the caravan started along the Fiumara course in rear of the
deserted kraal, and after an hour's ascent Rirash informed us that a well
was near. The Hammal and I, taking two water skins, urged our mules over
stones and thorny ground: presently we arrived at a rocky ravine, where,
surrounded by brambles, rude walls, and tough frame works, lay the wells--
three or four holes sunk ten feet deep in the limestone. Whilst we bathed
in the sulphureous spring, which at once discolored my silver ring,
Rirash, baling up the water in his shield, filled the bags and bound them
to the saddles.
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