At Present, A
Man Armed With A Revolver Would Be A Terror To The Country; The Day,
However, Will Come When The Matchlock Will Supersede The Assegai, And Then
The Harmless Spearman In His Strong Mountains Will Become, Like The Arab,
A Formidable Foe.
Travelling among the Bedouins, I found them kind and
hospitable.
A pinch of snuff or a handful of tobacco sufficed to win every
heart, and a few yards of coarse cotton cloth supplied all our wants, I
was petted like a child, forced to drink milk and to eat mutton; girls
were offered to me in marriage; the people begged me to settle amongst
them, to head their predatory expeditions, free them from lions, and kill
their elephants; and often a man has exclaimed in pitying accents, "What
hath brought thee, delicate as thou art, to sit with us on the cowhide in
this cold under a tree?" Of course they were beggars, princes and paupers,
lairds and loons, being all equally unfortunate; the Arabs have named the
country Bilad Wa Issi,--the "Land of Give me Something;"--but their wants
were easily satisfied, and the open hand always made a friend.
The Somal hold mainly to the Shafei school of El Islam: their principal
peculiarity is that of not reciting prayers over the dead even in the
towns. The marriage ceremony is simple: the price of the bride and the
feast being duly arranged, the formula is recited by some priest or
pilgrim. I have often been requested to officiate on these occasions, and
the End of Time has done it by irreverently reciting the Fatihah over the
happy pair. [18] The Somal, as usual amongst the heterogeneous mass
amalgamated by El Islam, have a diversity of superstitions attesting their
Pagan origin. Such for instance are their oaths by stones, their reverence
of cairns and holy trees, and their ordeals of fire and water, the Bolungo
of Western Africa. A man accused of murder or theft walks down a trench
full of live charcoal and about a spear's length, or he draws out of the
flames a smith's anvil heated to redness: some prefer picking four or five
cowries from a large pot full of boiling water. The member used is at once
rolled up in the intestines of a sheep and not inspected for a whole day.
They have traditionary seers called Tawuli, like the Greegree-men of
Western Africa, who, by inspecting the fat and bones of slaughtered
cattle, "do medicine," predict rains, battles, and diseases of animals.
This class is of both sexes: they never pray or bathe, and are therefore
considered always impure; thus, being feared, they are greatly respected
by the vulgar. Their predictions are delivered in a rude rhyme, often put
for importance into the mouth of some deceased seer. During the three
months called Rajalo [19] the Koran is not read over graves, and no
marriage ever takes place. The reason of this peculiarity is stated to be
imitation of their ancestor Ishak, who happened not to contract a
matrimonial alliance at such epoch:
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