[11] These Platforms Are Found Even Amongst The Races Inhabiting The Regions Watered By The Niger.

[12] Charred sticks about six feet long and curved at the handle.

[13] Equally simple are the other implements. The plough, which in Eastern Africa has passed the limits of Egypt, is still the crooked tree of all primitive people, drawn by oxen; and the hoe is a wooden blade inserted into a knobbed handle.

[14] It is afterwards stored in deep dry holes, which are carefully covered to keep out rats and insects; thus the grain is preserved undamaged for three or four years.

[15] This word is applied to the cultivated districts, the granaries of Somali land.

[16] "The huge raven with gibbous or inflated beak and white nape," writes Mr. Blyth, "is the corvus crassirostris of Ruppell, and, together with a nearly similar Cape species, is referred to the genus Corvultur of Leason."

[17] In these hills it is said sometimes to freeze; I never saw ice.

[18] It is a string of little silver bells and other ornaments made by the Arabs at Berberah.

[19] Harari, Somali and Galla, besides Arabic, and other more civilized dialects.

[20] The Negroes of Senegal and the Hottentots use wooden mortars. At Natal and amongst the Amazulu Kafirs, the work is done with slabs and rollers like those described above.

[21] In the Eastern World this well-known fermentation is generally called "Buzab," whence the old German word "busen" and our "booze." The addition of a dose of garlic converts it into an emetic.

[22] The Somal will not kill these plundering brutes, like the Western Africans believing them to be enchanted men.

[23] Some years ago Adan plundered one of Sharmarkay's caravans; repenting the action, he offered in marriage a daughter, who, however, died before nuptials.

[24] Gisti is a "princess" in Harari, equivalent to the Somali Geradah.

[25] They are, however, divided into clans, of which the following are the principal:--

1. Bahawiyah, the race which supplies the Gerads. 2. Abu Tunis (divided into ten septs). 3. Rer Ibrahim (similarly divided). 4. Jibril. 5. Bakasiyya. 6. Rer Muhmud. 7. Musa Dar. 8. Rer Auro. 9. Rer Walembo. 10. Rer Khalid.

[26] I do not describe these people, the task having already been performed by many abler pens than mine.

[27] They are divided into the Bah Ambaro (the chief's family) and the Shaykhashed.

[28] The only specimen of stunted humanity seen by me in the Somali country. He was about eighteen years old, and looked ten.

[29] At first I thought of writing it in Arabic; but having no seal, a _sine qua non_ in an Eastern letter, and reflecting upon the consequences of detection or even suspicion, it appeared more politic to come boldly forward as a European.

[30] It belongs, I was informed, to two clans of Gallas, who year by year in turn monopolise the profits.

[31] Of this tree are made the substantial doors, the basins and the porringers of Harar.

[32] The Webbe Shebayli or Haines River.

[33] This scarecrow is probably a talisman. In the Saharah, according to Richardson, the skull of an ass averts the evil eye from gardens.

[34] The following is a table of our stations, directions, and distances:--

Miles 1. From Zayla to Gudingaras S.E. 165° 19 2. To Kuranyali 145° 8 3. To Adad 225° 25 4. To Damal 205° 11 5. To El Arno 190° 11 6. To Jiyaf 202° 10 7. To Halimalah (the Holy Tree about half way) 192° 7 -- 91 miles. 8. To Aububah 245° 21 9. To Koralay 165° 25 10. To Harar 260° 65 -- 111 miles. --- Total statute miles 202

[Illustration: COSTUMES OF HARAR]

CHAP. VIII.

TEN DAYS AT HARAR.

After waiting half an hour at the gate, we were told by the returned warder to pass the threshold, and remounting guided our mules along the main street, a narrow up-hill lane, with rocks cropping out from a surface more irregular than a Perote pavement. Long Guled had given his animal into the hands of our two Bedouins: they did not appear till after our audience, when they informed us that the people at the entrance had advised them to escape with the beasts, an evil fate having been prepared for the proprietors.

Arrived within a hundred yards of the gate of holcus-stalks, which opens into the courtyard of this African St. James, our guide, a blear-eyed, surly-faced, angry-voiced fellow, made signs--none of us understanding his Harari--to dismount. We did so. He then began to trot, and roared out apparently that we must do the same. [1] We looked at one another, the Hammal swore that he would perish foully rather than obey, and--conceive, dear L., the idea of a petticoated pilgrim venerable as to beard and turban breaking into a long "double!"--I expressed much the same sentiment. Leading our mules leisurely, in spite of the guide's wrath, we entered the gate, strode down the yard, and were placed under a tree in its left corner, close to a low building of rough stone, which the clanking of frequent fetters argued to be a state-prison.

This part of the court was crowded with Gallas, some lounging about, others squatting in the shade under the palace walls. The chiefs were known by their zinc armlets, composed of thin spiral circlets, closely joined, and extending in mass from the wrist almost to the elbow: all appeared to enjoy peculiar privileges,--they carried their long spears, wore their sandals, and walked leisurely about the royal precincts. A delay of half an hour, during which state-affairs were being transacted within, gave me time to inspect a place of which so many and such different accounts are current. The palace itself is, as Clapperton describes the Fellatah Sultan's state-hall, a mere shed, a long, single- storied, windowless barn of rough stone and reddish clay, with no other insignia but a thin coat of whitewash over the door.

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