They Are Made Of The Fine Long-Stapled Cotton, Which
Grows Plentifully Upon These Hills, And Are Soft As Silk, Whilst Their
Warmth Admirably Adapts Them For Winter Wear.
The thread is spun by women
with two wooden pins:
The loom is worked by both sexes.
Three caravans leave Harar every year for the Berberah market. The first
starts early in January, laden with coffee, Tobes, Wars, ghee, gums, and
other articles to be bartered for cottons, silks, shawls, and Surat
tobacco. The second sets out in February. The principal caravan, conveying
slaves, mules, and other valuable articles, enters Berberah a few days
before the close of the season: it numbers about 3000 souls, and is
commanded by one of the Amir's principal officers, who enjoys the title of
Ebi or leader. Any or all of these kafilahs might be stopped by spending
four or five hundred dollars amongst the Jibril Abokr tribe, or even by a
sloop of war at the emporium. "He who commands at Berberah, holds the
beard of Harar in his hand," is a saying which I heard even within the
city walls.
The furniture of a house at Harar is simple,--a few skins, and in rare
cases a Persian rug, stools, coarse mats, and Somali pillows, wooden
spoons, and porringers shaped with a hatchet, finished with a knife,
stained red, and brightly polished. The gourd is a conspicuous article;
smoked inside and fitted with a cover of the same material, it serves as
cup, bottle, pipe, and water-skin: a coarse and heavy kind of pottery, of
black or brown clay, is used by some of the citizens.
The inhabitants of Harar live well. The best meat, as in Abyssinia, is
beef: it rather resembled, however, in the dry season when I ate it, the
lean and stringy sirloins of Old England in Hogarth's days. A hundred and
twenty chickens, or sixty-six full-grown fowls, may be purchased for a
dollar, and the citizens do not, like the Somal, consider them carrion.
Goat's flesh is good, and the black-faced Berberah sheep, after the rains,
is, here as elsewhere, delicious. The staff of life is holcus. Fruit grows
almost wild, but it is not prized as an article of food; the plantains are
coarse and bad, grapes seldom come to maturity; although the brab
flourishes in every ravine, and the palm becomes a lofty tree, it has not
been taught to fructify, and the citizens do not know how to dress,
preserve, or pickle their limes and citrons. No vegetables but gourds are
known. From the cane, which thrives upon these hills, a little sugar is
made: the honey, of which, as the Abyssinians say, "the land stinks," is
the general sweetener. The condiment of East Africa, is red pepper.
* * * * *
To resume, dear L., the thread of our adventures at Harar.
Immediately after arrival, we were called upon by the Arabs, a strange
mixture. One, the Haji Mukhtar, was a Maghrebi from Fez: an expatriation
of forty years had changed his hissing Arabic as little as his "rocky
face." This worthy had a coffee-garden assigned to him, as commander of
the Amir's body-guard: he introduced himself to us, however, as a
merchant, which led us to look upon him as a spy. Another, Haji Hasan, was
a thorough-bred Persian: he seemed to know everybody, and was on terms of
bosom friendship with half the world from Cairo to Calcutta, Moslem,
Christian and Pagan. Amongst the rest was a boy from Meccah, a Muscat man,
a native of Suez, and a citizen of Damascus: the others were Arabs from
Yemen. All were most civil to us at first; but, afterwards, when our
interviews with the Amir ceased, they took alarm, and prudently cut us.
The Arabs were succeeded by the Somal, amongst whom the Hammal and Long
Guled found relatives, friends, and acquaintances, who readily recognised
them as government servants at Aden. These visitors at first came in fear
and trembling with visions of the Harar jail: they desired my men to
return the visit by night, and made frequent excuses for apparent want of
hospitality. Their apprehensions, however, soon vanished: presently they
began to prepare entertainments, and, as we were without money, they
willingly supplied us with certain comforts of life. Our three Habr Awal
enemies, seeing the tide of fortune settling in our favour, changed their
tactics: they threw the past upon their two Harari companions, and
proposed themselves as Abbans on our return to Berberah. This offer was
politely staved off; in the first place we were already provided with
protectors, and secondly these men belonged to the Ayyal Shirdon, a clan
most hostile to the Habr Gerhajis. They did not fail to do us all the harm
in their power, but again my good star triumphed.
After a day's repose, we were summoned by the Treasurer, early in the
forenoon, to wait upon the Gerad Mohammed. Sword in hand, and followed by
the Hammal and Long Guled, I walked to the "palace," and entering a little
ground-floor-room on the right of and close to the audience-hall, found
the minister sitting upon a large dais covered with Persian carpets. He
was surrounded by six of his brother Gerads or councillors, two of them in
turbans, the rest with bare and shaven heads: their Tobes, as is customary
on such occasions of ceremony, were allowed to fall beneath the waist. The
lower part of the hovel was covered with dependents, amongst whom my Somal
took their seats: it seemed to be customs' time, for names were being
registered, and money changed hands. The Grandees were eating Kat, or as
it is here called "Jat." [37] One of the party prepared for the Prime
Minister the tenderest twigs of the tree, plucking off the points of even
the softest leaves. Another pounded the plant with a little water in a
wooden mortar: of this paste, called "El Madkuk," a bit was handed to each
person, who, rolling it into a ball, dropped it into his mouth.
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