An Orphan In Early Youth, And Becoming, To Use His Own
Phrase, Sick Of Milk, He Ran Away From His Tribe, The Habr Gerhajis, And
Engaged Himself As A Coaltrimmer With The Slaves On Board An Indian War-
Steamer.
After rising in rank to the command of the crew, he became
servant and interpreter to travellers, visited distant lands--Egypt and
Calcutta--and finally settled as a Feringhee policeman.
He cannot read or
write, but he has all the knowledge to be acquired by fifteen or twenty
years, hard "knocking about:" he can make a long speech, and, although he
never prays, a longer prayer; he is an excellent mimic, and delights his
auditors by imitations and descriptions of Indian ceremony, Egyptian
dancing, Arab vehemence, Persian abuse, European vivacity, and Turkish
insolence. With prodigious inventiveness, and a habit of perpetual
intrigue, acquired in his travels, he might be called a "knowing" man, but
for the truly Somali weakness of showing in his countenance all that
passes through his mind. This people can hide nothing: the blank eye, the
contracting brow, the opening nostril and the tremulous lip, betray,
despite themselves, their innermost thoughts.
The second servant, whom I bring before you is Guled, another policeman at
Aden. He is a youth of good family, belonging to the Ismail Arrah, the
royal clan of the great Habr Gerhajis tribe. His father was a man of
property, and his brethren near Berberah, are wealthy Bedouins: yet he ran
away from his native country when seven or eight years old, and became a
servant in the house of a butter merchant at Mocha. Thence he went to
Aden, where he began with private service, and ended his career in the
police. He is one of those long, live skeletons, common amongst the Somal:
his shoulders are parallel with his ears, his ribs are straight as a
mummy's, his face has not an ounce of flesh upon it, and his features
suggest the idea of some lank bird: we call him Long Guled, to which he
replies with the Yemen saying "Length is Honor, even in Wood." He is brave
enough, because he rushes into danger without reflection; his great
defects are weakness of body and nervousness of temperament, leading in
times of peril to the trembling of hands, the dropping of caps, and the
mismanagement of bullets: besides which, he cannot bear hunger, thirst, or
cold.
The third is one Abdy Abokr, also of the Habr Gerhajis, a personage whom,
from, his smattering of learning and his prodigious rascality, we call the
Mulla "End of Time." [10] He is a man about forty, very old-looking for
his age, with small, deep-set cunning eyes, placed close together, a hook
nose, a thin beard, a bulging brow, scattered teeth, [11] and a short
scant figure, remarkable only for length of back. His gait is stealthy,
like a cat's, and he has a villanous grin. This worthy never prays, and
can neither read nor write; but he knows a chapter or two of the Koran,
recites audibly a long Ratib or task, morning and evening [12], whence,
together with his store of hashed Hadis (tradition), he derives the title
of Widad or hedge-priest. His tongue, primed with the satirical sayings of
Abn Zayd el Helali, and Humayd ibn Mansur [13], is the terror of men upon
whom repartee imposes. His father was a wealthy shipowner in his day; but,
cursed with Abdy and another son, the old man has lost all his property,
his children have deserted him, and he now depends entirely upon the
charity of the Zayla chief. The "End of Time" has squandered considerable
sums in travelling far and wide from Harar to Cutch, he has managed
everywhere to perpetrate some peculiar villany. He is a pleasant
companion, and piques himself upon that power of quotation which in the
East makes a polite man. If we be disposed to hurry, he insinuates that
"Patience is of Heaven, Haste of Hell." When roughly addressed, he
remarks,--
"There are cures for the hurts of lead and steel,
But the wounds of the tongue--they never heal!"
If a grain of rice adhere to our beards, he says, smilingly, "the gazelle
is in the garden;" to which we reply "we will hunt her with the five."
[14] Despite these merits, I hesitated to engage him, till assured by the
governor of Zayla that he was to be looked upon as a son, and, moreover,
that he would bear with him one of those state secrets to an influential
chief which in this country are never committed to paper. I found him an
admirable buffoon, skilful in filling pipes and smoking them; _au reste_,
an individual of "many words and little work," infinite intrigue,
cowardice, cupidity, and endowed with a truly evil tongue.
The morning sun rose hot upon us, showing Mayyum and Zubah, the giant
staples of the "Gate under the Pleiades." [15] Shortly afterwards, we came
in sight of the Barr el Ajam (barbarian land), as the Somal call their
country [16], a low glaring flat of yellow sand, desert and heat-reeking,
tenanted by the Eesa, and a meet habitat for savages. Such to us, at
least, appeared the land of Adel. [17] At midday we descried the Ras el
Bir,--Headland of the Well,--the promontory which terminates the bold
Tajurrah range, under which lie the sleeping waters of the Maiden's Sea.
[18] During the day we rigged out an awning, and sat in the shade smoking
and chatting merrily, for the weather was not much hotter than on English
summer seas. Some of the crew tried praying; but prostrations are not
easily made on board ship, and El Islam, as Umar shrewdly suspected, was
not made for a seafaring race. At length the big red sun sank slowly
behind the curtain of sky-blue rock, where lies the not yet "combusted"
village of Tajurrah. [19] We lay down to rest with the light of day, and
had the satisfaction of closing our eyes upon a fair though captious
breeze.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 8 of 127
Words from 7219 to 8238
of 128411
