First Footsteps in East Africa

CHAPTER I.. Departure From Aden

Departure from Aden

CHAP. II. Life in Zayla

CHAP. III. Excursions near Zayla

CHAP. IV. The Somal, their Origin and Peculiarities

CHAP. V. From Zayla to the Hills

CHAP. VI. From the Zayla Hills to the Marar Prairie

CHAP. VII. From the Marar Prairie to Harar

CHAP. VIII. Ten Days at Harar

CHAP. IX. A Ride to Berberah

CHAP. X. Berberah and its Environs

POSTSCRIPT

APPENDICES

LIST OF PLATES.

Harar, from the Coffe Stream Map of Berberah Route to Harar The Hammal Costume of Harar H. H. Ahmed Bin Abibakr, Amir of Harar

CHAPTER I.. Departure From Aden.

DEPARTURE FROM ADEN.

I doubt not there are many who ignore the fact that in Eastern Africa, scarcely three hundred miles distant from Aden, there is a counterpart of ill-famed Timbuctoo in the Far West. The more adventurous Abyssinian travellers, Salt and Stuart, Krapf and Isenberg, Barker and Rochet,--not to mention divers Roman Catholic Missioners,--attempted Harar, but attempted it in vain. The bigoted ruler and barbarous people threatened death to the Infidel who ventured within their walls; some negro Merlin having, it is said, read Decline and Fall in the first footsteps of the Frank. Of all foreigners the English were, of course, the most hated and dreaded; at Harar slavery still holds its head-quarters, and the old Dragon well knows what to expect from the hand of St. George. Thus the various travellers who appeared in beaver and black coats became persuaded that the city was inaccessible, and Europeans ceased to trouble themselves about Harar.

It is, therefore, a point of honor with me, dear L., to utilise my title of Haji by entering the city, visiting the ruler, and returning in safety, after breaking the guardian spell.

The most auspicious day in the Moslem year for beginning a journey is, doubtless, the 6th of the month Safar , on which, quoth the Prophet, El Islam emerged from obscurity. Yet even at Aden we could not avail ourselves of this lucky time: our delays and difficulties were a fit prelude for a journey amongst those "Blameless Ethiopians," with whom no less a personage than august Jove can dine and depart.

On Sunday, the 29th October, 1854, our manifold impediments were pronounced complete. Friend S. threw the slipper of blessing at my back, and about 4 P.M. embarking from Maala Bunder, we shook out our "muslin," and sailed down the fiery harbour. Passing the guard-boat, we delivered our permit; before venturing into the open sea we repeated the Fatihah- prayer in honor of the Shaykh Majid, inventor of the mariners' compass , and evening saw us dancing on the bright clear tide, whose "magic waves," however, murmured after another fashion the siren song which charmed the senses of the old Arabian voyagers.

Suddenly every trace of civilisation fell from my companions as if it had been a garment. At Aden, shaven and beturbaned, Arab fashion, now they threw off all dress save the loin cloth, and appeared in their dark morocco. Mohammed filled his mouth with a mixture of coarse Surat tobacco and ashes,--the latter article intended, like the Anglo-Indian soldier's chili in his arrack, to "make it bite." Guled uncovered his head, a member which in Africa is certainly made to go bare, and buttered himself with an unguent redolent of sheep's tail; and Ismail, the rais or captain of our "foyst," the Sahalah, applied himself to puffing his nicotiana out of a goat's shank-bone. Our crew, consisting of seventy-one men and boys, prepared, as evening fell, a mess of Jowari grain and grease, the recipe of which I spare you, and it was despatched in a style that would have done credit to Kafirs as regards gobbling, bolting, smearing lips, licking fingers, and using ankles as napkins. Then with a light easterly breeze and the ominous cliffs of Little Aden still in sight, we spread our mats on deck and prepared to sleep under the moon.

My companions, however, felt, without perhaps comprehending, the joviality arising from a return to Nature. Every man was forthwith nicknamed, and pitiless was the raillery upon the venerable subjects of long and short, fat and thin. One sang a war-song, another a love-song, a third some song of the sea, whilst the fourth, an Eesa youth, with the villanous expression of face common to his tribe, gave us a rain measure, such as men chaunt during wet weather. All these effusions were naive and amusing: none, however, could bear English translation without an amount of omission which would change their nature. Each effort of minstrelsy was accompanied by roars of laughter, and led to much manual pleasantry. All swore that they had never spent, intellectually speaking, a more charming soiree, and pitied me for being unable to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the dialogue. Truly it is not only the polished European, as was said of a certain travelling notability, that lapses with facility into pristine barbarism.

I will now introduce you to my companions. The managing man is one Mohammed Mahmud , generally called El Hammal or the porter: he is a Havildar or sergeant in the Aden police, and was entertained for me by Lieut. Dansey, an officer who unfortunately was not "confirmed" in a political appointment at Aden. The Hammal is a bull-necked, round-headed fellow of lymphatic temperament, with a lamp-black skin, regular features, and a pulpy figure,--two rarities amongst his countrymen, who compare him to a Banyan. 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." 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, 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 , 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 , 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,--

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