CHAPTER IX.
Staying at Allulee.—Amusements.—More camels join our Kafilah.—Introduced to a new-comer, Ohmed Medina.—Journey to Gurguddee, time marching one hour and a-half, direction S. W.—Halt for the night.—Murder of a slave.—March to Khrabtu, time occupied, seven hours.—General direction, south.—Proceed to Saggadarah, time marching three hours.—General direction, south-west.
AsI had not seen my mule for some days, on the fourth morning of my stay at Allulee, I sent Allee to bring her up to my quarters; I found that she was bleeding profusely at the mouth, and on examination, discovered five or six large leeches adhering to the under surface of the tongue. It was a job to detach them, so difficult was it to retain the slimy, blood-distended monsters in the grasp, and so tenaciously they clung to their prey. Allee pulled, Zaido tried, and then Ebin Izaak affirmed he knew how to effect their removal, but still the leeches were of a different opinion, and held on proof against all efforts to dislodge them, until I brought to bear the results of my professional education, and by the secret application of a little salt, overcame all objection, and theleeches dropt out one after the other, as if mesmerized by my touch. My Dankalli friends stared, as well they might, at this striking illustration of knowledge being power, especially as themodus operandiwas a mystery they could not fathom, and they took themselves and the mule off, with an idea that I must be a mighty magician, like Moses of old, and that my knowledge must indeed be, as they expressed it, “as extensive as the sea.”
I experienced a little surprise myself in the evening of the same day, when the camels were brought into camp for the night. These animals are driven out every day, in charge of one or two individuals, to browse, principally on the green leaves and large clusters of curling pods of the mimosa-trees, which abound in this neighbourhood. A little before sunset, their owners and the slaves proceed in all directions to bring them in, and although sometimes a circuit of at least eighteen miles has been cleared of what little vegetation it boasts of, yet it is very seldom a camel is ever lost, unless actually driven away by some robber lurking on the outskirts of their feeding-ground. On this evening, two or three men drove the numerous herds of camels before them, and came into camp on one side of a low hill, whilst on the other the remainder of the men who had assisted in collecting them came in a body, exactly like the Muditu the preceding day. At a short distance before them, pirouetting in a succession of bounding leaps, his body bent towards the ground, whilst theknees were being continually brought up nearly to his chin, the man whom I had seen punished the day before for being drunk led them on. All chanted a low, moaning song, and came pressing hard against each other’s shoulders, with their shields advanced, presenting a very compact front. Having reached the camp, and paraded past my hut in this manner, their song ceased, the capering buffoon suspended his dance, and the party dispersed to assist in securing the camels for the night, and whose number had been greatly increased by arrivals during the day.
In the course of the last night, we remained at Allulee, twenty-eight more camels joined us with salt, and nearly as many men; for besides the drivers, two extensive slave merchants, had hurried from Tajourah after us with five or six attendants and a mule. The principal of this party, Ohmed Medina, was a fine tall athletic man, about forty years of age, with a mild and very pleasing expression of countenance. He was considered to be the richest slave merchant of the southern Dankalli tribes; and, in the opinion of his countrymen, with whom he was a great favourite, was, besides, a very courageous and successful warrior. Instead of assuming the poor garb, and pretending great poverty, as did Ohmed Mahomed, and the other chief people of the Kafilah, he affected a very superior style of dress, wore an Indian finely wove check fotah, a very large tobe, and a splendid dagger, the sheath of which was morethan one half of it overlaid with thin plates of silver. He evidently cared very little for the reported character of the Bedouins, as regarded their rapacity, and felt quite equal to a contest with them on any disputed question that might arise. He attended very strictly to his religious duties, but was far from being a bigot, excepting in always expecting the coffee to be first handed to him on occasions of drinking it with me, and as I was indebted to his presence for that real enjoyment of travelling, which can only arise from a consciousness of security, I was very willing to make even greater concessions, than in this simple act, to secure his friendship and good will. As with him no treachery could be suspected, I have frequently, without any other companion, traversed for hours the sandy plains, or stone-covered flat-topped ridges that constitute almost the whole country between Tajourah and the Hawash. He was particularly quick in comprehending my ideas, clothed as they were in very bad Arabic, and as we soon got accustomed to a short vocabulary of the most useful words, and resorted to familiar comparisons, when we wished to convey abstruse ideas, we talked away for hours together; he amusing me by the simplicity of several of his remarks respecting European politics and customs; and I giving him long accounts of our wars, our commerce, and our religion. His extensive knowledge of the wholecountry of Adal and of Abyssinia, I found very useful, and he was ever ready to give me accounts of the places he knew, of the roads, of the halting-grounds, and of the trade. He would sometimes dwell with considerable interest upon the great wealth that formerly characterized the commerce of Abyssinia, and indulged in hopes that he should live to see it restored again, now that the English had come into the country. He admitted that the Dankalli tribes themselves, by their violence had depopulated and destroyed the once extensive and powerful kingdom of Adal.
Ohmed Medina had visited Bombay and Aden, and had the most exalted ideas of our wealth, and the political power of England; he often declared his admiration of our laws and customs, and said that he should come and live in one of our “belladee” or towns, and become an Islam Feringee.
Garahmee saw that his supremacy in the Kafilah was now impossible, and with his usual tact, sunk into an obsequious follower, where he could not dictate as an arrogant chief. For my own part, I now felt easy, and secure from the fate which I felt convinced I should have met with had not Ohmed Medina joined our Kafilah; as it was, had I been travelling in a well-ordered country, my personal safety could not have been better assured, and many a pleasant hour’s sleep have I enjoyedafter a long day’s journey, confident in his watchful care, for he always ordered his servants to build his shade of mats, and salt-bags, but a few yards from the entrance of my own hut.
I was first introduced to Ohmed Medina, during the march on the morning of the tenth of April, when we again resumed our journey. We travelled not more than three miles from our last halting-place, amongst little denuded hills of a reddish porphyritic stone before we came to an open plain of no very great dimensions. Passing out of the gorge of a small stream running through banks which were covered with tamarisks, and mimosa shrubs; we came suddenly upon a large shallow lake of fresh water, which prevented us from continuing the march for that day. We accordingly returned to the little wood-enbosomed plain called Gurguddee, and which appeared to be a favourite burial-place for the tribes in the neighbourhood. Among a vast number of others, two large kairns, or heaps of stones, were pointed out to me, as being the tombs of two great chiefs, one of which, however, appeared to command no respect; or, in fact, only excited a contrary feeling, several stones being cast upon it in contempt. A legend connected with it, reminded me forcibly of the tale of Myrrha and her father. The other was the tomb of a Sheik, celebrated for his piety, and was strewed over by palm branches, and the decayed foliage of other trees. Many of the Kafilah men, amongstwhom I noticed Ohmed Medina, added each a tribute of green leaves, and repeated a short prayer near to it.
A Kafilah of donkeys laden with salt, going to Owssa, came up with us this day, and although the marshy lake before us seemed to lie direct in their way, they would not halt, but taking a long circuit around its border, went on their way, thus avoided any chance of collision with any individuals of our party, which appears is always to be expected on occasions of two Kafilahs coming together, and the greatest caution marks the conduct of people who thus happen to meet. This cautious suspicion of intention is also the sole cause of the great politeness, which, it cannot help being observed, marks all their intercourse with each other. One of the last traits I should have expected to find amongst a people so lawless, and otherwise so savage in their manners and customs.
We rested here the whole day. Zaido having been sent back to the last halting-place, on some errand, by Ohmed Mahomed, returned in a very short time running at the top of his speed, without spear or shield, and panting with excitement and fear, as he came in. All our people turned out from under the trees with their usual impetuous rush to seize spears and shields. Ohmed Medina, Garahmee, and some few others, as they got armed, went with me in the direction of the pursuing party who came in sight on a distant height,but on seeing our approach they retreated very quickly behind the hill again. After a short search, we returned into camp, without the arms thrown away by Zaido in his flight, and which we could not find. When quiet had been again established, and I was sitting in my hut, I could not help laughing at Zaido’s grimaces, as he endeavoured to tell me the jeopardy he had been in, concluding his relation with a pathetic appeal to my feelings, wishing to know what indeed the “Ahkeem” (myself) would have done had he been killed, and trusting that I would supply him with a new shield and spear, in return for his great attention and care of me.
This accident was the topic of conversation all day, and in consequence of it a great zekar was held in the evening, similar to those I had seen performed in Tajourah, and which was kept up until the middle of the night. All their praying, however, had no effect in withholding the arm of the assassin, for that very night, shortly after all parties had retired to their mats, the devotees sleeping perhaps more soundly from their exertions, the whole camp were suddenly awakened by a loud shriek, followed by a sudden burst of clamouring voices, and a confused rush to arms, during which several stumbled over my hut in their hurry. Ohmed Medina was shouting, “Ahkeem, ahkeem.” Zaido was pushing to get into my hut asI was trying to get out, and if his voice had not told me who it was that was thus intruding, it would have been rather a dangerous retreat for him. I got out at last, and made the best of my way, for it was a very dark night, in the direction that the voices seemed to be, and I soon met Ohmed Mahomed, who took me to the place of slaughter; but I was of no service, the man was quite dead, and no art of mine could close again the deep gash in his throat, that had terminated so suddenly his existence. He was the slave of one of the camel-owners, and it was supposed had been murdered by one of the Muditu, who had crept unobserved among the camels, and had thus revenged the recent murder of one of their tribe that had occurred in Tajourah.
April 11th.—The catastrophe of last night, and the evident hostility of the tribe we were among, induced Ohmed Mahomed, despite the bad state of the road, to hasten on another day’s journey to reach a country inhabited by the Debenee tribe, the chief of whom, Lohitu, a brave and generous warrior, was a great friend of Ohmed Medina.
It was a very long march of nearly seven hours, for we had to go round the shallow, muddy, but extensive Lake of Gurguddee, which occupied a portion of a vast plain, lying nearly north and south, as far as the eye could reach either way. It was bounded east and west, by long low ridges of loose lava cinders, at the distance of about five milesfrom each other. In a direction nearly due north-west, I was shown the high hills across which I was told one road to Owssa passed.
Having doubled the southern extremity of the lake, or marsh, more properly speaking, we passed across a level plain of the finest marl, in which scarcely a stone the size of a pea could be seen, and traversed in every direction by little narrow cracks, which told of the very recent evaporation of a still greater extent of water than that which had presented an obstacle to our direct progress. Upon this plain I saw for the first time those vast herds of antelopes, which I had all along looked forward to, as likely to afford me the exciting sport that has recently tempted so many adventurous Nimrods to follow up “war’s dim image” in the wilds of Southern Africa. In one herd I saw on the plain of Gurguddee, there were at least from four to five hundred antelopes; but they were so alarmed at the appearance and noise of the camels and people, that it was impossible to get within shot of them, so after two or three unsuccessful attempts, I resolved to husband my powers for the fatigues of the long walk that Ohmed Medina was anxious I should understand lay before me.
We were seven hours reaching our halting-place, the latter two hours of the march, having been along the shady bottom of the dry bed of a stream that sometimes flowed into the plain we had just crossed. Here were some large mimosa-trees, underthe shade of which I was glad to sit and rest myself, towards the latter end of the journey, and await the coming up of the camels, which the pedestrian party I was with had left far behind. Whilst sitting here, one of the Hy Soumaulee brought me as a refreshment, a handful of the young green pods of one species of the mimosa-tree, which tasted not unlike the shell of the common pea, and after a long abstinence from fresh vegetable food, I enjoyed this singular kind of salad very well.
Six fine antelopes, part of a large herd that was browsing among the bushes now approached within fifty yards of us, and as soon as I observed them, without saying a word, or scarcely stirring from my position, I took up my carbine, and fired at one as she had just put her feet against the trunk of a low tree to reach, like a goat, the leaves and tender extremities of the branches. She fell, of course, for the ball had broken her backbone; and Adam Burrah springing up, rushed like a hound upon her, and cut her throat in the most orthodox manner, with his dagger, as he repeated the usual grace after the scrupulously pious Garahmee, who had also run to his assistance.
My mule coming up with the camels, the dead game was lashed across the saddle, after due examination by my Dankalli friends of the effect of gunshot, as exhibited in the wound, and who shook their heads with sundry emphatic grunts, as if the idea kept recurring to their minds of the possibility of alike thing occurring to them, at the same time balancing the open hand horizontally, giving the outer edges of it an undulatory movement, a mode of expressing surprise, very common among this people.
Khrabtu, the name of the place where we halted, was an open space, where three dry watercourses met, surrounded by high crumbling cliffs of a dark-coloured lava rock. A little pool of dirty water, at some distance from the camp, was the only representative of the streams which, during the rains, flow through this ravine into the plain we had just crossed. Around us were large mimosa trees, the lower branches of which were hung with the decaying and rotten remains of the uprooted palm and other trees and shrubs which had been brought down, and thus entangled, by the floods of the previous year. In what I should presume, during the time of the inundations, were small islands, young doom palms made a thick jungle with their large, strong foliage, and after the camels were unloaded, it appeared a great object with the drivers to collect large bundles of the green leaves, and during the rest of the day all were occupied in removing the strong midrib of each long lobe, the strips being preserved, as the material with which they sewed up the holes and worn-out corners of the salt-bags, that were beginning to be somewhat the worse for the journey. The Hy Soumaulee, who had no mats, or palm-leaf bags torepair, devoted themselves to the much more agreeable employment of skinning the antelope and preparing it for the cooking-pot, but not without indulging in some portion of the meat raw. Adam Burrah, for his share, took the bones of the back, and was now busy endeavouring to separate them by bending the whole with both hands against the upright sole of his foot, as, sitting upon the ground, he almost laid himself upon his back, by the force of his exertions, turning and twisting the many-jointed bones about, in a peculiarly determined manner, to have it broken into as many portions as he could. Allee and Moosa divided the raw kidneys between them, which they eat up on the spot, whilst Garahmee, in possession of a very great delicacy, sucked the almost liquid marrow from the shank bones; for this purpose having smashed them, one after the other, between two large stones.
In a short time Zaido brought his large wooden bowl, in which were heavy lumps of flesh, very hot, and but half boiled. On his approach, all hands forgot their employments to pounce upon the cooked meat, and I saw that if I did not make a push there was little chance of my getting any; so forcing myself between the scrambling parties, I seized hold of the first portion I could put my hand on and bore away the greater part of the haunch, and upon this, occasionally daubing my tongue with a piece of dirty rough salt I always carried in my ammunition-bag, I managed to make as heartyand as savage a meal as any of the rest. I could not help noticing the attention paid to new comers who were too late for the scramble at the contents of the bowl. Some of their more successful companions, would strip off a piece from the bone with their teeth, and throw it at them, not at all in the gentle manner that we might have expected, a kindness like that to have been performed.
Zaido managed to put by one whole leg, and to conceal it, had pushed it under the mats of the roof of my hut, close to my head; for a joke I took it down inside, and divided it, without his knowledge, among some hungry Bedouins, much to his indignant surprise, when he afterwards discovered his loss, for he unhesitatingly attributed the abstraction of the meat, to the thievish propensity of his countrymen, an unhappy failing he on more than one occasion had reason to lament.
Our Kafilah had now assumed the character of one united family, no divisions, no continual calahms, that had characterized our progress before the arrival of Ohmed Medina, who took his place as Comptroller-General, and all of us submitted without a murmur to his command. As for myself, I felt perfectly easy, for the same deference the rest of the Kafilah paid to Ohmed Medina, was reflected upon me by the respect and attention which he always showed, and which had a corresponding effect upon all the rest. This night particularly, I noticed the great change in the bearingof my Hy Soumaulee escort towards me, who, instead of coming with a stealthy sneaking pace, as they had frequently done before, to observe what arrangements of defence I had made for the night, now came boldly, but very civilly, one after the other, to the entrance of my retreat, and “negasseed” me almost to sleep. The usual salutation of the evening being a long repetition of the word “negassee,” signifying, I concluded, as much as our “good night.”
April 12th.—Left Khrabtu at sunrise, and three hours after, we reached the halting-place of Saggadarah, situated in the wide bed of a small stream called Korree. Its banks were composed of low hills of different coloured, irregularly stratified rock, that if not volcanic, had been greatly altered from their original character of deposited formations, by the agency of fire. The whole valley abounded with vegetation; wide-spreading sweetly-scented mimosas, and clumps of luxuriantly growing doom palm, made travelling beneath their shade delightfully agreeable. An immense number of a small kind of dove, with the slightest tinge of red, scarcely a blush, blended with their usual silvery grey plumage, kept darting from bush to bush, as we disturbed them anew, every few yards we advanced, whilst the little antelope of Salt, and a large kind of partridge, were not unfrequently seen running beneath the thin underwood. Hanging nests of fresh green grass, were suspended likeimmense bell-shaped blossoms, from the upper boughs of the mimosa-trees, and the evident care of the passing Bedouins to prevent their shouldered spears from injuring them, told of some innocent superstition, still keeping alive gentle feelings, amidst all the rudeness of their savage untutored nurture.
Ohmed Medina, on one occasion, when I was desirous of looking at the contents of one of these nests, cautiously pulled down by its farthest extremity a branch to which one was attached, without disturbing the position of a single blade of its building materials. I then looked through its little aperture on one side, but found, however, neither eggs nor young, which was to be accounted for by its recent construction.
As was generally the case, the watering-place was some little distance from the spot where we had encamped. Water, certainly, abounded in our immediate neighbourhood, but it was so impregnated with copper, that it was known to the Dankalli to be “poison water,” and two or three instances of its deleterious effects were related to me, and drinking it was one of the causes to which I heard attributed the death of the Feringee (Kielmeyer) at Killaloo.
In the black coarse sand of the dry bed of the stream, I found several specimens of the spiral shell, which I had observed, as characterizing the stratum of chalk, in the neighbourhood of the Bahr Assal.I accompanied a party going to the sweet water-place with the camels, where I bathed, and also picked up several living specimens of another singular, but very small shell, the mouth of which opened to the left of its cell. The pool in which I found them was situated at some little distance from the camp, and among hard close-grained rocks of a reddish brown colour, very different in external appearance, from those in the neighbourhood of our encampment, which were of a bright green colour, containing evidently a considerable per centage of the mineral, with which the water in their neighbourhood was impregnated.
Either the half-cooked venison of yesterday, or the water in this place disagreeing with me, all the afternoon of this day I was very ill, and as I felt no better after bathing, I sent for Ohmed Medina, to consult with him how we should manage, if I were too ill to proceed on the morrow. Adam Burrah, who accompanied him, however, undertook to doctor me, and, creeping into my hut, with a handful of fresh cow-dung, would make me hold it under my nose, all the time he was pinching up the whole of the scalp from the back of the head, beginning very scientifically at the nape of the neck, and managed, by pressing it forwards, and pinching it up from all sides, to bring, gradually, a good large fold of it over my forehead. This he then included in a portion of his tobe, and applying his teeth to assist him in its compression, I thoughthe would not have desisted, until he had bitten the piece out altogether. I submitted to this operation, because, in the first place, Ohmed Medina affirmed it to be the best remedy I could possibly have to relieve the headache, and in the next, I was determined to see some little of the native practice of physic, and this was too good an opportunity to let escape. The cow-dung, which was very affectionately broken into small pieces, agreeably to their ideas of my delicate education, I very soon dispensed with, assuring them, after a sniff or two, it had had a wonderfully beneficial effect, and that I had no doubt, after my scalp was well kneaded again by Adam Burrah, I should be quite recovered. This was not actually the case; but as I took some of my own medicine, and omitted my usual supper, by the next morning I was fully restored to health, and as I gave all credit, and a fee of four buttons, to Adam Burrah, I established his medical character for ever after, among his admiring countrymen.