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I then represented in Arabic that we had come from Aden, bearing the compliments of our Daulah or governor, and that we had entered Harar to see the light of H. H.'s countenance: this information concluded with a little speech, describing the changes of Political Agents in Arabia, and alluding to the friendship formerly existing between the English and the deceased chief Abubakr.
I replied almost in the words used to the Amir, adding however some details how in the old day one Madar Farih had been charged by the late Sultan Abubakr with a present to the governor of Aden, and that it was the wish of our people to reestablish friendly relations and commercial intercourse with Harar.
The Amir Abubakr is said on his deathbed to have warned his son against the Gerad. When Ahmad reported his father's decease to Zayla, the Hajj Sharmarkay ordered a grand Maulid or Mass in honour of the departed. Since that time, however, there has been little intercourse and no cordiality between them.
Of the six wells, revetted with masonry and resembling in all points those of Ziba, four, including El-Tawilah, the deepest, supply brackish water; and the same is the case with a fifth inside the fort, close to the chapel of his Holiness, Shaykh Abubakr. The water, however, appeared potable; and perhaps cleaning out and deepening might increase the quantity.
When ladies are bastinadoed in more modest Persia, their hands are passed through a hole in a tent wall, and fastened for the infliction to a Falakah or pole outside. The hate dates from old times. Abd el Karim, uncle to the late Amir Abubakr, sent for sixty or seventy Arab mercenaries under Haydar Assal the Auliki, to save him against the Gallas.
Adan was celebrated for polygamy even in Eastern Africa: by means of his five sons and dozen daughters, he has succeeded in making extensive connexions , and his sister, the Gisti Fatimah, was married to Abubakr, father of the present Amir. Yet the Gerad would walk into a crocodile's mouth as willingly as within the walls of Harar.
The Sherifs continued to rule with some interruptions until but a few generations ago, when the present family rose to power. According to Bruce, they are Jabartis, who, having intermarried with Sayyid women, claim a noble origin. They derive themselves from the Caliph Abubakr, or from Akil, son of Abu Talib, and brother of Ali.
Husayn carried the letter, which at first excited general terror; when, however, the attack did not take place, the Amir Abubakr imprisoned the imprudent Somali till he died. Sharmarkay by way of reprisals persuaded Alu, son of Sahlah Salaseh, king of Shoa, to seize about three hundred Harari citizens living in his dominions and to keep them two years in durance.
The Shaykhash, or "Reverend" as the term means, are the only Somal of the mountains not derived from Dir and Darud. Claiming descent from the Caliph Abubakr, they assert that ten generations ago, one Ao Khutab bin Fakih Umar crossed over from El Hejaz, and settled in Eastern Africa with his six sons, Umar the greater, Umar the less, two Abdillahs, Ahmed, and lastly Siddik.
At present the Ashrafi, as I have said above, is a fictitious medium used in accounts. An old story is told of the Amir Abubakr, that during one of his nocturnal excursions, he heard three of his subjects talking treason, and coveting his food, his wife, and his throne.
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