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And as we were about to enter the lands of the Habr Awal , then at blood feud with my men, all Habr Gerhajis, probably a week would elapse before we could provide ourselves with a fit and proper protector.
As this year is lunar, the months run through all the seasons, for want of a properly regulated kalendar, or a period like the Julian or Gregorian. To enable the reader to understand the journal, we give the Persian names of the months in their order: 1. Moharram; 2. Safar; 3. Rabiya-al-awal, or Prior; 4, Rabiya-al-Akher, or Latter; 5. Jomada-al- awal; 6. Jomada-al-akher; 7. Rajeb; 8. Shaaban; 9.
This great article of commerce is good and pure in the country, whereas at Berberah, the Habr Awal adulterate it, previous to exportation, with melted sheep's tails. The principal wants of the country which we have traversed are coarse cotton cloth, Surat tobacco, beads, and indigo-dyed stuffs for women's coifs.
The Ayyal Daud, facetiously called "Idagallah" or earth-burrowers, and sprung from the second son of Gerhajis, claim the country south of the Habr Awal, reckon about 4000 shields, and are divided into 11 or 12 septs. As has been noticed, the Habr Gerhajis have a perpetual blood feud with the Habr Awal, and, even at Aden, they have fought out their quarrels with clubs and stones.
I am praisant wen the plaice is un-cloase. I stant near, wen soomsing make a beeg chock' he meant shock or jar 'ant richt town falls out the klass. Wen I haf zeen it, I go queek ant look at doze shems. Ach! I know it awal 'tis fawlze awal effery stonzes! That was the story. They had found the glass cut, and false gems in place of the true.
It was not without apprehension that I pocketed all my remaining provisions, five biscuits, a few limes, and sundry lumps of sugar. Any delay or accident to our mules would starve us; in the first place, we were about to traverse a desert, and secondly where Habr Awal were, they would not sell meat or milk to Habr Gerhajis.
Halting for about an hour, we persuaded a guide, by the offer of five dollars and a pair of cloths, to accompany us. "Dubayr" the Donkey who belonged to the Bahgobo clan of the Habr Awal, was a "long Lankin," unable, like all these Bedouins, to endure fatigue.
Presently, descending by a ladder of rock scarcely safe even for mules, we followed the course of the burn, and emerging into the valley beneath, we pricked forwards rapidly, for day was wearing on, and we did not wish the Habr Awal to precede us. About noon we crossed the Erar River.
Throughout our wanderings in Somaliland this had never occurred: it impressed me strongly with the disturbed state of the regions inhabited by the Habr Awal. After some time we persuaded a Bedouin who, with frantic gestures, was screaming and flogging his camels, to listen: reassured by our oaths, he declared himself to be a Bahgoba, and promised to show us a village of the Ayyal Gedid.
Visions of cutting off caravans began to assume a hard and palpable form: the Habr Awal ceased intriguing, and the Gerad Mohammed resolved to adopt the suaviter in modo whilst dealing with his dangerous guest. Some days after his first visit, the Shaykh Jami, sending for the Hammal, informed him of an intended trip from Harar: my follower suggested that we might well escort him.
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