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About the wells stood troops of camels, whose Eesa proprietors scowled fiercely at us, and stalked over the plain with their long, heavy spears: for protection against these people, the citizens have erected a kind of round tower, with a ladder for a staircase.
Moreover this year the Ayyal Nuh Ismail, a clan of the Habr Awal tribe, is "out," and has been successful against the Eesa, who generally are the better men.
Some-a-time you see that gran' palazzo where I leef. Eesa greata-great sooraprise!" In the gran' palazzo, it was as much as he could do to keep clean his own grim little bunk in the corner.
In appearance, the Eesa are distinguished from other Somal by blackness, ugliness of feature, and premature baldness of the temples; they also shave, or rather scrape off with their daggers, the hair high up the nape of the neck.
He preferred for me the more winding road which passes south, along the coast, through the Eesa Bedouins dependent upon Zayla, to the nearest hills, and thence strikes south-westwards among the Gudabirsi and Girhi Somal, who extend within sight of Harar. I cannot but suspect that in selecting this route the good Sharmarkay served another purpose besides my safety.
A large caravan was travelling down in two bodies, each of nearly 300 slaves; the Eesa attacked the first division, carried off the wives and female slaves, whom they sold for ten dollars a head, and savagely mutilated upwards of 100 wretched boys. This event caused the Tajurrah line to be permanently closed.
Two routes connect Zayla with Harar; the south-western or direct line numbers ten long or twenty short stages : the first eight through the Eesa country, and the last two among the Nole Gallas, who own the rule of "Waday," a Makad or chief of Christian persuasion. The Hajj objected to this way, on account of his recent blood-feud with the Rer Guleni.
Half an hour afterwards we passed by the second station, "Hangagarri", a well near the sea: frequent lights twinkling through the darkening air informed us that we were in the midst of the Eesa. At 8 P.M. we reached "Gagab", the third Marhalah, where the camels, casting themselves upon the ground, imperatively demanded a halt.
The best prayer-skins are made at Ogadayn; there they cost about half-a-dollar each. Early on the 23rd December assembled the Caravan, which we were destined to escort across the Marar Prairie. Upon this neutral ground the Eesa, Berteri, and Habr Awal meet to rob and plunder unhappy travellers.
The mule left under the Kalendar's charge never appeared, and the camels are, I believe, still grazing among the Eesa. The fair Shehrazade, having amassed a little fortune, lost no time in changing her condition, an example followed in due time by Deenarzade. And the Kalendar, after a visit to Aden, returned to electrify his Zayla friends with long and terrible tales of travel.
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