United States or Faroe Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
No clan ever attacked his Girhis without smarting under terrible sarcasms, and his sneers at the young warriors for want of ardour in resisting Gudabirsi encroachments, were quoted as models of the "withering."
The Gudabirsi are such inveterate liars that I could fix for them no number between 3000 and 10,000. They own the rough and rolling ground diversified with thorny hill and grassy vale, above the first or seaward range of mountains; and they have extended their lands by conquest towards Harar, being now bounded in that direction by the Marar Prairie.
These are all remains of Galla settlements, which the ignorance and exaggeration of the Somal fill with "writings" and splendid edifices. Returning home we found that our Gudabirsi Bedouins had at length obeyed the summons.
The Gudabirsi will seldom sell these horses, the great safeguard against their conterminous tribes, the Eesa and Girhi, who are all infantry: a village seldom contains more than six or eight, and the lowest value would be ten cows or twenty Tobes.
Dirr and Aydur, of whom nothing is certainly known but the name , are the progenitors of the northern Somal, the Eesa, Gudabirsi, Ishak, and Bursuk tribes.
This proves that the Somal, like their progenitors the Gallas, originally had no cavalry. The Gudabirsi tribe has but lately mounted itself by making purchases of the Habr Gerhajis and the Habr Awal herds. The milch cow is here worth two Tobes, or about six shillings. Particularly amongst the windward tribes visited by Lieut. Cruttenden, from whom I borrow this description.
As usual, they are subdivided into a multitude of clans. In appearance the Gudabirsi are decidedly superior to their limitrophes the Eesa. I have seen handsome faces amongst the men as well as the women. Some approach closely to the Caucasian type: one old man, with olive- coloured skin, bald brow, and white hair curling round his temples, and occiput, exactly resembled an Anglo-Indian veteran.
Among the wild Gudabirsi the Russian war was a topic of interest, and at Harar I heard of a violent storm, which had damaged the shipping in Bombay Harbour, but a few weeks after the event. The Bedouin returned with an empty skin but a full budget. I will offer you, dear L., a specimen of the "palaver" which is supposed to prove the aphorism that all barbarians are orators.
By the good aid of the Hajj and our sweetmeats, he was persuaded, for the moderate consideration of ten Tobes , to accompany us to the frontier of his clan, distant about fifty miles, to introduce us to the Gudabirsi, and to provide us with three men as servants, and a suitable escort, a score or so, in dangerous places.
The Hajj strongly recommended us to one of the principal families of the Gudabirsi tribe, who would pass us on to their brother-in-law Adan, the Gerad or prince of the Girhi; and he, in due time, to his kinsman the Amir of Harar. The chain was commenced by placing us under the protection of one Raghe, a petty Eesa chief of the Mummasan clan.
Word Of The Day