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These people take service under the different chiefs, who sometimes entertain great numbers to aid in forays and frays; they do not, however, confine themselves to one craft. Many Midgans employ themselves in hunting and agriculture.

Passing Gafra we ascertained from the Midgans that the Gerad Adan had sent for my books and stored them in his own cottage. We made in a direct line for Kondura. At one P.M. we safely threaded the Galla's pass, and about an hour afterwards we exclaimed "Alhamdulillah" at the sight of Sagharrah and the distant Marar Prairie.

The path would be safe to nought less surefooted than a mule: we rode slowly over rolling stones, steps of micaceous grit, and through thorny bush for about half an hour. In the plain below appeared a village of the Gerad's Midgans, who came out to see us pass, and followed the strangers to some distance.

Late in the afternoon, having gained ten miles in a straight direction, we passed through a hedge of plantains, defending the windward side of Gafra, a village of Midgans who collect the Gerad Adan's grain.

The Somal unhesitatingly stigmatize them as a bastard and ignoble race: a noted genealogist once informed me, that they were little better than Midgans or serviles. Their ancestors' mother, it is said, could not name the father of her child: some proposed to slay it, others advocated its preservation, saying, "Perhaps we shall increase by it!" Hence the name of the tribe.

Report informed him, moreover, that we had given 600 dollars and various valuables to the Gerad Adan, Why then had he been neglected? Madar sensibly advised us to push forward that night, and to 'ware the bush, whence Midgans might use their poisoned arrows. We alighted at the village formerly beneath Gurays, now shifted to a short distance from those hills.

Whilst spreading the saddle-mats, our women, to charm away remembrance of chafed hump and bruised sides, sang with vigor the "Song of Travel": "0 caravan-men, we deceive ye not, we have laden the camels! Allah guard thee from the Mikahil and their Midgans!"