hubshi

Updated: May 31, 2025

Rasu the Sweeper, with many oaths and protestations, assured the Presence that such neglect as was apparent was owing to the incapacity of the hubshi and his myrmidons, Rasu's own share of the labour and that of his fellow-countryman being scrupulously performed. The Presence made short work of Kaffir and Hindu.

Richard Dehan - The Dop Doctor

"He called me, Moussa Isa of the Somali, a Hubshi!" Being of tender years and of insignificant stature he was condemned to flogging and seven years in a Reformatory School. He was too juvenile for the Aden Jail.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

For here they simply did not know the difference between a Somal and a woolly-haired dog of a negro. They honestly did not know that there was a difference. To them, a clicking Bushman was as a Nubian, an earth-eating Kattia as a Kabyle, a face-cicatrized, tooth-sharpened cannibal of the Aruwimi as a Danakil, a Hubshi as a Somal. They simply did not know. They meant no insult; they knew no better.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

There he would steal a canoe and paddle and paddle straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore again. That would be Africa or Arabia, and Moussa Isa would be where a Somal is known from a Hubshi.... Should he make a bolt for it now?

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

In the small, self-contained, self-supporting world of the Reformatory, it was Moussa Isa against the World. And against the World he stood up. It had to learn the difference between a Somali and a Hubshi at any cost the cost of Moussa's life included.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

He was at great pains to expectorate and murmur "Hubshi" in accents of abhorrent contempt, whenever Moussa Isa chanced between the wind and his nobility. The first time, Moussa replied with pitying magnanimity and all reasonableness: "I am not a Hubshi, but a Somali, which is quite different even as a lion is different from a jackal or a man from an ape". To which the Brahmin replied but:

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

'Enough, Moussa Isa, thou mayest return, I can track the camel of Ibrahim now that he hath left the road, quoth my brother, breaking a long silence; but Moussa Isa, panting as he ran before, replied: 'I come, Mir Saheb. I shall not fall until mine eyes have beheld thy vengeance in which perchance, I may take a part. He called me "Hubshi".

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

Oh, if they would only treat him, Moussa Isa, as an adult, and send him to the Aden Jail to hard labour. There folk knew a Somali from a Hubshi; a gentleman of Afar and Galla stock, of Arab blood, Moslem tenets, and Caucasian descent, from a common nigger, a low black Ethiopian, an eater of men and insects, a worshipper of idols and ju-ju.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

"He called me Hubshi, and I will kill him," replied Moussa. "Oho! and you kill everyone who calls you Hubshi, do you, Master African?" "I do. I wish to go to Aden Jail for attempting murder. It will be murder if I am kept here where none knows a man from a dog." "Oho! And you would kill even me, I suppose, if I called you Hubshi." "Of course!

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

"Hubshi," and pointed out that there was danger of Moussa Isa's shadow touching him, if Moussa were not careful. "I must kill you if you call me Hubshi, understanding that I am of the Somals," said Moussa Isa.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life