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Upon this Sharmarkay's friends and relations, incited by one Husayn, a Somali who had lived many years at Harar in the Amir's favour, wrote an insulting letter to the Gerad, beginning with, "No peace be upon thee, and no blessings of Allah, thou butcher! son of a butcher &c. &c.!" and concluding with a threat to pinion him in the market-place as a warning to men.
But to expire of an ignoble colic! the thing was not to be thought of, and a firm resolution to live on sometimes, methinks, effects its object. On the 1st January, 1855, feeling stronger, I clothed myself in my Arab best, and asked a palaver with the Gerad. We retired to a safe place behind the village, where I read with pomposity the Hajj Sharmarkay's letter.
Lastly, in true humility, crept forward the End of Time, who, as he kissed my hand, was upon the point of tears: he had been half-starved, despite his dignity as Sharmarkay's Mercury, and had spent his weary nights and days reciting the chapter Y.S. and fumbling the rosary for omens.
They are reconciled to it by its beneficial effects, especially after and before a journey. Good water, however, can be procured in any of the Fiumaras intersecting the plain; when the Hajj Sharmarkay's towers commanded the town wells, the people sank pits in low ground a few hundred yards distant, and procured a purer beverage.
The Hajj Sharmarkay's introductory letter was read aloud to their extreme delight, and at their solicitation, I perused it a second and a third time; then having dismissed with sundry small presents, the two Abbans Raghe and Rirash, I wrote a flattering account of them to the Hajj, and entrusted it to certain citizens who were returning in caravan Zayla-wards, after a commercial tour in the interior.
The Somal will not kill these plundering brutes, like the Western Africans believing them to be enchanted men. Some years ago Adan plundered one of Sharmarkay's caravans; repenting the action, he offered in marriage a daughter, who, however, died before nuptials. Gisti is a "princess" in Harari, equivalent to the Somali Geradah.
Pursuing the Fiumara course, we passed a number of kraals, whose inhabitants were equally vociferous: out of one came a Zayla man, who informed us that the Gudabirsi Abbans, to whom we bore Sharmarkay's letter of introduction, were encamped within three days' march.