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Updated: May 27, 2025
The stranger's life is comparatively safe amongst this tribe: as long as he feeds and fees them, he may even walk about unarmed. They are, however, liars even amongst the Somal, Bobadils amongst boasters, inveterate thieves, and importunate beggars.
In the northern part of the Somali country I never heard of cannibalism, although the Servile tribes will eat birds and other articles of food disdained by Somal of gentle blood. Lieutenant Speke complains of the scarcity and the quality of the water, "which resembles the mixture commonly known as black draught."
An ill-fated sheep, a parting present from the Hajj, races and frisks about the Cafilah. It became so tame that the Somal received an order not to "cut" it; one day, however, I found myself dining, and that pet lamb was the menu. By the side of the camels ride my three attendants, the pink of Somali fashion.
I have often been requested to officiate on these occasions, and the End of Time has done it by irreverently reciting the Fatihah over the happy pair. The Somal, as usual amongst the heterogeneous mass amalgamated by El Islam, have a diversity of superstitions attesting their Pagan origin.
There is a larger variety of this bird, which, purblind daring daytime, rises from under the traveller's feet with loud cries. The Somal have superstitions similar to that above noticed about several kinds of birds. At night they listen for the Fin, also an ill-omened bird: when a man declares "the Fin did not sleep last night," it is considered advisable to shift ground.
Usually, also, the shorter the weapon is, the more fatal are the conflicts in which it is employed. The old French "Briquet," the Afghan "Charay," and the Goorka "Kukkri," exemplify this fact in the history of arms. In the latter point it differs from the Assegai, which is worked by the Kafirs to the finest temper. It is called by the Arabs Kubabah, by the Somal Goasa.
It is evident from the perusal of these pages that though the traveller suffered from the system of black-mail to which the inhospitable Somal of Makhar subject all strangers, though he was delayed, persecuted by his "protector," and threatened with war, danger, and destruction, his life was never in real peril. Some allowance must also be made for the people of the country.
"I have avenged my people and myself," replied Moussa Isa, "even as I said, I go to Aden Jail where there are men, and where a Somal is known from a Hubshi" "You go to hang across the road there at Duri Gaol," replied the babu, and earnestly hoped to find himself a true prophet.
All strangers plunged into the sea, the popular way of landing in East Africa, the anchor was weighed, the ton of sail shaken out, and the "Reed" began to dip and rise in the yeasty sea laboriously as an alderman dancing a polka. For the first time in my life I had the satisfaction of seeing the Somal unable to eat unable to eat mutton.
On the 9th December Lieutenant Speke, halting at Rhat, visited one of "Kin's" cities, now ruined by time, and changed by the Somal having converted it into a cemetery. The remains were of stone and mud, as usual in this part of the world.
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