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Updated: May 25, 2025
Their eight attendants also put on new white mahommedan tobes, so that their canoe, with its white awning, surmounted by the union flag, their canoe men in new dresses, and themselves appearing as officers, contributed not a little to the effect of the whole scene.
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 morning of the 23rd of January found my companions as usual in a state of faint-heartedness. The Hammal was deputed to obtain permission for fetching the Gerad and all the Gerad's men. This was positively refused. I could not, however, object to sending sundry Tobes to the cunning idiot, in order to back up a verbal request for the escort.
The assault was accordingly soon changed into a disgraceful flight, in which those who had been the loudest in urging to this rash onset set the example. Barca Gana, who had boasted himself invulnerable, was deeply wounded through his coat of mail and four cotton tobes, and with difficulty rescued by his chiefs from five La Sala horsemen, who had vowed his death.
My arms were peeled even in the month of December; and my companions, panting with the heat, like the Atlantes of Herodotus, poured forth reproaches upon the rising sun. The townspeople, when forced to hurry across it in the hotter season, cover themselves during the day with Tobes wetted every half hour in sea water; yet they are sometimes killed by the fatal thirst which the Simum engenders.
They were clad in all their finery, their apparel being as gaudy as it was various. The coup d'oeil presented by no means an uninteresting spectacle. Loose tobes, with caps and turbans striped and plain, red, blue, and black, were not unpleasantly contrasted with the original native costume of figured cotton, thrown loosely over the shoulders, and immense rush hats.
The travellers saluted him with a discharge from their muskets, and while he went on shore, Richard arrayed himself in an old naval uniform coat, and his brother in the handsomest dress he possessed; their attendants put on new, white, Mahommedan tobes, while the British flag flew from the bow of their boat, so that they might show him all the respect in their power.
The necessaries of life are very cheap, butchers' meat is in great plenty and very good. The exports are principally civet, and blue check tobes called sharie, which are manufactured by the slaves from Nyffee, of whom the men are considered the most expert weavers in Soudan, and the women the best spinners.
Their marriages are not distinguished by any great form or ceremony. When a bride is first conducted to the house of the bridegroom, she is attended by a great number of friends and slaves, bearing presents of melted fat, honey, wheat, turkadees, and tobes as her dower. She whines all the way, "Wey kina! wey kina! wey lo!" O my head! My head! Oh! dear me.
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.
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