I doubt not there are many who ignore the fact that in Eastern Africa,
scarcely three hundred miles distant from Aden, there is a counterpart of
ill-famed Timbuctoo in the Far West. The more adventurous Abyssinian
travellers, Salt and Stuart, Krapf and Isenberg, Barker and Rochet,--not
to mention divers Roman Catholic Missioners,--attempted Harar, but
attempted it in vain. The bigoted ruler and barbarous people threatened
death to the Infidel who ventured within their walls; some negro Merlin
having, it is said, read Decline and Fall in the first footsteps of the
Frank. [1] Of all foreigners the English were, of course, the most hated
and dreaded; at Harar slavery still holds its head-quarters, and the old
Dragon well knows what to expect from the hand of St. George. Thus the
various travellers who appeared in beaver and black coats became persuaded
that the city was inaccessible, and Europeans ceased to trouble themselves
about Harar.
It is, therefore, a point of honor with me, dear L., to utilise my title
of Haji by entering the city, visiting the ruler, and returning in safety,
after breaking the guardian spell.
The most auspicious day in the Moslem year for beginning a journey is,
doubtless, the 6th of the month Safar [2], on which, quoth the Prophet, El
Islam emerged from obscurity. Yet even at Aden we could not avail
ourselves of this lucky time: our delays and difficulties were a fit
prelude for a journey amongst those "Blameless Ethiopians," with whom no
less a personage than august Jove can dine and depart. [3]
On Sunday, the 29th October, 1854, our manifold impediments were
pronounced complete. Friend S. threw the slipper of blessing at my back,
and about 4 P.M. embarking from Maala Bunder, we shook out our "muslin,"
and sailed down the fiery harbour. Passing the guard-boat, we delivered
our permit; before venturing into the open sea we repeated the Fatihah-
prayer in honor of the Shaykh Majid, inventor of the mariners' compass
[4], and evening saw us dancing on the bright clear tide, whose "magic
waves," however, murmured after another fashion the siren song which
charmed the senses of the old Arabian voyagers. [5]
Suddenly every trace of civilisation fell from my companions as if it had
been a garment. At Aden, shaven and beturbaned, Arab fashion, now they
threw off all dress save the loin cloth, and appeared in their dark
morocco. Mohammed filled his mouth with a mixture of coarse Surat tobacco
and ashes,--the latter article intended, like the Anglo-Indian soldier's
chili in his arrack, to "make it bite." Guled uncovered his head, a member
which in Africa is certainly made to go bare, and buttered himself with an
unguent redolent of sheep's tail; and Ismail, the rais or captain of our
"foyst," [6] the Sahalah, applied himself to puffing his nicotiana out of
a goat's shank-bone. Our crew, consisting of seventy-one men and boys,
prepared, as evening fell, a mess of Jowari grain [7] and grease, the
recipe of which I spare you, and it was despatched in a style that would
have done credit to Kafirs as regards gobbling, bolting, smearing lips,
licking fingers, and using ankles as napkins. Then with a light easterly
breeze and the ominous cliffs of Little Aden still in sight, we spread our
mats on deck and prepared to sleep under the moon. [8]
My companions, however, felt, without perhaps comprehending, the joviality
arising from a return to Nature. Every man was forthwith nicknamed, and
pitiless was the raillery upon the venerable subjects of long and short,
fat and thin. One sang a war-song, another a love-song, a third some song
of the sea, whilst the fourth, an Eesa youth, with the villanous
expression of face common to his tribe, gave us a rain measure, such as
men chaunt during wet weather. All these effusions were _naive_ and
amusing: none, however, could bear English translation without an amount
of omission which would change their nature. Each effort of minstrelsy was
accompanied by roars of laughter, and led to much manual pleasantry. All
swore that they had never spent, intellectually speaking, a more charming
_soiree_, and pitied me for being unable to enter thoroughly into the
spirit of the dialogue. Truly it is not only the polished European, as was
said of a certain travelling notability, that lapses with facility into
pristine barbarism.
I will now introduce you to my companions. The managing man is one
Mohammed Mahmud [9], generally called El Hammal or the porter: he is a
Havildar or sergeant in the Aden police, and was entertained for me by
Lieut. Dansey, an officer who unfortunately was not "confirmed" in a
political appointment at Aden. The Hammal is a bull-necked, round-headed
fellow of lymphatic temperament, with a lamp-black skin, regular features,
and a pulpy figure,--two rarities amongst his countrymen, who compare him
to a Banyan. An orphan in early youth, and becoming, to use his own
phrase, sick of milk, he ran away from his tribe, the Habr Gerhajis, and
engaged himself as a coaltrimmer with the slaves on board an Indian war-
steamer. After rising in rank to the command of the crew, he became
servant and interpreter to travellers, visited distant lands--Egypt and
Calcutta--and finally settled as a Feringhee policeman. He cannot read or
write, but he has all the knowledge to be acquired by fifteen or twenty
years, hard "knocking about:" he can make a long speech, and, although he
never prays, a longer prayer; he is an excellent mimic, and delights his
auditors by imitations and descriptions of Indian ceremony, Egyptian
dancing, Arab vehemence, Persian abuse, European vivacity, and Turkish
insolence. With prodigious inventiveness, and a habit of perpetual
intrigue, acquired in his travels, he might be called a "knowing" man, but
for the truly Somali weakness of showing in his countenance all that
passes through his mind. This people can hide nothing: the blank eye, the
contracting brow, the opening nostril and the tremulous lip, betray,
despite themselves, their innermost thoughts.
The second servant, whom I bring before you is Guled, another policeman at
Aden. He is a youth of good family, belonging to the Ismail Arrah, the
royal clan of the great Habr Gerhajis tribe. His father was a man of
property, and his brethren near Berberah, are wealthy Bedouins: yet he ran
away from his native country when seven or eight years old, and became a
servant in the house of a butter merchant at Mocha. Thence he went to
Aden, where he began with private service, and ended his career in the
police. He is one of those long, live skeletons, common amongst the Somal:
his shoulders are parallel with his ears, his ribs are straight as a
mummy's, his face has not an ounce of flesh upon it, and his features
suggest the idea of some lank bird: we call him Long Guled, to which he
replies with the Yemen saying "Length is Honor, even in Wood." He is brave
enough, because he rushes into danger without reflection; his great
defects are weakness of body and nervousness of temperament, leading in
times of peril to the trembling of hands, the dropping of caps, and the
mismanagement of bullets: besides which, he cannot bear hunger, thirst, or
cold.
The third is one Abdy Abokr, also of the Habr Gerhajis, a personage whom,
from, his smattering of learning and his prodigious rascality, we call the
Mulla "End of Time." [10] He is a man about forty, very old-looking for
his age, with small, deep-set cunning eyes, placed close together, a hook
nose, a thin beard, a bulging brow, scattered teeth, [11] and a short
scant figure, remarkable only for length of back. His gait is stealthy,
like a cat's, and he has a villanous grin. This worthy never prays, and
can neither read nor write; but he knows a chapter or two of the Koran,
recites audibly a long Ratib or task, morning and evening [12], whence,
together with his store of hashed Hadis (tradition), he derives the title
of Widad or hedge-priest. His tongue, primed with the satirical sayings of
Abn Zayd el Helali, and Humayd ibn Mansur [13], is the terror of men upon
whom repartee imposes. His father was a wealthy shipowner in his day; but,
cursed with Abdy and another son, the old man has lost all his property,
his children have deserted him, and he now depends entirely upon the
charity of the Zayla chief. The "End of Time" has squandered considerable
sums in travelling far and wide from Harar to Cutch, he has managed
everywhere to perpetrate some peculiar villany. He is a pleasant
companion, and piques himself upon that power of quotation which in the
East makes a polite man. If we be disposed to hurry, he insinuates that
"Patience is of Heaven, Haste of Hell." When roughly addressed, he
remarks,--
"There are cures for the hurts of lead and steel,
But the wounds of the tongue--they never heal!"
If a grain of rice adhere to our beards, he says, smilingly, "the gazelle
is in the garden;" to which we reply "we will hunt her with the five."
[14] Despite these merits, I hesitated to engage him, till assured by the
governor of Zayla that he was to be looked upon as a son, and, moreover,
that he would bear with him one of those state secrets to an influential
chief which in this country are never committed to paper. I found him an
admirable buffoon, skilful in filling pipes and smoking them; _au reste_,
an individual of "many words and little work," infinite intrigue,
cowardice, cupidity, and endowed with a truly evil tongue.
The morning sun rose hot upon us, showing Mayyum and Zubah, the giant
staples of the "Gate under the Pleiades." [15] Shortly afterwards, we came
in sight of the Barr el Ajam (barbarian land), as the Somal call their
country [16], a low glaring flat of yellow sand, desert and heat-reeking,
tenanted by the Eesa, and a meet habitat for savages. Such to us, at
least, appeared the land of Adel. [17] At midday we descried the Ras el
Bir,--Headland of the Well,--the promontory which terminates the bold
Tajurrah range, under which lie the sleeping waters of the Maiden's Sea.
[18] During the day we rigged out an awning, and sat in the shade smoking
and chatting merrily, for the weather was not much hotter than on English
summer seas. Some of the crew tried praying; but prostrations are not
easily made on board ship, and El Islam, as Umar shrewdly suspected, was
not made for a seafaring race. At length the big red sun sank slowly
behind the curtain of sky-blue rock, where lies the not yet "combusted"
village of Tajurrah. [19] We lay down to rest with the light of day, and
had the satisfaction of closing our eyes upon a fair though captious
breeze.
On the morning of the 31st October, we entered the Zayla Creek, which
gives so much trouble to native craft. We passed, on the right, the low
island of Masha, belonging to the "City of the Slave Merchant,"--
Tajurrah,--and on the left two similar patches of seagirt sand, called
Aybat and Saad el Din. These places supply Zayla, in the Kharif or hot
season [20], with thousands of gulls' eggs,--a great luxury. At noon we
sighted our destination. Zayla is the normal African port,--a strip of
sulphur-yellow sand, with a deep blue dome above, and a foreground of the
darkest indigo. The buildings, raised by refraction, rose high, and
apparently from the bosom of the deep. After hearing the worst accounts of
it, I was pleasantly disappointed by the spectacle of white-washed houses
and minarets, peering above a long low line of brown wall, flanked with
round towers.
As we slowly threaded the intricate coral reefs of the port, a bark came
scudding up to us; it tacked, and the crew proceeded to give news in
roaring tones. Friendship between the Amir of Harar and the governor of
Zayla had been broken; the road through the Eesa Somal had been closed by
the murder of Masud, a favourite slave and adopted son of Sharmarkay; all
strangers had been expelled the city for some misconduct by the Harar
chief; moreover, small-pox was raging there with such violence that the
Galla peasantry would allow neither ingress nor egress. [21] I had the
pleasure of reflecting for some time, dear L., upon the amount of
responsibility incurred by using the phrase "I will;" and the only
consolation that suggested itself was the stale assurance that
"Things at the worst most surely mend."
No craft larger than a canoe can ride near Zayla. After bumping once or
twice against the coral reefs, it was considered advisable for our good
ship, the Sahalat, to cast anchor. My companions caused me to dress, put
me with my pipe and other necessaries into a cock-boat, and, wading
through the water, shoved it to shore. Lastly, at Bab el Sahil, the
Seaward or Northern Gate, they proceeded to array themselves in the
bravery of clean Tobes and long daggers strapped round the waist; each man
also slung his targe to his left arm, and in his right hand grasped lance
and javelin. At the gate we were received by a tall black spearman with a
"Ho there! to the governor;" and a crowd of idlers gathered to inspect the
strangers. Marshalled by the warder, we traversed the dusty roads--streets
they could not be called--of the old Arab town, ran the gauntlet of a
gaping mob, and finally entering a mat door, found ourselves in the
presence of the governor.
I had met Sharmarkay at Aden, where he received from the authorities
strong injunctions concerning my personal safety: the character of a
Moslem merchant, however, requiring us to appear strangers, an
introduction by our master of ceremonies, the Hammal, followed my
entrance. Sharmarkay was living in an apartment by no means splendid,
preferring an Arish or kind of cow-house,--as the Anglo-Indian Nabobs do
the bungalow
"with mat half hung,
The walls of plaster and the floors of * * * *,"
--to all his substantial double-storied houses. The ground was wet and
comfortless; a part of the reed walls was lined with cots bearing
mattresses and silk-covered pillows, a cross between a divan and a couch:
the only ornaments were a few weapons, and a necklace of gaudy beads
suspended near the door. I was placed upon the principal seat: on the
right were the governor and the Hammal; whilst the lowest portion of the
room was occupied by Mohammed Sharmarkay, the son and heir. The rest of
the company squatted upon chairs, or rather stools, of peculiar
construction. Nothing could be duller than this _assemblee_: pipes and
coffee are here unknown; and there is nothing in the East to act
substitute for them. [22]
The governor of Zayla, El Hajj Sharmarkay bin Ali Salih, is rather a
remarkable man. He is sixteenth, according to his own account, in descent
from Ishak el Hazrami [23], the saintly founder of the great Gerhajis and
Awal tribes. His enemies derive him from a less illustrious stock; and the
fairness of his complexion favours the report that his grandfather Salih
was an Abyssinian slave. Originally the Nacoda or captain of a native
craft, he has raised himself, chiefly by British influence, to the
chieftainship of his tribe. [24] As early as May, 1825, he received from
Captain Bagnold, then our resident at Mocha, a testimonial and a reward,
for a severe sword wound in the left arm, received whilst defending the
lives of English seamen. [25] He afterwards went to Bombay, where he was
treated with consideration; and about fifteen years ago he succeeded the
Sayyid Mohammed el Barr as governor of Zayla and its dependencies, under
the Ottoman Pasha in Western Arabia.
The Hajj Sharmarkay in his youth was a man of Valour: he could not read or
write; but he carried in battle four spears [26], and his sword-cut was
recognisable. He is now a man about sixty years old, at least six feet two
inches in stature, large-limbed, and raw-boned: his leanness is hidden by
long wide robes. He shaves his head and upper lip Shafei-fashion, and his
beard is represented by a ragged tuft of red-stained hair on each side of
his chin. A visit to Aden and a doctor cost him one eye, and the other is
now white with age. His dress is that of an Arab, and he always carries
with him a broad-bladed, silver-hilted sword. Despite his years, he is a
strong, active, and energetic man, ever looking to the "main chance." With
one foot in the grave, he meditates nothing but the conquest of Harar and
Berberah, which, making him master of the seaboard, would soon extend his
power as in days of old even to Abyssinia. [27] To hear his projects, you
would fancy them the offspring of a brain in the prime of youth: in order
to carry them out he would even assist in suppressing the profitable
slave-trade. [28]
After half an hour's visit I was led by the Hajj through the streets of
Zayla [29], to one of his substantial houses of coralline and mud
plastered over with glaring whitewash. The ground floor is a kind of
warehouse full of bales and boxes, scales and buyers. A flight of steep
steps leads into a long room with shutters to exclude the light, floored
with tamped earth, full of "evening flyers" [30], and destitute of
furniture. Parallel to it are three smaller apartments; and above is a
terraced roof, where they who fear not the dew and the land-breeze sleep.
[31] I found a room duly prepared; the ground was spread with mats, and
cushions against the walls denoted the Divan: for me was placed a Kursi or
cot, covered with fine Persian rugs and gaudy silk and satin pillows. The
Hajj installed us with ceremony, and insisted, despite my remonstrances,
upon occupying the floor whilst I sat on the raised seat. After ushering
in supper, he considerately remarked that travelling is fatiguing, and
left us to sleep.
The well-known sounds of El Islam returned from memory. Again the
melodious chant of the Muezzin,--no evening bell can compare with it for
solemnity and beauty,--and in the neighbouring mosque, the loudly intoned
Amin and Allaho Akbar,--far superior to any organ,--rang in my ear. The
evening gun of camp was represented by the Nakkarah, or kettle-drum,
sounded about seven P.M. at the southern gate; and at ten a second
drumming warned the paterfamilias that it was time for home, and thieves,
and lovers,--that it was the hour for bastinado. Nightfall was ushered in
by the song, the dance, and the marriage festival,--here no permission is
required for "native music in the lines,"--and muffled figures flitted
mysteriously through the dark alleys.
* * * * *
After a peep through the open window, I fell asleep, feeling once more at
home.