ON TREK
Orders for Hargeisa--Salvage and propositions--A camel, a
girl and my policeman--Bokh and water--The sin of water
wangling--Camel-packing--The "White Running Water"--Mahomed
Gaileh's sheep--Four Sahibs--A Somal dance--Hargeisa and flowers.
I
Orders to proceed to Hargeisa, hurrah! The work entailed in
preparing for the journey is a pleasure to perform. We are to cross
overland by camel transport. Boxes are overhauled, re-packed, and
bound with cord. Calculations are made as to the number of rations
required for our followers and escort, the water to be carried and
tanks for the same. All is made ready, and all is checked; from the
tin-opener to the forage for the riding animals; from the salt to
the ammunition in the escort's belts.
On a Saturday afternoon the baggage camels move out. I, accompanied
by mounted police, shall follow on riding camels two days later and
catch them up.
* * * * *
Every miserable man, woman and child who has an unsettled claim
chooses this day to attend court and ventilate it. The D.C. cannot
be allowed to go away without a reminder of the important matters
he is leaving behind. Patiently but quickly the people are heard;
then a dreadful thing happens. A dhow, bound from Aden to Bulhar
with merchandise, was wrecked off Sad-du-din more than a week ago.
Such of her cargo as had been salved was brought here. As I near the
end of my work there walk into the court the agents of the Bulhar
merchants, armed with powers of attorney from their principals, to
claim the salvaged goods. Some of these men have travelled from
afar. It would be wiser for me to wait a day than to put them off.
However, I know the affair by heart. Here are all the papers and
accounts complete to date. They show, among many other things, that
the identification marks on many of the salvaged goods have been
washed off. But if the agents agree with a scheme I have already
worked out in my mind we can finish the business in an hour. I
propound it, they listen patiently, and make notes of what I say. As
I finish they leave the court to talk over my proposition. I await
their return--and watch the clock. A quarter to one--ten minutes to
one--one o'clock! Ah! here they come. "We accept your scheme," they
say. "Thanks very much." That is all. I sign the statement ready on
my desk, hand it to the clerk, and leave the office.
At the bungalow the chowkar has a snack of lunch waiting. The cook
and head boy have gone.
At two-thirty p.m. the riding camel and one mule, all saddled, are
waiting at my door. I am ready.
"It is a very hot time of day, Inspector Buralli," I say, "to set
out on a journey."
"It is," he replies, "but the road is long and there is no water.
The camels will stand the heat better now, at the commencement of
the journey, than to-morrow morning should the sun catch you when
they are tired. Besides, there is a good breeze from the right
direction that will help them."
"Good for you. But what about this miserable mule?"
"It will follow the camels. What they can do he is up to."
[Illustration: A SOMAL HOUSEHOLD ON THE MOVE.]
And that was saying little for the camels, for the mule did not
look "up to" much. The box of carefully packed eggs produced at the
last moment by the chowkar is strapped behind a camel saddle. My
blanket is spread across my saddle tree, and as I take my seat the
patient camel unfolds himself, and, with three sharp jerks, comes
from the prone to the standing position. We pass through my compound
gate, cross the square, and, with our backs to the town of Zeila,
trot off due south, along a straight track, running through a sandy
plain devoid of all vegetation. We meet a few women heading for the
town; we pass a half-dozen more heading away from it; farther on
a spearman, followed by a small girl; beyond him again a girl
leading a young camel packed with a bulky, clumsy-looking load. She
pulls to the side of the road, but her brute of a camel takes alarm
at our approach, gives a circular run, tightening the head-rope,
and thus taking the girl at a disadvantage, swings her off her feet
and makes off with the clumsiest of springs and buck jumps. The
girl clings pluckily to the rope; her light weight and slender form
cannot restrain the truculent brute. She is thrown; she is down;
she is being dragged. Is she caught in the rope or just holding on?
Holding on, for now she has let go and is clear; during the last ten
seconds she has narrowly escaped having her brains knocked out just
as many times.
She is on her feet in a second, weeping and wringing her hands--with
chagrin, not pain. The camel is unshipping his load backwards. He
goes through the clumsiest of evolutions as mats, sticks, and the
weirdest collection of parcels wrapped in skin, slide over his
tail. And although he is going forward and all this paraphernalia
is apparently slipping backwards, it becomes entangled with his
legs and gets battered badly in consequence. Well may the girl weep
and wring her hands. She has just covered three and a half miles
of waterless plain from the town, and here, on this open stretch
of sand, lie some two hundred pounds' weight of her father's goods
and chattels. If the camel goes--and there he is going--she must
walk back to Zeila and leave all these things at the mercy of any
passer-by.
The yards and yards of rope with which Somals pack their loads
is all that is left to incommode her wretched beast, who is fast
kicking that clear of his legs, and making for the interior, like
Robinson Crusoe's "cove," the while. It is certainly impossible for
the girl to catch him up between here and where he is going; but
Abdullah, one of my mounted police, without waiting to make his
riding camel lie down, springs to the ground and with a wonderful
sprint, reaches and seizes the runaway, now thoroughly maddened,
by the head-rope as he is in the act of clearing his legs from
the last of the pack-rope. Abdullah is swung from his feet and
hurtled through the air, but lands in the correct position. He is a
determined fellow; he jerks at the camel's head; he is holding him,
the brute has stopped but struggles, cursing and swearing as only
a camel can. Abdullah, thoroughly roused, bounces round him like a
ball, and soon has him in hand. He leads him back to the delighted
girl, who takes no opportunity of expressing her gratitude in words.
She is used to that sort of thing; we are all used to it, and there
is no comment whatever. Had the incident happened in an English
street, the following morning's papers would have been full of
Abdullah's gallantry: his picture would have appeared in the Sunday
papers. As it is, it falls to my lot to record his fine action, and
the story may never get beyond the pages of this manuscript.
But we have far to go, and the camel incident is unfortunate. More
time is lost as that contrary brute refuses to lie down for his
mistress. I am a delighted spectator of a two-round fight between
it on the one side, and my policeman and the girl on the other.
The latter has him by the tail; everything that is vixenish in her
nature is aroused. Her hair is disarranged, her eyes sparkle and
her nostrils dilate. As she clings to that camel's caudal appendage
she is devil enough to want to bite it. The policemen have him by
the head, and as their end goes up the girl's end and the girl
come down. As her end goes up they and their end come down. First
round--honours even. Second round--the camel, with a grunt of
disgust, throws up the sponge, kneels down, has a rope slipped and
knotted round his bent forelegs ere you can say "_knife!_" and the
affair is over. We leave him being loaded by the girl, and two old
women who happen to come up. His language is shocking, and the last
sight I have of him is as he alternately has his ear "clipped" by
the girl's small hand, and his ribs kicked by her bare foot, the
while she bangs her goods, none too gently, on his back.
At six o'clock we halt at a well for ten minutes to give our mule a
drink. This is last water before reaching our baggage camels. Riding
camels may not be ridden for some time after they have drunk water.
On from the wells until eight o'clock, when we halt for a cup of tea
and a biscuit, overhaul the gear and give the camels an hour's rest.
From nine until midnight we trot through the moonlight, passing many
caravans travelling as we, at night; nothing can cross this plain
when the sun is high. From twelve to one another halt, then up to
catch our first glimpse of the hills to which we go. The caravans
hail us as we pass, "Salaam, aleikum!" (Peace be on you!) To which
we reply, "Wa aleikim, Salaam!" (And on you be peace!)
I am shown the spot where a policeman died of thirst, and another
where a Midgan fell behind the caravan he was accompanying, and
likewise perished. From four to five we halt once more, and, taking
water from our well-filled chaguls (canvas water-bags), make a cup
of sorely needed tea. Day is breaking so we must not loiter.
At nine o'clock, thoroughly tired out, we ride into Bokh, a
watering-place at the foot of the Somaliland maritime hills. The
road over the plain we have passed--we have covered sixty-five
miles--should be passable for camels only, but the wonderful little
mule carrying Mahomed, the interpreter, has trotted beside us and
enters camp as fresh as paint; that is to say he looks no more
tired, for he always looks tired, than he did yesterday.
Bokh has wells, hence its importance. My tent is pitched on a flat,
stony, open piece of ground at the foot of the hills and close
to one of these wells. As I write two girls are leaving it with
goat-skins, full of water, strapped to their shoulders. Three camels
packed with hides emerge from the bush beyond the well, led by an
elderly man who carries spear and circular shield. He is followed by
an individual dressed in dirty cotton knickers, a French military
coat, and with head and face almost hidden by a dirty cloak. This
latter person is from Abyssinia, and carries a Gras carbine. The
camel is laden with earthenware pots filled with ghee, cunningly
packed in bent cane guards. Now a large kafila[8]--some half-dozen
men and as many women--has arrived, and its owners are relieving the
camels of skins and ghee they bring. Loads off, the men and a couple
of women, lead the animals to the wells. In their hands they carry
home-made wooden basins which they fill with water for the beasts to
drink. The other women are arranging the loads, bringing firewood,
or lighting the fires. Their clothes are dirty and they seem tired,
though they set so briskly about their work.
[8] Caravan.
A lady, carrying her husband's spear and stick, has approached to
look at me. She boasts silver ear-rings, has a string of amber beads
around her neck, wears a dirty cloth, but in spite of her clothes
looks, like all the women, clean and wholesome. She has gone and I
still watch the well. Two young girls, unmarried--this is easily
distinguished, as their hair is uncovered by the gauze affected by
married women--have driven up some goats. It is a shallow well, and
the nimble-footed goats can get down to the water. One black billy
has already gone in, and, as the others come up, pokes his bearded
face over the side of the well. His companions, mistaking him for
a lion, dash wildly away. We all laugh. The two girls, with that
gait peculiar to women all the world over, run after their goats and
drive them back. Here come the sand-grouse in flocks. Before they
came a few old crows were making themselves conspicuous, but now
take a back seat. If you could sit with me and watch the endless
procession of men, women, children, animals, and birds, coming and
going, crossing and re-crossing, from apparently nowhere at all, you
would realise how precious water really is, be it even as filthy and
evil-smelling as from the wells here.
The police corporal has taken down our camel tanks, each holding
twelve gallons, and is having them filled. To-morrow we camp at a
waterless spot. Our allowance of water will be one gallon each.
Though not really important on this journey, woe betide the man who
tries to wangle more. Better for him that he should steal a purse
filled with gold than a bucket measure of water, the loss of which
on some safaris might quite easily mean a man's life.
The shades of night are falling swiftly, as they always do in the
tropics, but the wells are still crowded. It has been a hot day;
there has been no shade, and my head aches; so, though the well
fascinates me--I sit at my camp table facing it and can see every
move--I shall lay down my pencil for to-day.
II
This morning the baggage camels marched at two a.m.; we aristocrats
of the riding brigade moved out at four a.m., by which hour the
numerous caravans, camped at the wells last night, had all gone. As
we rode out of camp we passed, close to the wells, two huge piles of
stone about sixty yards in circumference, and eight feet high. On
to one of these I climbed to find it was crater shaped. Evidently
there had been a chamber, or hollow, underneath, the roof of which
collapsing had given the crater-shape to the top of the mound. My
escort implored me to descend. There was, they said, a great snake
living amongst the stones whom it was wise to respect.
Did they know who had piled up these stones? I asked. They did not.
Perhaps the Gallas, but no one knew.
There were things buried there, they said.
What sort of things? They could not say, but, as they evidently
held the place in awe, I relieved their feelings by descending and
mounting my camel. Then on through the moonlight--bright as day.
On our left and right rough rocky kopjes, dotted here and there
with the typical stunted thorn trees of Somaliland; a patch of
grass here, a tuft there, accentuates the grey monotonous rocks and
stones. Day broke to find us passing through a dry river bed, and
we routed out an old hyena, whom we stopped to watch. He made off
down the bed, then turned, came back a few yards, stood and looked
at us; but not for long; he is suspicious and must keep on the
move--a few yards to the right, again to the left, and halted. Now
like a man bereft of sense, with no idea of his direction, he took
the hill, rising straight out of the bed, climbed for twenty yards,
stopped to look back at us, moved away along the side of the hill,
changed his mind, came down half-way to the dry bed, stopped again,
and took us all in with a long stare. Had we not followed the sneaky
fellow's movements we should now mistake him for a stone, so still
he stands, so perfectly does his colour and shape harmonise with the
rough grey boulders scattered on the hillside.
"Give him one shot," counsels my orderly.
"Not a bit of it," I reply. "He has done us no harm. Advance!"
At seven, by following an easily graded but stony track, we top the
summit of the pass between the hills above last night's camp. There
are hills and more hills ahead. A camel caravan is approaching from
the south. At its head a young girl dressed in a cotton petticoat,
with a robe draped from her shoulders and looped up round the loins,
giving what, I believe, is described as a very full hip effect. As
she comes close I can see this effect is accentuated by a number of
parcels stored in the pocket-like folds. A Somal woman, true to her
sex, is a perfect artist in the way she drapes, and gives effect to,
the simple clothes that cover her body.
From now on we pass through a gorge-like valley over a stratum of
greyish rotten rock tilted on edge. I amuse myself by pushing away
with my stick the sharp points of rotten stone that stick up by the
side of the track over which we walk and lead the camels. Between
the grey layers of stone are occasionally sandwiched layers of
white, and the rocks on the hillside above take on a reddish tinge,
which, though there is the scantiest of vegetation, just saves
the scene from being depressing. We pass a loaded camel--one of
ours--lying down. He insists, despite the vigorous persuasion of
his syce, in remaining in that position. He is bored to death with
the two water-tanks he is carrying; and when a camel makes up his
mind to throw up the sponge nothing on earth will change it. I,
therefore, give orders for the tanks to be emptied, Women from a
passing kafila rush with their bowls and ask for the water. When it
is all gone the camel is pleased to rise and proceeds grumblingly on
his way.
By half-past eight we have headed the baggagers and descend onto a
flat plain in a horse-shoe of hills. Here, thank God, on the banks
of a dry water-course, are trees large enough to give us shade
from the sun, and here we halt. As I select my tree some gerenauk
run across the river-bed, and, for the sake of the pot, I chance a
snapshot. By bad luck I wound a poor beast who disappears into the
scrub. Cursing my luck and folly, I call on my orderly to follow
with a water chagul, and come out from my shade to go and finish
off the fell work. But luck is with me after all. Instead of a
chase for hours, as I had expected, I come up with my quarry in ten
minutes and administer the _coup de grâce_. My orderly--although I
am sure the animal is stone dead, but tactfully refrain from saying
so--makes a show of finishing him off in the orthodox Mahomedan
fashion, so that the flesh may be lawful to all true believers, and
we return to camp. At two o'clock the baggage camels are loaded and
sent off; we soon follow. We keep to the foot of the hills, follow a
dry water-course, and pass through the most arid of country, leading
our animals. At six-twenty we are well ahead of the baggage, so
halt under a patch of low trees. There is water to be had for the
digging; we need not have carried so much water after all.
Near this camp are many mounds like those at the wells of Bokh.
There also is a circular hut, well built, the first of its kind
I have seen in the interior of Somaliland. Once a Sheikh of real
repute halted here for a few days and this hut was built for his
comfort. I can call up the scene of the nomad Somals collecting from
all sides to build the wretched structure. It is nevertheless, to
me, a symbol of the fanatical religious fire that burns within their
bosoms. That and nothing else, excepting perhaps an earthquake,
could have moved them voluntarily to do what is called a job of
work. They were doubtless fired by the same spirit that inspires
us to raise up loftier, nobler buildings for the glory of God and
our religion. That only a hut resulted is typical of the great
difference between the willingness of their spirit and the strength
of their flesh.
The name of this place is Yebil-Kên, "the place with no grazing."
But there are more trees here; the tufts of grass are more numerous
and you need not look far for one; all the same it is a dreary spot.
Wonderful are the people who find a living for themselves and their
cattle.
* * * * *
Last night it rained, and I had my bed carried into the tent. We
have climbed high, so the night was not hot; for once--the first
time in months--I felt pleasantly cool. This morning the sky was
cloudy, and we did not march until daybreak. Climbing, by an
easily graded track over another pass, which we entered at the end
of the horse-shoe plain between two steep hills, and following a
water-course across rough stony ground, we came into camp, where
cook had coffee, hot bacon and eggs, waiting on the table.
Until now nearly all the people we have met have been travelling
to the coast with skins, ghee, and other commodities to sell. This
morning the country passed through is being grazed by the Abrian
section of the Gadabursi. Several kafilas of families on the move
have passed the camp, and I was successful in obtaining permission
from the owner of one to take a photograph. The women hid their
faces when I pointed the camera, but I managed to get some good
shots.
Somals are past masters in the art of packing. It is wonderful to
behold the natty way in which a family on the move has stowed away
its household goods and utensils. A Somal woman packs her effects
on the camels back as daintily as her more civilised sisters do
theirs in wardrobes and chests of drawers. The wear and tear of
hard travel, apart from the difficulty in procuring manufactured
utensils suitable for the purposes required, has called into play
the ingenuity of the aboriginal man and woman. Water vessels made
from closely woven grass, and practically unbreakable, could not
be bettered, for the work they are used for, by anything made in
Europe. The thick mats, used as camel pads, when spread over the
tent canes, packed away so neatly on the camel's loads, keep out the
hot sun better than any canvas or cotton that has ever been produced
by the looms of Europe.
Everything the Somal carries is made for utility's sake, but man's
nature, be he civilised or savage, ever craves for a little comfort
over and above the bare necessities of life. God knows these people
meet with little enough of the former. Good shade from the hot sun
should be properly classed as a necessity. In any case, Somal mats
are the last word for the purpose.
Turn a European loose here, with his wife: give him a few head
of cattle; spare him the children--they would only make his lot
the more impossible; cut him off from civilisation, and, in two
months' time, he and his wife would either be dead or on the point
of suicide. But here a Somal may thrive and be happy. His wife
will plait mats and do practically all the work, besides bearing
his children. The man will do all the praying to God--it is his
pastime--but for it the woman has no time--and all the fighting,
should there be any. He and his wife will wrest more than a living
from this barren country I look across, provided always that he has
the cattle. He can find everything else needed, from the means to
make fire--two sticks--to medicine for his tummy--the leaves from a
wild plant--where the European could find nothing but the acme of
desolation and despair.
The Somal's life consists of one continual move from spot to spot in
search of grazing and water. If good rains come they bring better
grazing, more water, more milk, and less work--for the wife at least.
Words cannot be strung together to describe the, apparently, utter
barrenness and sterility--to the European mind--of the hundred odd
miles of country I have ridden across during the last four days. The
soil is too poor and dry to produce anything in the nature of food
for man, but Nature has provided--not too plentifully--shrubs with
deep wide-spreading roots which store up the moisture in bulb-like
receptacles and so tide the plant over the worst and hottest days
of the year. Thus there are green nourishing leaves for the hardy
cattle to eat when all else is dead. Even the deep roots of the
grass are provided with nodules to store up moisture that the plants
may live. And all these plants know the secret of extracting from
this apparently sterile earth the richest ingredient necessary for
the sustenance of cattle and camels. Further, centuries of training
and natural selection have evolved a beast, be it camel, cow, horse,
sheep, or goat, that is capable of living through drought and
conditions that would soon prove fatal to animals from fatter lands.
These Somal-bred animals can pass over stretches necessitating
several days' journey without water, carrying on their backs the
water to drink, in their udders the rich milk--food as well as
drink--for man, their master, and his children. In such country as
this, it would be plagiarism to attempt to describe what has so
often been described before. The rainy season, compared with that
of more favoured parts of the world, appears as little short of
a drought; and a drought here, similarly compared, might well be
classed as "hell let loose."
To-day we are to commence a further ascent into a more favoured
land. Why these plain-dwellers and low-hill men have not done
the same, and stayed on the cool high plateaux, blessed with a
comparatively fair soil and better watered, is one of those puzzles
in life it is impossible to solve.
The camel sowars are packed, and ready to move on the afternoon's
trek. The road is stony as we walk between the hills. Since that
time recorded in the Book of Genesis God has not laid His hand here.
The earth's crust has been burst through and over-run by a molten
mass spewed forth from her bowels. Here one walks over rough sharp
stones that play havoc with the boots; there on a concrete-like
conglomerate of white or pinkish stone. The hills have been scoured
in past ages by water-courses until their very vitals, masses of
grey rock strata tilted on edge from which great lumps have been
torn and tossed in broken fragments to the valley below, have been
shamelessly exposed. Time has been pitilessly and steadily crumbling
away these sharp, skeleton-like protrusions into a mantle of powder
and small stones, now falling over, and gradually hiding, the gaping
wounds. And, as the channels of the torrents that have worked this
chaos fell lower and lower, the water, baulked of its prey, turned
to vent its spite on the poor stones torn from the heights above.
Over and over it has rolled them, ground them together, rubbed them
with sand, worked around them until worn into smooth boulders. They
are now barely recognisable as being of the mother rock above.
Then suddenly, from out of all this we come to a stream,
Dur-dur-'ad, "the White Running Water." Exactly one year ago I sat
on the banks of a stream that ran down the slopes of Mount Elgon.
Since then I have been to England and seen running water--if I
except the Thames--only from the windows of a railway carriage. What
a joy is running water, and how many people know it? How many people
living by streams take them for granted, and so miss more than the
man who rarely sees them. For, believe me, it is to the latter that
the babbling waters talk and tell most.
And the waters of Dur-dur-'ad, to-day, found a ready and willing
listener, who drank with pleasure of their prattling music. Does it
matter, excepting to me, what they said? Not long ago I read that a
man should mark out his life's course with posts, keeping in sight
only one at a time. And I, reading this, promised myself that the
last goal-post on my course should be a spring. A spring shaded with
cool willow trees; the waters to be not so clouded but that a man,
or a little child, leaning over might see his image within.
III
Last night they told me that it was unsafe to march before daylight,
as the camp vicinity was infested with lions, "bad lions." That
meant that the men were tired and wanted rest, so we arranged to
march at daylight. And we marched at nine a.m. Dur-dur-'ad came down
in spate during the night, and as the road crosses and recrosses
beyond the camping place, we waited for the torrent to fall, which
it did as suddenly as it had come.
We made up river for five miles; the road has certainly been
constructed ages ago by a people possessing some degree of
civilisation. Though rough and stony it is well graded. The scenery
is wild and rugged but grand in its way. Once we passed a man and
woman sitting on the rocks. The woman was unmarried, unusual at her
age, which looked to be every second of twenty-seven years. She
consented to stand for her photograph. I was, she said, the first
European she had set eyes upon. I should have been better pleased
had she made less fuss about it; for she covered her face with her
hands, called out "Oo-oo-oo-ooh!" and shook with laughter at my
appearance.
This neighbourhood is being grazed, and on all the hillsides we
see as we pass young girls herding the sheep and goats, and hear
them calling to each other. And now we come to the spot where we
leave Dur-dur-'ad for good and here we shall loiter for an hour.
The baggage camels arrive and halt just long enough to fill the
water-tanks, then, on they go, leaving us alone.
Mahomed Gaileh, Akil of the Gadabursi Mahadasan, appears; he is
accompanied by a Mullah, who carries a yellow flag on which is
embroidered a crescent and five stars in crimson. We exchange
greetings and news. Will I accept the sheep the Akil has brought
as a present? "No," I answer, I regret to say I shall not, but
thank Mahomed just the same. I most highly appreciate his kindness
in thinking of our commissariat. Indeed, I convey to him the fact
that I shall for ever after look upon him as a man who gave me a
sheep that I was unfortunately unable to take away. The Mullah sits
cross-legged, telling his beads, with his eyes ever on my face. He
desists once to give me an interesting piece of information. Three
hours' away from here, but off our road, is a ruined town. The
walls of the houses are still standing, and the mortar used to bind
the stones together, he says, has set very hard. He does not know
what it is made of, but it looks like cement. Probably a town like
Harrar. No one knows who built it.
"Good-bye! Thanks so much for the sheep," I call as I ride off,
knowing quite well that Mahomed Gaileh is saying to himself, "And
thank Allah you did not take it."
From now on we pass through rougher, wilder country, but there is
more vegetation. Now the easily graded track drops precipitously
into a dark ravine, up which we turn and climb. There are steep
rocky walls on our right and left. The floor of the ravine rises
higher and higher; the walls come lower and lower, until we stand
on the summit of a narrow ridge. Bearing to the left we follow
the ridge for five minutes and come into camp. It is half-past
six o'clock, and as the sun goes down the evening turns chilly.
I sit wrapped up in a trench coat and order a fire. Mahomed, the
interpreter, comes to say that as the lions are _very_ bad, it will
not be safe to leave camp before daybreak; to which, remembering how
many lions came last night, I reply, "Bow-wow." The true reason, and
one with which I am entirely in sympathy, is that, after the hot
plains, they find the early morning air up here bitterly cold.
And why can't they tell me that is the reason? Because they like
to pose as hardy fellows. Because, perhaps, they fear I might like
to pose as a hardy fellow, too, and turn them all out to shiver
whilst I walk round in my warm clothes. So it is arranged to the
satisfaction of all parties that we march at daylight.
* * * * *
"Two easy hours' riding from here there's a camp; and in that camp
are four Sahibs, Wallah."
This to me at nine o'clock last night from Mahomed, the interpreter.
Somals have no idea of distance or time, and my experience has been
that statements from them concerning the movements or whereabouts of
other people are invariably unreliable. A simple statement like the
foregoing could not be accepted without careful examination. Yet,
should there really be four Sahibs ahead, they are undoubtedly the
officers I am travelling to meet at Hargeisa, and I should go to
their camp.
"You say there are four Sahibs?"
"Yes; people have arrived from their camp who saw them to-day."
"And are they on the Hargeisa road?"
"Yes."
At six a.m. this morning after a cup of hot tea we rode for two
solid, steady hours till we came to the Hargeisa plateau. Turning
sharp right we rode away from the Hargeisa track. I was suspicious,
but said nothing until we met a Bedouin Somal. To my question he
replied that he had come from a police camp about three hours' away;
that with trotting camels we should arrive there in two hours, but
the road was rough.
And had he seen anything of four Sahibs? No! He saw one, an officer
with a troop of M.I., who went away yesterday morning.
And is this the Hargeisa road? No, it is not; we have left it, but
there is another road from the police camp.
It was useless showing temper. I told Mahomed, the interpreter,
we would ride back to the Hargeisa road and wait for the baggage
camels. Mahomed, the interpreter, told me that that was impossible,
because the baggage camels, having left the Hargeisa road at the
camp, were following an entirely different road to the one we had
come by. We went on to the police camp, as Mahomed had all along
intended, and arrived at noon.
"And now," said I, "I shall have a cup of tea and some biscuits."
Every day since leaving Zeila we had carried the articles necessary
for such a meal in our saddle-bags, but to-day they had been left
behind. Why? Because Mahomed, the interpreter, and my boy arranged
that I should lunch with the four Sahibs who are not here.
We are now on a high plateau. The country is undulating, the soil
fair and the grazing good. There are many patches of cultivation,
the first I have seen in Somaliland. Ughaz Elmi Warfa (Ughaz is a
title), the head of the Gadabursi tribe, came to see me. He was
accompanied by a party of horse and foot men. The Ughaz, a tall,
crafty-looking old man, sat beside me on a deck chair, produced
by the Somal jemadar in charge of the police post; whilst his men
gave a demonstration. First, one by one, came the horsemen at full
gallop to about three yards away from where I sat, and just as a
collision seemed inevitable the poor little brutes of ponies were
pulled on to their haunches. For the horses' sake I begged this
should stop. Then the horsemen advanced in line and at a walk,
halting in front of me. One of them sang that they were the people
who lived on the border, had been looted by the Amhara, had no
peace; stood between two men, and should they talk to the man before
them the other kicked them from behind. Theirs was indeed a hard
lot. The man who sang was a wild-looking fellow with fuzzy-wuzzy
hair. He carried a spear and shield. Personally speaking, I should
not choose him as a good subject to kick from behind, but if I lived
with him, and he sang much, I should be strongly tempted to do so.
The horsemen dismounted, came forward, shook hands, turned away and
off-saddled. This done, they joined the footmen waiting a hundred
paces away. There was a wait of some minutes whilst a warrior
was being persuaded to come out and lead the dance. When I was
sufficiently impressed with his importance he stepped out in front
of his comrades who were standing in line. Stepping it nimbly up
and down before them as they sang, he performed some quite clever
evolutions. At regular intervals he would rush forward, stab his
spear in the ground, sink on his knees, and, bending his body
right back, act the wounded warrior. Such was the signal for the
line to advance towards him with a rush, and thus he led it close
to my chair. Now and again a warrior carrying his spear at the
charge would run forward, stop before me, and salute with the word
"_Mutt_." All this for half an hour, when I politely requested it
should cease.
"Just one more dance," said the Ughaz as he waved the line back.
It retired and various other people came before it to dance--quite
well too. A number of women had collected behind the men. I could
see them kneeling to look between the latter's legs at me. Soon
after _the_ dancer came out, when the women forgot to look at me,
so interested were they in him. Up and down he pirouetted, juggling
with his spear and shield. He rushed madly forward, stopped with
a jerk, bent his body back to such an extent that it appeared as
though his back-bone must snap, and I was really quite concerned.
The dancer is supposed to be dying; his long black hair covers his
face; it is suddenly brushed aside to show him in convulsions;
his body writhes like a snake's; he is dying hard. A man runs out
with drawn dagger in hand to finish the business. A tall fellow
this. Straddling the body of the dying man he cuts his throat--in
pantomime. The performance is sufficiently realistic to make my
blood curdle, and I am relieved when it ends.
[Illustration: A SOMAL DANCE.]
There is a great gathering of people here. I have met a man who has
just killed his own brother. A rascal, this latter, who, until a few
weeks since, lived on the Abyssinian border, where he was able to
raid and loot with impunity. His brother--this man whom I have just
met--went out with his father to look for the robber, for they were
tired of his escapades. They came upon him in Abyssinian territory,
and as he showed fight the man now before me slashed him on the
back of the neck with his dagger. The robber fell to the ground;
the horror-stricken father rushed to the side of his fallen son,
who, with his last breath, plunged his dagger in the old man's side.
Such an incident excites no comment on this wild Somali-Abyssinian
border, near which our camp now stands.
Up to now we have come due South except when wandering through the
hills, and our road onward lies across sixty miles of plateau. The
rains are here and the country is green. There is much that would
tempt the artist to loiter with pencil or brush. That river bank,
for instance, lined with trees. Beyond those trees are smaller
trees, and shrubs covered with leaves. Aloes throw up miniature
poles bedizened with red flowers. Beyond again, open ground, showing
yellow through the patches of green grass. Over there a Gadabursi
or a Habr Awwal village, for here many natives have taken to growing
jowari, and, after the manner of agriculturists, herd together. Near
the village deep green leafless plants that point a thousand fingers
at the sky, so blue overhead. What a beautiful picture it would all
make!
But I, who know it, see beneath the beauty. Those aloes with the
red-hot pikers are armed with spikes and sharp-hooked thorns to tear
your flesh in ribands. Their very colour, if one looks closely,
is suggestive of snakes and death, not brightness and life. The
grass will soon die, and the yellow ground is but a crust of harsh
sand that has no substance. The agriculturists who would wrest a
living from out it have a hard row to hoe to procure even the bare
wherewithal to live. Beautiful it is, yet withal a thin, harsh,
cruel land.
We cover the sixty miles to Hargeisa in two clear days, and ride
into the usual African up-country town. Here is the D.C.'s Court,
the police lines, the prison and the D.C.'s house. Beyond them the
native town; a town of sticks, straw and native mats, with a few
sun-dried brick houses, and one of stone. Between all this is a
natural park; a park on the banks of a waterless river-bed; a park
filled with the thorn trees, the aloes in flower, and the plant with
the thousands of fingers. Strangely enough, here is a European lady
as well, who sits beneath a huge mimosa tree and puts them all into
a picture. She says they are beautiful.
It is one hundred and twenty miles as the crow flies to Zeila,
and nearly two hundred by the road we have come. There is a mail
waiting; it has arrived by Berbera, and links us up with the outer
world, which after all, and in these days, is not so far away. Here,
for the first time in four months, I speak to an Englishman, and,
when it is time to pack up for the return journey to Zeila, I leave
Hargeisa with regret.