As was generally the case, the watering-place was some little distance from the spot where we had encamped. Water, certainly, abounded in our immediate neighbourhood, but it was so impregnated with copper, that it was known to the Dankalli to be “poison water,” and two or three instances of its deleterious effects were related to me, and drinking it was one of the causes to which I heard attributed the death of the Feringee (Kielmeyer) at Killaloo.
In the black coarse sand of the dry bed of the stream, I found several specimens of the spiral shell, which I had observed, as characterizing the stratum of chalk, in the neighbourhood of the Bahr Assal. I accompanied a party going to the sweet water-place with the camels, where I bathed, and also picked up several living specimens of another singular, but very small shell, the mouth of which opened to the left of its cell. The pool in which I found them was situated at some little distance from the camp, and among hard close-grained rocks of a reddish brown colour, very different in external appearance, from those in the neighbourhood of our encampment, which were of a bright green colour, containing evidently a considerable per centage of the mineral, with which the water in their neighbourhood was impregnated.
Either the half-cooked venison of yesterday, or the water in this place disagreeing with me, all the afternoon of this day I was very ill, and as I felt no better after bathing, I sent for Ohmed Medina, to consult with him how we should manage, if I were too ill to proceed on the morrow. Adam Burrah, who accompanied him, however, undertook to doctor me, and, creeping into my hut, with a handful of fresh cow-dung, would make me hold it under my nose, all the time he was pinching up the whole of the scalp from the back of the head, beginning very scientifically at the nape of the neck, and managed, by pressing it forwards, and pinching it up from all sides, to bring, gradually, a good large fold of it over my forehead. This he then included in a portion of his tobe, and applying his teeth to assist him in its compression, I thought he would not have desisted, until he had bitten the piece out altogether. I submitted to this operation, because, in the first place, Ohmed Medina affirmed it to be the best remedy I could possibly have to relieve the headache, and in the next, I was determined to see some little of the native practice of physic, and this was too good an opportunity to let escape. The cow-dung, which was very affectionately broken into small pieces, agreeably to their ideas of my delicate education, I very soon dispensed with, assuring them, after a sniff or two, it had had a wonderfully beneficial effect, and that I had no doubt, after my scalp was well kneaded again by Adam Burrah, I should be quite recovered. This was not actually the case; but as I took some of my own medicine, and omitted my usual supper, by the next morning I was fully restored to health, and as I gave all credit, and a fee of four buttons, to Adam Burrah, I established his medical character for ever after, among his admiring countrymen.
CHAPTER X.
Journey from Saggadarah.—Reach Bellad Hy, time marching, four hours, general direction S.S.W.—Halt for the night.—Journey to Ramudalee, time marching, seven hours, general direction S.S.W.—Halt at Ramudalee to receive the visit of Lohitu, chief of the Debenee tribe.
April 13th.—One hour before sunrise, I and Ohmed Medina, attended by the Hy Soumaulee, preceded the Kafilah. Adam Burrah being too ill to accompany us, having, as it was asserted, contracted my illness of the preceding night by his endeavours to relieve me, I left him my mule to ride. We continued our journey between low flat-topped ridges of the same cuprous rock as during yesterday, till we opened upon a little plain, with green sloping banks on all sides, and evidently the head of the small stream which, during the rains, ran along the road we had come, and was called Bahr Saggadarah, or the Saggadarah water. It was overgrown with large and tall mimosa-trees, and a singular rush-like tree, with a thick trunk, the drooping leafless branches of which reminded me very strongly of the emu-tree of New Holland.
From this wooded bottom, or flat, we began to ascend a gentle acclivity by a narrow road, which soon altered in character, from that along which we had been travelling for the two hours previously. Numerous stones of very unequal size had to be stumbled over, and when we had gained the summit a dreary prospect lay before us; a widely-extended country, or table-land, covered with large loose blocks, of a black scoreaceous lava. I took a last fond look of the narrow, but beautiful valley we had just emerged from, and which I now found was a little green oasis in the midst of a wilderness of stones. There was no help for it, so with a long hop, as I recovered myself from a severe blow I gave my foot against a large stone, when with averted face I was still looking towards the valley, I commenced following my companions. I soon came up to them, and found our new position was called Bellad Hy, the country of Hy, from whence I imagine the Hy Soumaulee derive their name, although it forms at present no portion of their domains, being part of the country of the Debenee, who claim all the land from Gurguddee to the valley of Gobard, a few days’ journey in advance.
I noticed on the plain of Hy, many tombs of the circular kind, like those I saw of the Soumaulee at Berberah, with the usual entrance to the south, and the line of the grave in the centre, placed exactly due east and west. These tombs were so numerous that for the last few days of our journeying, I had no occasion to refer to my compass to take the bearings of our progress, as I determined it always by the position of the graves, which I could do with much greater deliberation and correctness than by the hasty, stealthy look at a vibrating needle, agitated by my movements as I walked along. These graves the Dankalli refer to a period antecedent to their occupation of the country, when the Kafirs, as they call the previous possessors, had no knowledge of the Koran, and placed the head of the corpse, when they buried it, in the direction of the rising sun, and not towards the Kaaba at Mecca. The fact was, that these graves were those of Sabian Affahs, the common ancestors both of the Soumaulee and the Dankalli, and who, as the Avalites of the ancients, occupied the whole of the eastern horn of Africa. The introduction of the Mahomedan faith has effected the separation of the two people in modern times, and now many of the professors of Islamism are ashamed to own their Pagan ancestors.
In about two hours, we passed the deserted village seen by the very worthy Missionaries, Messieurs Isenberg and Krapf; and I could not resist laughing in my heart, at the idea suggested by a comparison of the ruined stone kraals, so designated, that pointed out an occasional station of the Bedouins, during the rains in this now herbless wilderness, with the idea suggested by the beautifully told tale, bearing the same title, and beginning—