Journey from Kuditee to Hiero Murroo, general direction west by south, time marching one hour and a-half.—False alarm at starting.—Necessity for being prepared for strife in Adal.—Abu Bukeree, Sheik of the second Debenee tribe.—Old friend of Lieutenant Barker.—Offered marriage.—Stay at Hiero Murroo.—Find here abandoned property of mission.—Negotiations for its restoration.—Joined by Wahama Kafilah.
May 6th.—When I awoke this morning I found that the camels were being loaded in great haste. I got up, and on looking around, saw the Hy Soumaulee with Ohmed Medina, sitting upon their heels, their chins, as usual, resting upon the upper edge of their shields. They were stationed upon the same height where we had been drawn up in battle array the night before. Not being wanted among the boxes, Zaido and Allee were waiting to remove, I took up my firearms and postponed any inquiry as to what new cause of alarm existed, until I had joined my escort. Ohmed Medina then told me that, after all the stipulations of last night’s treaty, an attack was expected from the Wahama, and he directed my attention, as he spoke, to the squatting circle of this tribe, a foul ringworm on the fair face of nature, that were still debating some momentous subject or other, exactly in the same place, and in the same manner as if they had been sitting up, talking all night. They, however, offered no interruption to the saddling and loading the camels, which was done more expeditiously than I had ever witnessed before. Every now and then Ohmed Mahomed, who was working away amongst them like one of his own slaves, would straiten his bent back and with an anxious look towards us, call out that we must not stir from where we were, until the whole of the Kafilah had moved off the ground. At last the Wahama calahm terminated, and the circle broke up; first singly, then in twos and threes, they separated and went their several ways, each person bearing in a little cleft stick his share of the spoil, being generally one half dollar’s worth of blue sood, folded up into the usual three-cornered currency of the country.
It appeared that all their talk this morning had been to arrange some differences that had arisen between themselves, about the division of the cloth we had given to them, and bore no reference to us at all. In fact I was much struck with the conscientious manner in which these savages seemed to fulfil their engagement of the last night, all but a very few, who now announced their intention of accompanying us to Shoa, moving off the ground without a single look at the Kafilah, or seeming to be aware that a camel or package was in their neighbourhood.
Among those who remained, and now approached the party I was with, was the grey-headed father of Mahomed Allee. He came to tell me that he was going with us as far as Hiero Murroo, to deliver to me the boxes left by his son when unable, on the last occasion, to convey them to Shoa. He was a mild, sagacious, hale old man, and appeared much respected, not only by his own tribe, but also by every individual in our Kafilah.
During the march, we passed along the most southern edge of an extensive district of extinct volcanoes, each of which, varying in height from twenty to fifty feet, presented a perfectly-formed crater, almost invariably broken down on the side towards the south-east. Abundance of tales were told by my companions of the Jinns who inhabited these hills, one of which was called “the House of the Devil’s Wife,” another “Jibel Mudfah,” (Cannon mountain) both names evidently alluding to the usual noisy phenomena of volcanic action, which is here frequently exerted. I cannot assert positively, but I have reason to believe that the great fire observed in this neighbourhood by Messrs. Isenberg and Krapf, said by their guides to have been spontaneously produced, was connected in some manner with subterranean igneous operation.
Although our march was scarcely for two hours, and at the slow pace of the camels, it was sufficient to take us out of the narrow valley tract of Kuditee, and to bring us again into the country of the Debenee, the chief of which division of this extensive tribe was named Abu Bukeree.
Ohmed Mahomed took an opportunity of telling me that when he accompanied the British Mission on their journey to Shoa, their Kafilah then went one day’s journey to the north, for the purpose of avoiding the Wahama at Kuditee. The Tajourah people had hoped by this means to have defeated the machinations of Mahomed Allee, the favoured of the Embassy, to assume here the Ras ul Kafilahship.
Although so short a journey, numerous were the mischances of the camels to-day, who were continually falling from the bad management of their loads, consequent upon our hurried start. I was not very sorry either when we halted, for I felt quite tired, and fell fast asleep upon the ground whilst my hut was being erected. Moosa rather suddenly awakened me to introduce an elderly lady, his wife. She brought me a present of a skin of milk and a fowl, the sight of which rather surprised me, for I had not seen one since leaving Aden, either at Tajourah or on the road. Much curiosity was evinced by my Bedouin friends to know if I had ever seen one before, and for some time they imagined, as I did not know the name of it in Arabic, that it must be a great rarity to me; but I satisfied them, at last, of its being an old acquaintance of mine by giving a regular crow. Upon inquiry, I was told that the people of Owssa keep and eat fowls, but that the Bedouins did not. At Herhowlee I had given this same woman a handful of tobacco, and a coloured handkerchief for her child, and either out of gratitude, or with the hope of receiving a corresponding reward for the trouble taken in procuring this delicacy, as it was thought to be, she had actually gone all the way to Owssa, and back to where we now were, to get it for me. The name of Moosa’s wife was Claudia, and I noticed this the more, because I had before considered the name of Lohitu’s sister Mira, and of my Wahama friend Ina, as being very classical, and reminding me of female names common at the present day in Spain and Portugal.
Expecting, from the number of Bedouins who visited us, that some more demonstrations of violence would be made, I prepared some cartridges. Rolling up a ball with a quantity of powder in some paper, I tied it in the centre and at the two extremities, turning out a very serviceable looking article. Eight of these I fastened together, and stowed away in my cartouche-bag, so that when need was, I could load my guns with greater despatch and certainty. In cases of anticipated peril, the most courageous men will be found to be those, who have prepared themselves properly, for the exigences that are likely to occur. I always felt agitated myself if I were not duly prepared for accidents, and thus learnt by degrees that real valour consists in being always ready. A man has to be frightened a good many times before he graduates into a hero, but only let him have so ordered his resources of defence, and the anxiety natural to all men in situations of danger is kept suppressed, by the confidence which results from proper preparations having been made, to meet the worst that can happen.
The Sheik, or Chief, of this subdivision of the Debenee came to my hut in the course of the day. Allee the First pulled him along by the beard, calling out “Shabah, Shabah!” (old man) to make a way for him, through the crowd of his own people who encircled my place. I thought at first he was some blind individual who wanted me to restore him to sight, as he knelt down on his hands and knees to creep into the shade. Zaido, however, hanging his black head into the entrance of the hut, cried out that this was the celebrated Abu Bukeree, the friend of the “Kapitan,” for whom, of late, I had been making some inquiries. “Kapitan” was the name by which Lieut. Barker, of the Indian Navy, was known to the Dankalli. A few weeks before, this gentleman had travelled through Adal on his return from Shoa; his original intention had been to take the Hurrah road, and so to Zeilah, and for that purpose he had lived some months in Aliu-amba, a town in Shoa, inhabited chiefly by Hurrahgee people. A Kafilah going down, the Ras undertook to convey him and his servants; but Lieutenant Barker, on this side of the Hawash, having reason to suspect the designs of his guide, considered it prudent to leave in the night, and put himself under the protection of some of the Dankalli tribes, with whom he had become acquainted on his first journey through their country. This confidence in their good faith was not misplaced; and after a short journey of scarcely three weeks, he arrived safely at Tajourah, with his four Indian followers. On my return to Aden, after my first visit to Tajourah, I had the good fortune to see Lieutenant Barker at the house of Captain Haines for a few minutes; and he gave me the names of two chiefs, he wished me to reward for their kindness to him during his late journey, one of whom was this Abu Bukeree, and the other one Durtee Ohmed, Chief of the Sidee Ahbreu, living at the lake Murroo, two days’ journey farther on.