"Sahib," he said, "I've just had a baby boy, and the Yibir has come. I have not a rupee in the house: will you lend me four, please?"
Now, thanks to the cook episode I was in a suspicious mood and not inclined to part with four silver rupees without proper investigation, so I called Mahomed the interpreter at once, together with Buralli, who came with several other uninvited guests, to assist in providing me with the following true facts. Even Buralli is prepared to take a divorce oath that they are true.
The first Yibir that ever was, was a sorcerer, and used to say there was nothing God would not do for him, nor enable him to do. He lived ever so long ago, in the time of Sheikh Ishaak, a noble Arab who fled to Somaliland from Mecca six hundred years ago, and who is the founder of one of the most powerful Somal divisions. The Yibir did so many wonderful things that the Sheikh sent for him to come to a small hill between Berbera and Hargeisa, but nearer to Hargeisa than Berbera, and there the two men met.
Said Sheikh Ishaak to the Yibir, "Is this true, all I hear concerning you, that there is nothing you cannot do?"
"It is true," said the Yibir.
"Now I am not disputing with you," said the Sheikh, "but I'd like to see a demonstration. Can you go through that hill?"
"I can," said the Yibir, and he went into the hill and came out on the other side.
The Sheikh was astounded, and said, "Let me see you do it again," and the obliging Yibir did it again.
The Sheikh thought and thought, and scratched his head, but could think of nothing better to say than, "Let me see you do it once more," and of course the Yibir, who was highly flattered by the impression he had made on such a great man as the Sheikh, went into the hill again, but, before he could get through, the Sheikh held up his hands to heaven and said quickly, "Oh God, don't let him come out."