After that a long silence, during which I drank another bottle of ginger pop and ate more fruit. Clearly I'd had as much as was good for me, so, jumping to my feet, I prepared to say "Good-bye." But there were other things to be done. All the town's children had collected under the walls of the house, and Hayoun sent for ten rupees worth of pice, making a grand total of six hundred and forty coins to be distributed as largesse. Had I any suggestions to make?
Yes, I had. It was a clear case for a scramble. The coins were tossed from the roof, and you never saw such a confusion of legs and arms as that which followed. Little girls, little boys, all mixed up like fruit in a salad, and, with the usual luck that attends cats, drunken men and little children, no one was seriously hurt.
Describe the men I met at that party? As well set out to describe the ever-changing sea. Something about their worldly affairs. Yes, I could do that if I cared to abuse confidences; also something about their very private affairs. Whose wife is not above reproach; whose daughter is causing him some anxiety; the main causes of sleepless nights. But beneath it all—of the man's heart—I know nothing. What his outlook on life is. What he really thinks about is as a sealed book sewn up in canvas, weighted with lead and thrown into the ocean.
Sometimes I think I know, that I understand, but it is just at such times I am farthest from the truth. When I realise my abysmal ignorance, and trust to blind instinct to guide me along a course inspired by a superficial knowledge, I know I am working on sound lines.
Haji Abdi Kheiri, the pure-blooded Somal, who has to-day fired off his gun in my honour, and who sat with me at table looking as harmless as a school miss about to partake of Holy Communion for the first time, is not the same man who came alone to my bungalow, puffed up with pride and prosperity, to donate twenty rupees to the poor fund, as a small boy might who takes one sugar plum from a full bag to present it to a street urchin, the while an admiring mamma looks on. Neither is he the same Haji Abdi Kheiri who yesterday, at the "Peace" sports, behaved like a maniac because the town team was beaten at its first pull by the police in the tug-o'-war. I had counted the men myself ere giving the signal, "Go," and was satisfied that it was a fair pull. But he insisted otherwise. He is no sportsman, and there were few of his breed at that sports meeting who could lay claim to be so called. The second pull I stopped. The spectators were surreptitiously giving a hand to whichever side they fancied, and Haji himself I caught in the act. Finally, when I gave the pull to the police, there was a scene I can liken to nothing else so much as a pack of mad dogs barking and snarling at one another, yet afraid to bite.
It is this sort of thing almost makes one lose heart. On this occasion I said to myself, "If I had a machine gun and turned it on to these canaille, no matter how guilty I might appear in the eyes of man, God, Who understands human nature as He meant it to be, and Who knows, would forgive and understand the act." At other times I say to myself, "I know these people are devils, but they are fascinating devils. I like them, and shall make allowances for their devilries."
Then, there is always Mahomed Fara, and he is not quite an uncommon type in Somaliland. To have met and known him makes one look for the good side in his tribal brethren.
But even I, who owe much to Somals and have always championed them, admit it is exasperating to have to watch them—hiding that better side away. But such they are; in some cases men who will spend their day praying, and then rise from their knees to smash in a poor woman's skull—a woman who is within a month of giving birth to a child, and because she refuses to hand over the skin of water she has carried three miles on her back that her small children may drink. Such men are almost past redemption.
My pen has run away with me. Since I sat down to write such an incident as that of which I speak has been reported and so creeps into the page. As for Hayoun the Jew, the Hindus, the Parsees and myself, we have one point in common. We are strangers in a strange land, so perforce try to understand one another, and work together. Even then there are barriers between us.