[CHAPTER II]
"ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK"
The staff—Office work—The "Poor Fund" and its distribution—A tale of woe—The D.C. on inspection rounds—Petitions.
The staff at Zeila consists of the District Commissioner, the District Clerk—an Indian gentleman—his Indian assistant, an Arab clerk and petition writer, an Indian sub-assistant surgeon, Mahomed the Somal interpreter, Buralli, or Buralleh, the sub-inspector of police—also a Somal—an Indian superintendent of customs, and an Arab outdoor collector of customs fees. There are half a dozen mounted police, thirty odd foot police, and a round dozen or so of water police under an Arab jemadar. Besides these we have many smaller fry, such as conservancy sweepers, messengers, a lamplighter, etc., etc. The Akils I have already spoken of. The foot police supply or furnish a guard for the jail, which is under the care of the jail-master, an ex-slave.
There is also a Kathi, or native magistrate, and an Arab schoolmaster. Further, we boast quite a number of pensioners, amongst whom are the keeper of the Sheikhs tomb, and Ferjallah Alone, an old Soudanese jemadar who accompanied Gordon from Egypt to Zeila, and subsequently took service in this country. Ferjallah is very old and feeble, and, as regards Gordon, most disappointing. To him Gordon is "Gordon," the greatest soldier that ever was. "What more than that do you want to know about him," says Ferjallah.
The D.C.'s office combines the work of treasury, court-house, post office, administration, tax collection, and every other public work of the town and district. It keeps an eye on trade, customs, shipping—such as there is (mostly dhows)—police, prisons, political and other situations. For all of these the District Commissioner is directly responsible to His Excellency the Governor of Somaliland. In addition he takes an interest in social matters, and may even, besides being sole guardian and presiding angel of the "Poor Fund," be called upon to assume the duties of food controller. Strangely enough he is not overworked.
Monday morning is usually the busiest time of the week. Since my arrival here I have arranged on that morning that all the poor people seeking relief shall come to the office. Such an arrangement is looked upon by the scallywags of the town as being tantamount to an invitation to parade with the paupers. Not only the scallywags but shameless old men and women of independent means take the opportunity—trusting to luck or an oversight on my part—to line up with the crowd and beg for a four—anna bit; something for nothing is always worth acquiring. But there is such a collection of cripples and genuine "masakins" (poor people), well known to the police, and ready to eat up our slender fund, that the impostors stand little chance of getting anything. Of course, the first thing to be done is to weed out these latter gentry and send them off with a word or two of discouragement. Then the people who have friends, or whose sections belong to the district, are separated from the absolutely friendless. The former are assisted to make representations to their people of their necessity. Caravans from the interior are approached and asked to help their tribal brethren. The bush Somals, if they have any money, often respond to such an appeal, giving their dole with a pious hope at the back of their minds that "Rubbama"[1] will book it up against them for the future good of their souls.
And the people who are left are cripples, some of whom crawl on all fours, frail bent old men and women, deformed children, the sight of whose withered twisted limbs and pathetic eyes would wring the last sixpence from anyone but a hard-hearted D.C., who is so used to looking at and seeing these things. Amongst these people we endeavour to divide, as fairly as possible, the moneys of our fund. Four annas, fourpence, will fill those empty stomachs for at least one day, and with care for two. One need have no fear that the money will go in drink; such things are not done here. When our fund is all gone we have a "whip-round" amongst the merchants of the town, who are, according to their means, a very charitable lot. Human nature is human nature all the world over, and who knows but that the D.C. secretly notes a generous donor as a man to be helped when the occasion arises. Some of the subscriptions are consequently very large; even as much as two or three rupees. Here, amongst these simple people, one realises that the Lord loveth a cheerful giver; provided, of course, that he is an "aggressively" cheerful giver—otherwise he might be overlooked.
Unlike other parts of Africa life in Somaliland is very hard for the poor and indigent, but is not, of course, comparable with life in Europe. Here, on the coast, no one is ever cold. The scantiest rags suffice for clothing, and the sand makes a comfortable bed. Poor though many of the people are they will not see a man die of starvation unless by helping him they are going to suffer themselves. It is necessary to remember that no ultra-humane, or excessively sensitive, race could hope to survive in this country. But there are always to be found people who seem to be perfectly incapable of taking care of themselves, just as there are people who are incapable of doing anything else.