We are now on a high plateau. The country is undulating, the soil fair and the grazing good. There are many patches of cultivation, the first I have seen in Somaliland. Ughaz Elmi Warfa (Ughaz is a title), the head of the Gadabursi tribe, came to see me. He was accompanied by a party of horse and foot men. The Ughaz, a tall, crafty-looking old man, sat beside me on a deck chair, produced by the Somal jemadar in charge of the police post; whilst his men gave a demonstration. First, one by one, came the horsemen at full gallop to about three yards away from where I sat, and just as a collision seemed inevitable the poor little brutes of ponies were pulled on to their haunches. For the horses' sake I begged this should stop. Then the horsemen advanced in line and at a walk, halting in front of me. One of them sang that they were the people who lived on the border, had been looted by the Amhara, had no peace; stood between two men, and should they talk to the man before them the other kicked them from behind. Theirs was indeed a hard lot. The man who sang was a wild-looking fellow with fuzzy-wuzzy hair. He carried a spear and shield. Personally speaking, I should not choose him as a good subject to kick from behind, but if I lived with him, and he sang much, I should be strongly tempted to do so.
The horsemen dismounted, came forward, shook hands, turned away and off-saddled. This done, they joined the footmen waiting a hundred paces away. There was a wait of some minutes whilst a warrior was being persuaded to come out and lead the dance. When I was sufficiently impressed with his importance he stepped out in front of his comrades who were standing in line. Stepping it nimbly up and down before them as they sang, he performed some quite clever evolutions. At regular intervals he would rush forward, stab his spear in the ground, sink on his knees, and, bending his body right back, act the wounded warrior. Such was the signal for the line to advance towards him with a rush, and thus he led it close to my chair. Now and again a warrior carrying his spear at the charge would run forward, stop before me, and salute with the word "Mutt." All this for half an hour, when I politely requested it should cease.
"Just one more dance," said the Ughaz as he waved the line back.
It retired and various other people came before it to dance—quite well too. A number of women had collected behind the men. I could see them kneeling to look between the latter's legs at me. Soon after the dancer came out, when the women forgot to look at me, so interested were they in him. Up and down he pirouetted, juggling with his spear and shield. He rushed madly forward, stopped with a jerk, bent his body back to such an extent that it appeared as though his back-bone must snap, and I was really quite concerned. The dancer is supposed to be dying; his long black hair covers his face; it is suddenly brushed aside to show him in convulsions; his body writhes like a snake's; he is dying hard. A man runs out with drawn dagger in hand to finish the business. A tall fellow this. Straddling the body of the dying man he cuts his throat—in pantomime. The performance is sufficiently realistic to make my blood curdle, and I am relieved when it ends.
A SOMAL DANCE.
There is a great gathering of people here. I have met a man who has just killed his own brother. A rascal, this latter, who, until a few weeks since, lived on the Abyssinian border, where he was able to raid and loot with impunity. His brother—this man whom I have just met—went out with his father to look for the robber, for they were tired of his escapades. They came upon him in Abyssinian territory, and as he showed fight the man now before me slashed him on the back of the neck with his dagger. The robber fell to the ground; the horror-stricken father rushed to the side of his fallen son, who, with his last breath, plunged his dagger in the old man's side. Such an incident excites no comment on this wild Somali-Abyssinian border, near which our camp now stands.
Up to now we have come due South except when wandering through the hills, and our road onward lies across sixty miles of plateau. The rains are here and the country is green. There is much that would tempt the artist to loiter with pencil or brush. That river bank, for instance, lined with trees. Beyond those trees are smaller trees, and shrubs covered with leaves. Aloes throw up miniature poles bedizened with red flowers. Beyond again, open ground, showing yellow through the patches of green grass. Over there a Gadabursi or a Habr Awwal village, for here many natives have taken to growing jowari, and, after the manner of agriculturists, herd together. Near the village deep green leafless plants that point a thousand fingers at the sky, so blue overhead. What a beautiful picture it would all make!
But I, who know it, see beneath the beauty. Those aloes with the red-hot pikers are armed with spikes and sharp-hooked thorns to tear your flesh in ribands. Their very colour, if one looks closely, is suggestive of snakes and death, not brightness and life. The grass will soon die, and the yellow ground is but a crust of harsh sand that has no substance. The agriculturists who would wrest a living from out it have a hard row to hoe to procure even the bare wherewithal to live. Beautiful it is, yet withal a thin, harsh, cruel land.