[20] From the presence of these crosses, it would appear as though in ignorance they had adopted the emblem of their Christian predecessors.
[21] Ras means point or headland.
[22] This interesting little animal has since been compared by Mr Blyth, curator of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, and determined to be a new genus, and was named by him Pectinator Spekei.
[23] Then changed to Colonel Coghlan.
[24] These notes were reported in an Appendix in the 'First Footsteps in East Africa,' by Lieutenant Burton, with his other reports of this expedition.
[25] To say the least of it, this was a very dangerous policy to play with a people who consider might right, and revenge to death.
[26] Since this was written I have asked Lieutenant-Colonel Playfair his opinion on this matter, and the subjoined is the reply:—"In this Lieutenant Burton erred; and this was the termina causa of all the mishaps which befell the expedition. The institution of Abbanage is of great antiquity, and is the representative amongst a barbarous people of our customs laws, inasmuch as every trader or traveller pays to his Abban a certain percentage on the merchandise he buys or sells, and even on the food he purchases for his own use.
"A traveller who hopes for success in exploring a new country must accept the institutions he finds in existence; he can hardly hope, by his simple fiat, to revolutionise the time-honoured and most profitable institutions of a people, amongst whom precedent is a law as unchangeable as that of the Medes and Persians."
[27] Siyareh, a fort and small village belonging to the Makahil branch of the Habr Awel, is the watering-place of Berbera, and derives a small revenue from the boats which touch there en route to, and returning from, the Berbera fair. During this year it attained an unenviable notoriety as the rendezvous for the slaves intended for export to the Persian Gulf. Many of these were free Somali girls, sold by their relatives or kidnapped by their friends. Colonel Playfair wrote to me that one hundred and forty boys and girls were rescued here in the early part of this year by H.M.S. Lady Canning.
[28] Colonel Playfair thinks 20,000 men nearer the right number.